Why do people like reform?

[TheGoogleMum]

I haven't been keeping very up to date with politics. I usually vote Labour. I don't really understand the popularity of reform, could anyone explain it to me?
As far as I'm aware Farage doesn't actually do anything when he wins a seat somewhere so I'm not convinced they'll actually do anything? Is it just a protest vote that's gone a bit far?

I want the services we can afford.

@Jackrussellsaremad what does that mean or look like? Can we afford the ageing population? My mum didn't work much & is on a cocktail of drugs, gets AA, should these be withdrawn and money spent on younger people?

Here’s an example from 6 days ago also in the Times behind a paywall

Labour are already hammering things with taxes. More won’t help.

@taxguru

Let's start with those who've benefitted for decades from lower overall taxes on unearned income such as pensions, interest, property rentals, etc.

State pension reduces your tax code by the same amount. So, even some receiving the basic state pension will have almost zero tax allowance. This means that a greater percentage of their total income will be subject to tax.

The rate of tax paid on interest is based on which tax bad your total income falls in into. The same applies to profit from rental income.

Rather than increasing taxes, would it not be better to reduce wastage such as:

HS2 which will cost hundreds of billions
350 per day for people to sleep in the house of lords
Foreign aid
3 billion per year on free hotels
5 billion per year on asylum
HMRC fighting and losing battles with billionaires

But I have not said anything about more targeting of wealthy mobile people @EasternStandard?

You want to tax middle earners?

What income bracket do you mean?

I have shit public services already. And I don't believe pouring more and more money into the NHS will make a blind bit of difference to the service provided to me unfortunately. Although we can all hope and dream and pretend that it will.

I see the NHS are going for another 3% payrise this year which will have a knock on effect on pensions. I wait expectantly for the usual resulting rise in standards.

It would be better to collect taxes due from those evading them.

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-accounts-committee/news/205235/55billion-lost-to-tax-evasion-could-be-significant-underestimate-pac-report-warns/

Well, not spent on foreign climate "aid"

I wait expectantly for the usual resulting rise in standards.

No need to wait.

www.gov.uk/government/news/crack-teams-get-patients-off-waiting-lists-at-twice-the-speed

Well that is good if true. And they clearly did that without the vast payrise they are asking for.

"The government is facing new warnings that the current way of calculating the state pension is financially unsustainable following projections that an extra 1.7m people will be claiming by 2032."

"But the changing demographics have already ratcheted up state pension costs to around £125 billion,"

Cutting foreign climate aid won't impact much. Any other suggestions?

It’s been done in the last six months, ie after the long overdue pay rises last year you were complaining about.

I have shit public services already.

But why will they improve under Reform?

Those in English society whose primary motivation is racism.

I have been very clear that this is not every reform voter.

Why are you asking me?

I’m not really sure what you’re getting at? If you don’t vote then it’s a bit rich to complain… that’s it.

The NHS remains unaffordable for the UK.

@Jackrussellsaremad would you scrap the NHS? what model would you use?

I have no idea. That doesn't change the fact that the NHS is unaffordable for the UK. And will only become even more unaffordable with the increase in population over 70 million and decrease in higher rate tax payers.

I don't disagree that the NHS is unaffordable, not with changing demographics but I'm not convinced Reform will deliver a better model.

@skirtingcurtainI’m interested in your tax rises, what income bracket are you thinking of?

the increase in population over 70 million and decrease in higher rate tax payers.

The 70m is mainly driven by legal immigration. Why will there be less higher rate tax payers? The income tax bands have been frozen which has dragged many more people into paying higher rate. Do you mean additional rate?

I mean that the UK is number 2 in the world (behind only Russia) re exodus of millionaires.

And I suspect those millions of immigrants coming in aren't coming here with their millions hoping to enjoy paying high rate tax in the UK to a Labour government.

@EasternStandard I was interested in your views as well but you haven't answered any of my questions...

I mean that the UK is number 2 in the world (behind only Russia) re exodus of millionaires.

Millionaires are slightly different to higher rate tax payers. For one thing not many of them are in PAYE!

How many millionaires did we have to start with vs other countries? What counts as an exodus?