“Tax the wealthy” (RR budget) what does this even mean?

[gggddjkki]

I don’t remember anxiously waiting for budgets like we have the last few years earlier on in my adulthood. But when you read statements like this (as I have seen in the headlines today) what do you interpret it to mean? What does taxing the wealthy look like to you? Taxing higher earners more? From what point? Higher taxes on industry?

I'm not sure who you are seeking to persuade and what you are seeking to persuade them of. You won't change anyone's mind with that approach. And if you aren't trying to persuade anyone of your point of view then why the posts?

It always makes me laugh when people say less educated people vote Reform or Brexit (for example). Such snobbery. Highly educated people vote Reform. Why does the value of their vote suddenly change if they left school at 15 with no GCSEs and live in a council house in Sunderland? They voted the same as someone who might be a professor of European politics or head of an investment bank. Ticking a box doesn't make you moral or clever and neither does it make you immoral or stupid. It's just ticking a box. There's no judge in the sky overseeing who is "right". It's just democracy.

Claim?

This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever come across on Mumsnet, and that’s saying something.

If I was a teacher why would I claim not to be one? Why are you so obsessed with teachers?

Economics isn’t even a subject in schools (one of my complaints about them) so how would I even be a teacher if I wanted to (leaving aside the small issue of cutting my salary to a fraction of what it is)? I don’t deal well with noise or other people’s children who aren’t close relatives/ family friends, in small doses so I’m sure I’d last about 2 hours in a classroom. 😆

But you carry on with your weird obsession. Your posts are coming across as though need some psychological intervention.

This thread has made me so very grateful that I have a job that involves no contact with the public which inevitably contains a proportion of people who are mentally unhinged.

Oh FGS. Read what I actually wrote. One of the point in the list which apparently you’re so upset about specifically stated that some of the people who plan to vote Reform are doing so because they are very wealthy and successful and it will benefit them immensely financially to do so. Just like a very small proportion of those who voted for Brexit did so for the same reasons, primarily those with money in tax havens who didn’t want beneficial ownership to have to be disclosed per the soon-to-be-implemented EU directive on this matter. Reform’s financial backers and their support from the likes of Rupert Murdoch is also motivated by financial gain.

My entire point is that different potential Reform voters have different motivations and there isn’t one motivation that applies to all like some homogenous mass. Some reasons are rational (in terms of self-interest, like those I’ve just described) and some are not.

I have specifically stated in multiple posts now that knowledge and intelligence are different (I thought everyone was now aware of this? But perhaps general knowledge has degraded further than I thought). At no point have I called anybody stupid so stop falsely trying to claim that I have done so. Enough now.

It's the repeated use of the word 'claim' that comes across as bizarre.

I see. You now want to resort to accusing other people of your own behaviour.

You do realise that everyone can read all of the posts, do you?

Exactly. Very weird.

I think it’s probably best just to not engage with the poster further given they really don’t seem well.

Just like Rachel Reeves!

What would be a better word?

You've stated lack of education as a factor. How does that change someone's vote if they voted the same as someone who was a professor in economics (for example) or thr head of an investment bank? They ticked the same box. You clearly think Reform is somehow the "wrong" box.

Education is not a factor in voting. You don't need to prove motive in the ballot box.

All the motives you listed for Reform voters you word in a derogatory fashion. What motives are correct in your eyes and which party would they be voting for.

You don't need a word.

Don’t set them off again.

Well anyone can be an economist. It's not like being a Doctor or a Lawyer where you need qualifications and registration with a professional body.

Unless you are the Business Secretary

@PlanetMasorry Im not scrolling the whole thread to find it but I guarantee state pension is not going to be means tested in immediate future

I’m not even in the Home Counties and our ex-council three bed semi is worth just over £500,000!

The estate agent described it as a second-time home. As in you go from a flat, to our house to forever home/something a bit nicer.

Your home is not a luxury. Everyone needs one home, nobody needs two. Second homes are a luxury.

I don't think any house that is your main / only home should be taxed other than at purchase or sale.

