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Politics

David Cameron's conference speech - live stream from 11.15am today

220 replies

JaneGMumsnet · 10/10/2012 09:09

Hello,

David Cameron's conservative party conference speech will be live streamed here at 11.15am today, if you're interested in taking a look:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19890459

MNHQ

OP posts:
domesticgodless · 11/10/2012 14:38

So, sunflowers in your wisdom: Am I now 'worth' more since the teaching portion of my work (which isnt' all of it) is paid directly from students' pockets?

Katiebeau · 11/10/2012 14:38

And before anyone says it I think Gove is spineless to dismiss the root of so much upward mobility in the UK.

Rosieres · 11/10/2012 14:40

Sunflower - you say that the wealthy are having their hard earned money taken from them, it is rarely acknowledged that much of their money can only be earned because of the state, and without a system of taxation and public services they would be much worse off. Let's imagine I was the CEO of a FTSE 100 company earning a few million a year. I can only do this job because I live in a peaceful country with the rule of law (so I have to contribute towards the police, judicial system and armed forces), that the country has infrastructure allowing trade (so I have to pay into the transport budget), that the country can provide me with healthy and educated workers who I can employ and customers I can trade with (so I need there to be a decent health and education system). I could continue this argument through much of the government budget. Only once these things are in place am I able to operate and earn the sort of income that the highest paid in the UK receive. So my hard earned cash would only be possible because the government and public sector ensure the conditions for trade and industry are in place.

Those conditions are not conjured up out of thin air, but need sustained investment. Without them we would become a failed state, like Somalia. But I don't see the wealthy individuals and corporations of the world queueing up to locate themselves in the low tax, low services, low education, low health, crime ridden, warring, failed states of the world.

What I do see are people who want to maximise what they can take out of society while minimising their responsibilities to it through tax avoidance and evasion. In 2006 (when figures were last available) the UKs 54 resident billionaires paid £14.7 million in tax between them. Of this £9 million (61%) was paid by one person - James Dyson. It is widely agreed in the tax accounting community that JK Rowling and James Dyson are the only UK billionaires paying a tax rate even remotely proportional to their income. The UKs richest man, Lakshi Mittal, pays around 0.14% tax. Compare that to your own tax rate. Of course Mittal has worked hard, taking home around £393 million in dividends in 2008. But can you say he works 15,000 times harder than a nurse bringing home £27K a year? Of course not. Any income in that league is out of all proportion to the effort put in, and is only possible because of the public services that ensure a stable, functioning, civilised society. There are no short cuts to providing that kind of society, the type we all want to live in, and those who benefit hugely from it by being able to generate wealth out of all proportion to their effort should return some of that wealth to keep the society they profit from functioning. If they don't (and many don't) they are freeloading on a level that the worst benefit cheat doesn't even come close to.

domesticgodless · 11/10/2012 14:40

Vodafone et al have egregiously kept their money OUT of 'the pot', btw. The tax money which we should all now be using for essential services and to pay off the deficit run up by private banks and debt.

Should their employees now suffer accordingly? Or is it fine for vodafone to withhold their portion of tax because they don't belong to the 'public sector' (whatever you actually believe that to be- I don't think you're very clear on it).

domesticgodless · 11/10/2012 14:43

I wouldn't worry Rosie. The likes of sunflowers are only likely to change their tune once something bad happens to them. Which it is likely to given the catastrophic decline in living standards we're all facing.

She is sticking to the 'private good public bad' mantra she's been taught by the press and will only change it once her health insurance company (if she can afford one) withhold care and her rubbish stops being collected.

Rosieres · 11/10/2012 14:56

I found Cameron's charge that Labour were trying to split the country through class war disingenuous. The conservatives have been playing class war ever since they came back into office, just supporting the wealthy class against the majority class. If speaking out against injustice is class war, then I'm happy to be a class warrior.

And I say that as someone who didn't inherit money but worked hard, got through university and now runs their own business. So I ought to be someone buying into Cameron's rhetoric, but I see the opportunities given to me in the 80s and 90s being denied to my children's generation.

sunflowersfollowthesun · 11/10/2012 14:59

What's with the sarcasm domestic ? Have I hit a nerve?
I haven't suggested that you are "worth" anything at all. Merely agreed with you that as a public sector worker, you are paid out of the communal pot.

In point of fact, the money isn't coming out of the students pockets (yet). It's borrowed money, which they will have to pay back when and if they earn over a set threshold. I am sure you are well aware of this, as am I with one child just finishing uni this year, another just starting and, most likely, a third a few years behind. I'm certainly of the opinion that it's better that students pay for their higher education, rather than taking more money from the disabled, for instance, much as I would like them to get a free university education.
I am delighted my kids will benefit from a university education I would have dearly loved to have had one. Personally, I feel it is right that they make some contribution for the benefits they will reap later in their lives.
I just hope they have the benefit of having lecturers who are more respectful of differing opinions than you seem to be, and who resist the urge to belittle people's apparent intelligence.

