If Labour raises taxes what will you think?

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Typing on my phone so not sure I can do a poll? But, if the government raises income tax or NI at the budget, will you think:

A - let’s get real, they had no other choice
B - those duplicitous / inept bastards

Labour will get smashed in the May26 council elections. This might bring about some change in leadership, perhaps some change in policy.

There is now real anger at how workers are getting rinsed to pay the luxurious welfare bill.

Yep - increase taxation = less economic growth = lower tax revenues = need to increase taxes again and so on.

She just wanted to cover her backside with bond markets to keep enough headroom to please backbenchers with welfare changes and to simultaneously make it the next Government’s problem. Since Truss, any politicians worst nightmare is a Truss situation so they will be extra cautious, even if it leads to deteriorating standard of living and she has shafted the entire plethora of the actually working and middle classes.

I’ll think that at least they won’t slash the taxes of the tech industry. Oh wait …

Do you use Amazon, Ebay, Facebook, or Google?

Is Amazon and EBay ‘tech industry’? If so then surely so are Tesco, Argos and B&Q?

Well they are all in the Magnificent Seven. Globally dominant tech stocks.

Unlike Tesco, Argos and B&Q.

Amazon aren't just an online shop, they're also one of the major hyperscalars who provide cloud computing.

£5.8 billion in taxes is a pretty significant contribution to the UK: £1billion direct corporation tax and the rest collected on the employment they provide for 7500 people and VAT. Then there's the £40billion they're planning to invest in the UK over the next 3 years.

But the cloud services they provide are probably the most significant way they contribute to the UK: used by thousands of UK companies, including many of the fastest growing ones and almost all unicorns (most successful privately owned startups), as well as 35 public authorities. Their offering includes AI services which are starting to be used more widely in business, and I think everyone is hoping will turn around the low UK productivity.

But you know @timeforabitofpeace : much easier to be snippy about them than acknowledge that they directly underpin your standard of living far more than your own contribution does.

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If I use social media myself (which is a poor quality argument, by the way), then social media make their money out of me through data gathering and marketing. We should expect then to pay tax, and the LP should be making them. They quite rightly complained when the Tories failed to do it in the past.

They do pay tax. If you dislike how they minimise their tax bill then don’t feed them! I don’t buy anything from Amazon which was tough during lockdown but the right thing to do.

I am really frustrated by Labour.
I also want to eradicate child poverty but do not believe handing actual cash to parents solves anything. They should have invested the cash in really high quality childcare and meals for kids and extra NHS speech and language etc from an early age, putting highly qualified staff into nurseries. They should have encouraged primary teachers to move there - with the falling birth rate. They should have changed the law to make all dads who make babies pay up!
Instead they come tapping at the taxpayers door, including the working families who are already struggling, just like they are asking the highest tax payers with kids in nursery to subsidise others. It is all just mind boggling.

All they are doing is destroying jobs for the young, not creating them.

Couple all of this with high energy prices and high house prices, and inflationary pressures and fiscal drag, I just do not understand at all what they are doing. I think those in charge just do not understand what actually happens on the ground. They are not understanding that kids from really good unis with top grades are struggling to get jobs! Let alone those with lesser grades.

Are you being paid? They should be made to because we have seen that it will never be paid voluntarily.

yes they need to pay their taxes; where have I said otherwise.

if you don’t like their behaviour, don’t fund them with your business!

And expect my government to not lower taxes for them, whilst raising them for others.

I've thought about this recently, as i ve heard this argument v frequently and one i did agree with BUT...

...if you re correct, then why give the less well off/those on benefits, any money at all?

After all, if they would spend the money given for the 3rd child on booze and new phones etc, they are surely wasting the money for the 1st and 2nd children too.

So should we give all families or indeed anyone on out of work benefits, vouchers?

On grad unemployment, its still lower than in 2018/19 (8%) and went from 5.8% in 2023 to 6% in 2025.

There are different figures though but the highest i ve seen is 6.2% with the lowest at 3.8% !

Compare this to non grad unemployment! 2x higher.

I’ve sky news on in the back ground and just watched open mouthed as the chair of the Labour Party, Anna something, was interviewed and was trying ri say how brilliant the budget was and how Rachel didn’t mislead rhe public and cabinet, oh and apparently the Labour Party Is fully united.

i was actually embarassed for her like properly embarassed. She didn’t even try to nuance it or intelligently address the points being made. Just a full on it’s all great and I can’t wait to see the brilliant impact on my constituents.

it actually came across she’s been told to full on defend it, and she’s put her head down and elbows out and done it, and so badly it was actually hard to watch.

i also watched starmer do similar, he’s made it clear he’s behind this, but the ducking and diving and twisting to get round whay they did, lie to tax people more to pay for the two child cap being lifted to appease the back benchers, but at least he looked like he was trying to at least appear reasonable, albeit failing wildly, that woman didn’t even try, it was like she was reading a propaganda leaflet.

they are all so out of their depth it is unbelievable.

I thought it was a good budget.

Yes we should not simply hand over cash with the increased child benefit; it should either fund improvements to schools and clubs/youth centres or take the form of veg boxes, and good food coupons.

this prevents the parents spending it on tatoos and alchohol.

What would (some) people with no utensils, no cooking skills, illiterate, maybe not even an oven etc do with a veg box?

I'm fully in support of Surestart style interventions but people also need more cash, as inflation hits, we had food inflation of 30% recently, its still around 6%, the poorest are still going to be worse off and the benefit cap hasn't been raised, regardless of this new policy.

You re stereotyping those on benefits too.

most people have cooking utensils!

money has poured into welfare, both for those who don’t work, and for those that do. Combined with increased wages at the poor end. At the same time mid-high incomes have experienced wage compression (stagnation while lower incomes rise) combined with more and more tax.