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I shall reciprocate tomorrow morning.

Ha! No. Not like Rachel, at all. It’s a standing joke. But whatever.

I don’t think it will be either. It should be. And the failure to address this issue and the enormous NHS wastage (most of which alongside the vast majority of social care spending are directed at the elderly) is one of the fundamental reasons that our productivity and growth is so low and taxes keep rising: appropriately plans were not put in place in a timely manner to deal with demographic changes and the current pensioners are extracting on average far more than they ever paid in tax in real-terms, and far in excess of the kind of provision they made for their own parents or grandparents. It is not sustainable and as a result productive areas of the economy desperately in need or investment are hugely underfunded like infrastructure, education, industrial policy, and lowering the tax burden strategically in areas that will encourage investment and generate growth. The long-term prospects of the UK will not improve until a significant proportion of public spending is redirected from the over 65s (who consume over 50% of it but make up 15% of the population) to the young. This can be done without impoverishing any elderly people who are genuinely in need of financial support and cannot support themselves.

Education is not a factor in voting.

Really. So you don’t think education impacts people’s ability to analyse information or their decision-making?

Can you explain, given the above assertion that you’ve made, what your explanation is for the fact that education level is a factor that shows consistent statistically significant correlation to the the distribution of votes for different parties in this country and every other democratic country that I’m aware of for which data is available?

If it isn’t in fact the education levels of voters that is driving these correlations but some other confounding factor (when such findings have been the case even when income and many other factors have been controlled for in the data analysis), what do you believe is the confounding factor that would be necessary to explain the correlation instead, which all researchers and data analysts and economists and political pollsters must have overlooked in order for your assertion to be true?

What I'm saying is that you seem to think education gives a vote greater value than a vote cast by a less educated person even if they vote the same way. I'm highly educated; objectively more and better educated than most people, and yet I will vote the same way as someone who left school at 15 with no GCSEs. Our path to deciding the vote may be different but the result is the same. Our votes are of equal value.

Therefore the fact you raise "education " as a factor in a party's voting base suggests you are trying to make out your choice of vote is somehow superior to a vote cast by someone less educated who may vote for a different party. It's a snobbish and superior approach. You vote according to how you see the world and your own circumstance

If you had included age as a factor (which you didnt) you may possibly be on to something as of course Blair increased university participation to 50% of school leavers from 10% when I was a uni. And young people used to be traditionally more left wing (although I think that is changing. So in 2029 you may get a greater proportion of educated young people voting Reform as to vote Labour as a young person would be a turkey voting for Christmas). That doesn't necessarily mean a good education and ability to judge economic policy however given some of the courses on offer and it doesn't mean thay people who didn't go to university are (in your words)

" poorly educated electorate who have next to no understanding of economics so are easily redirected from the pressing issues into flapping around in rage and squabbling over irrelevancies/ directing their anger at scapegoats."

Oh goody. Actually, I do have a professional qualification and registration with a professional body related to my industry (finance) in addition to my expertise in economics from two decades now of working in similar roles and, you know, all of that irrelevant studying at university and such like before doing the professional qualification. But whatever. You clearly haven’t the faintest clue about economics or finance or tax law or public policy or business based on the posts you make (I’ve seen many of them previously on other threads), from which it’s apparent that your comments about anybody’s qualifications or expertise in finance/ economics are meaningless, to put it politely.

It’s very depressing that Reform voters frequently claim “nobody will understand or listen to their point of view” yet as this thread shows, in fact they are often the ones who resort to completely unwarranted personal attacks on others whom they don’t agree, and seem incapable of having an objective and rational discussion about policy and the merits of various policy options based on data.

Perhaps the hypocrisy is what they relate to about Farage?

Again, you’re attributing things to me that I have not said at all. This is the problem. You are reading things and then imagining/ pretending (it’s unclear which, but either has the same effect) that they actually say something different and then taking offence at the things that you’ve invented in your own imagination.

It’s impossible for anybody to have a rational discussion with somebody who behaves in such a manner.