Katiebeau · 11/10/2012 14:59

Rosie I think most of us know how much of the countries infrastructure is run by the state. And paid for by taxes of many types.

Tax avoidance; at least this government is tackling some of the loop holes and chasing payments. the last one didn't do much there.

For the record I don't think a disabled child should suffer at all from these cuts but I do wish people using state benefits when relatively well off (very subjective I know) just because they are there quit moaning when they aren't there anymore to help divvy out the smaller pot to the much more vulnerable in society.

Relatively well off to me means been able to afford to get to a job, house/feed/clothe/warm the family and support their children's education with broadband etc which is necessary today.

sunflowersfollowthesun · 11/10/2012 15:17

Really, Domestic, you're coming over more than a little arrogant if I might say so. Just because I don't agree with your (obviously superior) views I am deluded?
I have not been "taught" by the press. I have lived it. You would do well to be a little less condescending and a little more open to POV's that differ from your own.
You have no idea whether anything bad has happened to me (it has, and then some) or if it would make any difference to my outlook (it hasn't).

Rosie that is a great post that deserves a thoughtful answer, which I don't have time to construct just now. I will come back to you though, but it might not be until tomorrow now.
Or you could always ask Domestic what I think. Grin

yellowvan · 11/10/2012 15:22

To add to Domestic's point re: tax : Perhaps if wages were higher amd more people were in work (we had growth), more people would pay into the tax pot and our hearts would not have to bleed so much for that over-taxed 1% who are apparently keeping us afloat. paying tax is a good thing. I want to pay lots of lovely tax, but wages need to be higher.
And another thing, here are some people scrounging off the government: a4e (gvmt contracts) serco (govmt contracts) capita (local gvmt contracts) amazon, vodaphone (tax exemptions and avoidance). I'm sure you can think of many more corporations who are only kept afloat by a) the avoidance of tax, so effectively a handout and b) contracts previously fulfilled by public sector, so effectively a state handout.

threesocksmorgan · 11/10/2012 15:26

"I don't know the ins and outs of of caring for disabled family members,"
no Sunflower you obviously don't, if you did you wold know that it is something that money does help. money enables you to buy in services.
and no cameron did not choose to have a disabled child.
but he did choose to use both his child and his father in his speech,
sick!
why? if not to try and make himself look "caring"

twofingerstoGideon · 11/10/2012 15:53

Katiebeau Anyway I still don't think any of the Cameron's money helped ease the pain of losing their son. It offends me that anyone from any political belief would stoop to saying this.

I don't think anyone has said the Cameron's money helped ease the pain of losing their son, although several people have said that money would have eased some of the stresses around having a disabled family member (eg being able to pay for respite, nannies, private health care etc...)

threesocksmorgan · 11/10/2012 15:56

Katiebeau post is proof of how things get twisted as I have not seen or heard anyone say such a thing.

Katiebeau · 11/10/2012 15:58

Fairs do's. If that was what I read into some posts and it wasn't meant I apologise.

Katiebeau · 11/10/2012 15:58

I'm fair and if I make a mistake I apologise. I'm not twisted Angry

pumpkinsweetie · 11/10/2012 15:59

No matter how much i don't agree with this goverment and the cuts they are making that was a very low thing to saySad-No amount of money would make up for losing a child, that comment was uncalled for!

Katiebeau · 11/10/2012 16:01

Not just me then?

Rosieres · 11/10/2012 16:04

Kaitebeau I wish I could be as confident as you about the current government chasing after tax evaders and closing the loopholes of tax avoiders. Certainly Labour weren't brilliant at it when they were in government, to an extent they didn't have to because the financial services sector was overheating and generating huge amounts of revenue , so the government receipts were healthy enough. So Labour didn't have to pluck up the courage to track down the tax avoiders and make them pay their fair share.

Corporate tax avoidance has become much worse since the last election. Businesses feeling the squeeze look to reduce their costs, that includes their tax bill. Once one company finds a way to dodge tax others will seek to copy it. You end up in a viscious circle of companies that want to pay their fair share of tax not doing so because they have to compete with the tax avoiders. This is one of the big problems in the Greek economy, where VAT collection is poor. If you collect VAT on your business activities you end up 20% more expensive than your rivals, so in Greece you have to dodge VAT to stay in business. Corporate tax avoidance is essentially corrupting, and what happened to Greece is happening here. For example, Amazon has annual sales in the UK of £3.3 billion but pay virtually no corporation tax. This is because in 2006 they set up an office in Luxembourg which "bought out" the UK company, and the UK profits are siphoned off to Luxembourg where they pay a much lower tax rate. Since 2006 this has cost the UK government around £250 million. They employ several thousand people in the UK and only 134 in Luxembourg, but claim to be a Luxembourg company. They have repeated this trick across Europe, so all their sales through Germany, France, Spain, Italy etc. avoid tax in those countries. Any wonder that the EU economies are struggling when this is allowed? Since then many companies have followed suit - Ebay (and their subsidiary Paypal), Google, Boots (who were based in Nottingham for 150 years, but now claim they are based in Switzerland for tax purposes).

