Why don’t Labour get it?

[MincePiesAndStilton]

Discussing with DH yesterday about the general state the country is in. Am I being daft, or is it not that hard to fix?

• Cut welfare spending. The country can’t afford it and the current system doesn’t promote independent living. Financial support for those who need it, practical support to get those who can work, doing so e.g. young people
• Get building. We are desperately in need of new infrastructure in this country. Bridges, roads, prisons, schools and hospitals to name but a few. Doing this creates jobs and economic stimulation, see point 1. Get building = get the economy moving.
• Invest in public services - stop playing the “fiscal rules” card and start making sure there are plenty of good quality jobs to tax people at a reasonable level at. See point 1 again. Things like oh I don’t know, the Police, Prisons and Border Force to keep the country safe and make it less attractive to those who want to come here and do harm. And before anyone jumps on me, no - I’m not anti immigrants, anti asylum seekers or anything else. Some people need our help. Some people want to come here and sexually assault women and children. Those two sets of people need treating very differently.

Instead, what we’re going to get is more tax rises, fewer services, more welfare and no progress on immigration. That will let Reform in through the back door and then we’re in real trouble.

What am I missing?

In the 60s there were 5 workers to 1 pensioner, today it's approx 3:1 and will be 2:1 in a few decades. Because everything is paid out of current taxes as opposed to saved pots you would have to be completely stupid to not understand the economic constraints & why successive governments have relied on immigration for years to prop up the system.

Illegals on boats, a young person not working due to mental health problems are all drops in the ocean compared.

They just don’t want to hear it.

Well, I’m sorry to tell you that’s not going to happen if our Labour government continues spending money so recklessly.

The black hole in the UK’s finances has magically grown from £22bn to over £50bn since they came to power, and that’s nothing to do with pensioners. It’s pretty obvious they will be announcing more tax rises at next months budget announcement. It’s all they know - spend and tax.

They don't which is why nothing changes.

That’s because of the conservatives. Not Labour.

but yes, let’s cut all government spending on younger generations and keep pumping the pensioners full of cash. Lord knows they deserve it.

Its a deferred wage earned through decades of National Insurance contributions, often made under far harsher working conditions than today

It isn't a deferred wage. The State Pension was introduced at a time when life expectancy was not as high as now so today most pensioners will have taken out FAR more than they put in. I'm not sure what the solution though!

The projections of spending on benefits is expected to exceed £100billion so that is unsustainable and a reversal needs to happen.

The black hole in the UK’s finances has magically grown from £22bn to over £50bn since they came to power, and that’s nothing to do with pensioners.

An ageing population does impact productivity which impacts the countries finances. Our productivity never recovered from the 08 crash so nearly 2 decades of shit growth. And younger people were significantly impacted by the crash.

You can't improve productivity when workers have low wages, high taxes and high housing costs.

'I’d say it’s entitled to expect the working generation to pay for your retirement because you didn’t bother to save.'* *

That's a lot of assumption packed in there. I'm disabled and won't live long enough to get a pension but I pay into my work pension regardless. In the meantime I'm working two jobs to pay taxes to fund pensions for older people and benefits for anxious 30 year olds and child benefit for people with two children when I only have one.

You can't just cut welfare spending without that having huge ramifications on the whole of society. Pensions are a form of welfare; benefits for disabled people; help for SEN children. What exactly do you mean by "welfare spending? Things really aren't that simple. I'm not happy with Labour for many reasons. But just saying "cut welfare spending" shows a complete lack of political understanding. It sounds like a nonsense political soundbite. I mean they did cut welfare spending - the winter fuel allowance- and loads of people (boomers mostly) kicked off. You need to stop reading shit rags and stop watching GB News.

Also, am I the only one that feels this site has been taken over by Reform bots?

According to who? They were talking about this on LBC recently. There have been multiple reports of it and I find it hard to believe you aren’t aware of it - unless you have your head buried in the sand…

Ah that old chestnut again - someone happens to have a different opinion to you, and it must be a bot. Grow up.

Farage has said the triple lock must go though, so I don’t think his bots would be saying it should stay!

We do seem to have gone completely awry. Public services are a complete mess and there are too many people for whom not working is a lifestyle choice.

