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?

One of the reasons for us living longer is that we have central heating. I'm not joking.
Another is that loads more medical/surgical things can be done than were known in 1948. It's amazing, and costly.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the basic rate of Income Tax is 20% and it has been for quite a lot of years. I have been shouting at the telly for a good long time to raise it a bit - 21%/22%. What rate were we paying in the late 70s - 27% or more? It can be checked on Google, anyway. I am not suggesting for a moment that the basic rate only should be raised.
It was ridiculous for the Labour and the Tories to keep on saying they wouldn't raise Income Tax, in the run-up to last year's election, but neither dared to say that they would.

The problem is that we expect a decent state pension, but people are living longer, and taxpayers don’t want to pay for it.
Do you really think that £11,973 p.a. counts as 'decent'?

Then reform come along and blatantly lie about how easy problems will be to solve and the electorate falls for it all.
It's pretty much what Starmer did. He was very light on detail before the election - apart from the no rise in PAYE, NI and VAT - and let people believe their own versions of what they wanted to hear. He sticks to impossible-to-pin-down waffle like 'change' or 'modernise'.

And smoking. The government persuaded too many people to stop smoking and now we are paying the price.

It's like he has completely forgotten that his campaign slogan was change. Unless we all misunderstood and he actually meant "change" to mean ministers every few months for corruption.

@upinaballoon higher earners (on PAYE) already pay proportionately high taxes. Lower & middle earners don't but the issue is housing & don't forget the frozen tax bands which has dragged a huge swathe into higher bands.

Well they did pause pension for a good number of years -by increasing the age you receive it - God knows where all that money is going

There is a finite amount of tax receipts in a year. The amount of expenditure on pensioners has been going up in real terms year after year for decades. Between 1990 and 2019 the amount spent on pensioner benefits in real terms has doubled. This is in part due to the triple lock, in part due to more pensioners living longer. So when you say “God knows where all that money is going” - it isn’t going anywhere - there isn’t any money!

But increasing the pension age for people retiring in the future didn't have any impact on the existing cohort of pensioners. They're the ones benefiting from the triple lock.

increasing the pension age for people retiring in the future
I don't think that that is PP's point. Women used to retire at 60, it was raised to the male age of 65 and has been gradually increasing since then. That is years of pension that the existing cohort expected but have not received. Triple lock increases - compared to multiple years' worth of missing pension - is chicken feed.

The impact of these changes on retirement planning is what the WASPI women's protest was all about.

Lets also not forget that there was no family allowance for the first child til 1977. DD was 7. Don’t forget income tax was over 30%, and mortgage interest rates got to double figures. We had a council flat in the early 70s, it cost more than the slummy house with an outside lav we rented from a private landlord in 1970. We moved a long way in the UK, no local connection, meant no chance of a council house.

If one adult in a household was working, that was deemed enough to live on. DH had some very basic wage jobs until he established himself in self employment, there was no help via benefits. For a short period he was unemployed, and the dole was about £13 a week. We survived. You couldn’t choose to work 16 hours, get a UC top up and all the things that go with getting a means tested benefit. You either got a second job, like DH, or both parents worked and shared childcare.

Lastly, as a state pensioner, I’d support the pausing of the triple lock, but only if the basic pensions are equalised. Post 2016 basic new state pension is almost £60 a week more than the old basic and the gap continues to increase. Very unfair on those older people with small extra pensions who are not entitled to any means tested top ups.

I am a baby boomer and still working full time. Everyone I know of my age is either working full time, running parish councils and charities or caring for grandchildren 3-4 days a week.

You need to stop your generalising.