The government is aware of this tax avoidance but seems powerless to stop it. They often say that if they raise taxes on wealthy individuals then those individuals will just move abroad. But Amazon, Boots, et al. are not going to stop trading in the UK if they have to take a slice of their healthy profits and pay it as corporation tax. And the tax avoidance is unfair competition, because the local pharmacist or local bookshop can't choose to be based in a tax haven for accounting purposes, so it is harming UK based business.

Much of this could be tackled - the European tax havens could be tackled by co-ordinated EU legislation, and many other tax havens (Cayman Islands, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, etc.) are Crown Dependencies, so the British Government has massive influence here. That they choose not to act is either (1) they are afraid of the power of those with great wealth salted away in these offshore tax havens or (2) they are supportive of them. I suspect when Labour were in power it was (1), with the Conservatives it is (2). I say this because over 50% of Conservative party funding comes from individuals or institutions based in the City. So when they make policy decisions, whose interests are they working for?

threesocksmorgan · 11/10/2012 16:07

pumpkinsweetie Thu 11-Oct-12 15:59:24
No matter how much i don't agree with this goverment and the cuts they are making that was a very low thing to say-No amount of money would make up for losing a child, that comment was uncalled for!

where?
where did someone make this comment??

Katiebeau · 11/10/2012 16:14

I agree re the corporate tax avoidance. A huge number of multi EU country companies headquarters reside in Switzerland now so UK gets jack.

As for old UK companies moving there how could the UK stop this? I really would like to hear if it's possible as it grates to be honest. Especially when they employ majority of their workforce in the UK as its cheaper than Switzerland. Companies do need certain numbers to be employed in Switzerland maximise tax savings though. These tend to be the higher level jobs which stifles career progression in the UK (reducing social mobility).

But what's better? Lower corporation tax to be competitive with Switzerland or turn a blind eye where the majority of employment and work is channeled through the UK creating jobs? I honestly don't know what brings in most tax to the UK and where the law lies which allows companies to move HQ to cheaper tax countries.

Glitterknickaz · 11/10/2012 16:19

Yes, please direct me the comments that state money eased the emotional heartbreak. I think you will find there are none.

Comments do exist stating that the family's experiences of living with disability are very different to the vast majority of those who are doing so on benefits.

threesocksmorgan · 11/10/2012 16:35

Glitterknickaz glad I am not alone as I have not seen these comments.

Mrsdoyle1 · 11/10/2012 16:39

^"Cameron is accused of being an out-of-touch toff who is privileged and has never faced hardship. But that is not true, his money and background don't make him immune to suffering. I think he mentioned his disabled son who died young and his father who had no heels and who had his legs amputated, partly to show that he does know about disability and that he is not a heartless uncaring person.

The Tory scum and heartless image that is painted of Tories is a caricature and a cheap trick used by political opponents who are often just as privileged."^

Claig, political opponents have no need of cheap tricks to paint the Tories in this way or to create any caricature. The Tories do this themselves to perfection. If Cameron is not a 'heartless, uncaring person', why are so many of his policies designed to protect the funds of the wealthy and take away even more from those who have scarcely enough to make ends meet? Cameron and his party are so out of touch with general society (as opposed to the privileged elite) it beggars belief. They have no interest in helping people from disadvantaged backgrounds to better themselves, they simply want to protect the elite and their privileges. Witness the behaviour they tolerate unquestioningly from financial institutions, versus, for example, their decision to cap benefits at £26,000 despite research from the Rowntree Foundation saying that around £36,000 is needed to provide a normal living these days with costs for housing and other basic needs set so high.

Mrsdoyle1 · 11/10/2012 16:46

Rosieres, hear, hear - it's good to read such a coherent argument. I totally agree with your points.

domesticgodless · 11/10/2012 17:00

for further proof of how current and future Tory policies are clobbering small in favour of big business have a look at the Universal Credit stuff. People on there who are EXACTLY the 'strivers' Cameron goes on about- people starting their own businesses from scratch- are being absolutely shafted by a system which will withdraw tax credit support in their early years.

If there is one thing a Tory government SHOULD be doing surely it is supporting startup businesses? The more of these grow and succeed, the better for the economy.

Instead they favour the interests of multinationals which, as Rosieres so sensibly argues, will never pull out of an entire European market due to reasonable tax rises. If that were the case they'd have been out of Scandinavia long ago.