I fully want to support those who cannot work or have fallen on hard times but for many now it’s a way of life. There is so much criminality, obesity, just a general lack of social responsibility. It’s so depressing. Every other parent wants to home school - we are just breeding a generation of kids who may not be able to engage with society long term. We are storing up problems with all of this refusal to contribute to society generally.

Those of us in work shouldn’t be paying for people who refuse to work or to top up the wages of employers who refuse to pay their staff properly.

There are too many people who think a single uncomfortable feeling is a mental health crisis. My early days in my v stressful role were utterly terrifying but life is sometimes uncomfortable, sad and difficult. I am not taking away from people who have genuine MH disorders but for many it’s just not wanting to face anything uncomfortable.

I also think there are many parents claiming benefits for their children with SEN and other difficulties who could work - I know many whose children have attended mainstream schools. Yes, life is more difficult with a SEN child but for many it doesn’t equate to an inability to have any employment at all. Again, I am not talking about those with children whose needs clearly preclude employment.

I also agree that the wealthy should pay more and that the triple lock should go. I don’t think though that we should just tax the middle classes to death because we are already footing a lot of the bill. There is no inventive to succeed and be financially responsible. My parents worked hard all of their lives contributed to private pensions and went without in order to do so but many do their friends did nothing to plan and are not much worse off than my parents.

I don’t know what the answer is but other countries do not promote a welfare system as a long term solution. Quite apart from anything else who is going to pay for it? We have an older population and a sizeable chunk of the population not working - the bill cannot be sustained form taxes.

OP, your suggestions are simplistic and won’t work. If it was that easy, it would have been done by now. The UK economy is weak so a level of unemployment is inevitable and taxes would have to rise a lot to pay for what you’re wanting.

Yes we can cut welfare but, it places a higher burden on health and social care, and the police. Practical support for jobseekers is good, but costs a lot to deliver, and job seekers still have to eat whilst they job hunt.

Building infrastructure and the investment in public sector jobs should have absolutely been happening much more systematically over recent decades and now is badly needed. But who pays?

You do realise that the state pension, despite the triple lock, is LESS THAN HALF the minimum wage?
If the state pension is your only income you have so little money that you are below the tax threshold of £12,570.

I don’t know what the answer is but other countries do not promote a welfare system as a long term solution

Housing is a big part of the problem. The UK overall benefit spend is similar to other European countries but we spend far more proportionally on housing costs.

We also spend less comparatively on the working age population & children hence why child poverty has grown.

It’s not the shelf stacker that’s the problem.

So that’s why you save for your retirement. Instead of expecting everyone else to pay for it for you.

The estimates for scrapping the triple lock would save between £5.5bn (IFS) and £15.5bn p.a. (OBR) depending on what state pension rises are linked to instead of the triple lock (e.g. wages). So not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things. If the state pension became means tested, those who have never worked would get a state pension while those who have worked have paid tax to support pensioners in their time don’t? I think that would be a hard sell and quite unjust.

What never seems to be brought up in the “bash the pensioners” argument is the £57bn p.a. that the very generous public sector pensions cost. These are index linked and public sector workers get them in addition to the state pension, paid for by the tax payer. This is causing a huge black hole in the finances which Government keeps strangely quiet about.

You mean increase taxes the on 1% who currently pay 30% of income tax?

The bottom 75% pay circa 25% of income tax. In other European countries lower and middle income earners pay much more tax. In Belgium you pay 40% on any income over 2000 euros a year.

The top earners in the UK pay proportionally more tax than similar earners in Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Portugal, Belgium and Holland. It's time lower and middle earners in the UK paid their fare share like similar people in other countries.

Welfare was actually more generous in the past, far more social housing for example.

It's already meant to be only those who can't work who are looked after by the government working tax payers.

But it doesn't work that way.

If you can think of a way to fix that, do that first. Get welfare right down, then we'll see.

They are not claiming a state benefit. They are getting a return on their investment (compulsory) in the state pension scheme. The state cannot make people pay in to a pension scheme then refuse to pay their full entitlement.

Please bear in mind that pensioners are taxed on their total income from all sources so effectively many pensioners have their state pension wiped out by tax anyway.

It’s business that brings wealth and boosts the economy, jobs, well-being etc. They should be prioritising growing the economy with tax incentives for business.