Conservatives closing the gap on reform

[Pinkponyclub3]

Any conservative supporters here ?
Recent reports say the gap on reform is closing
Having watched some clips of kemi in action,I was quite impressed
But I don't know much about the party having never voted conservative,
Have they more of an insight in to current feeling than labour?

Regardless, the costs to businesses is large and i'm not arguing that we shouldn't have co payments or payments for AE/GP appointments BUT it would be seen as additional taxes (both for employer and employee) we simply do not have the disposable incomes other countries do, mostly due to our housing costs & suppression of wages.

Who presided over almost all of this over the last 14 years?

Payments to visit GP etc would almost certainly not apply to those on benefits, so would primarily just affect those in work/not on in work benefits and pensioners would be exempt too or hear the cries of Labour Hate Pensioners..... (WFP anyone?)

Number of patients going to AE (UK) for a heart attack/stroke has remained stable over the last 5 years but the numbers going to AE for a cough has gone up 10 fold.

Might be worth look at why people now think a cough is something AE is there for?

A healthcare system needs to get to healthier outcomes through behaviour too. I don’t think we have the best system for that.

But I also wonder if we’re past being able to get there now as whatever is done will have so many exemptions and too few lower users picking up that tab.

The tories will have to do something quite special to get my vote, but I will do anything except vote for Labour to keep Reform out.

I do think KB Is improving and has far more charisma than KS. Her timing is reasonable too. Three years to go, she has time to produce the fully costed plans that Labour so clearly didn't bother with.

She can make some easy gains by reversing some of Labour's most unpopular policies.

Yes, I think the Tories are recovering. Now they need a strong shadow cabinet. KB on her own will not be enough.

Might be worth look at why people now think a cough is something AE is there for?

I think this is a very real problem. Lack of sensible personal responsibility, learned helplessmess (encouraged by our governments) and huge entitlement..

Unfortunately, you're right that benefit claimants - which now make up 50% of the population - wouldn't be expected to pay. So adding copayments wouldn't help. Depressing.

In France, you need to have an income of below about 7000 Euros a year in order for healthcare to be completely free. But we are far too redistributive in the UK to expect that kind of personal responsibility.

This is the kind of realisation that genuinely makes me worried for the UK's future. There are many possible solutions to our problems, but we've painted ourselves into a place that we can't get to any of them. We're doomed!

Your comment, suppression of wages caught my eye.

I’ve always assumed that wages are low because productivity is low. So basically that wages are stagnating.

But you present another way to look at it. I am curious, what do you think is suppressing wages? (My first thought would be too much immigration, but you might have something else in mind that I am missing.)

@strawberrybubblegum No, we're not doomed but things will have to change no matter what Labour backbenchers want. There is no financial alternative.

I think the next 20 years will see a society that requires a lot more personal responsibility. Healthcare will involve some basic charges for anyone on minimum wage or above.

Pensioner benefits (free prescriptions, wfp etc) should be means tested at a sensible level - the same level as minimum wage?

Fewer benefits, a requirement for more people to work more hours. I think a full state pension will require 40 years of NI not 35.

And an Australian style immigration system.

And even the Boer war , when it was found so many recruits were simply too unhealthy for active service.

I think WLI will help a bit, I have nothing against them they’re a game changer for health and prevention, where a worsening trajectory was the alternative.

On the last line idk there’s still a lot of invested opposition to it, although anyone with that system would keep it.

Oh come now...I"m sure you say something sensible (very) occasionally that I may agree with? Don't lose hope that absolutely everything you say is rubbish?

Maybe you live in a bubble. Or don't read widely.

Nothing is forever.

I agree and an excellent observation on needing a decent shadow cabinet to back her. Yes I think she will be a credible candidate for PM but it can't just be her. Maybe time to bring Rishi back in?

Bringing Rishi back would kill the recovery of the Tory party. He was the main reason they lost the last election. The 3 million people he excluded for Covid support may well return to the Tories in due course, but certainly won't if Rishi returns to the top table. Also don't forget his flip flopping around tax/nic cuts/rises. He wasn't half as competent as people make him out to have been. A bit like Vince Cable who everyone thought was the second Messiah because he claimed to have forecast the 2008 crash, but scratch the surface and he was another useless politician who hadn't a clue, as seen with his performance in the coalition government. Kemi needs to move forward and not bring back the failures of the past.

The conservatives seem to be the only party at the moment that is putting forward policies that will both control immigration and our finances. Two things, which I think are very important.
Labour want to just spend money-when we have one of the highest budget deficits ever. I agree with both the conservative and reform on making the criteria stricter for those receiving benefits as people should be encouraged to work where possible.
Reform want to control immigration but they also want to spend a lot and tax very little, which doesn't make sense when we have a huge deficit.

It’s easy and popular to spend money.

It’s a lot harder to govern the country. It requires making choices and ignoring the bleating from single issue pressure groups, and doing boring stuff

It’s a lot harder to make money. It means incentivising what’s effective and not pandering to people who have lots of justifications for why they don’t create any value.

Yep. Mn tends to focus on the spending, the easy part. Borrow and spend. It’s much harder to incentivise. The question should be how will you get the money

There is logic behind the low tax/high spend philosophy. Lower taxes incentivise people to work more, invest more, etc., and of course, lower business taxes encourages business to move their head offices and production to the UK as we're effectively in competition with other countries. That's why so many businesses relocated to Ireland and of course why tax havens exist such as Isle of Man, Panama, etc.

It's well accepted that tax revenue increased from higher earners when the highest income tax rate fell from 50% to 45% which is a good example.

You can't "tax your way" out of debt just like you can't spend your way out of poverty as an individual. It's ALL a balance of encouraging wealth creation and controlling public spending with finding the optimum balance for growth.

Having said all that, I'm not convinced that Reform will have the right balance, just as Labour don't, the Tories didn't, etc. Unfortunately party politics gets in the way of doing what's right for the country every single time.

Absolutely this
My mum in one such institution.
Thinks she's a child wanders around looking for her parents all day
No quality of life ,spend £40000 on her care and now it's run out is costing the state £7000 a month ......£7000 A MONTH to be kept.. completely incontinent with no concept of time or day or night , incredibly difficult for staff to manage.

I don't know what the answer is ,but it's a large dementia home with about 60 residents all costing the council the same £7000 per month
We treat dogs kinder , because we put them down when they get to that stage
For sure it is not what my mum wanted for herself,and I live in dread of the same happening to me

This is so sad I’m sorry to hear it, I agree none of us want this.

Thankyou ..but there's no easy answers

@Badbadbunny
So in your opinion, what is the best solution for economic growth and reducing the deficit?

There are basically three levers that a Government can pull on to try and grow the economy:
Taxation
Goverment Spending
Government Debt
There is a fourth lever regarding regulation which is more of a political stance rather than economic.

Simplistically if you cut tax you incentivise both businesses and workers to grow as they get to keep more of their income. If you increase taxes then you disincentivise both businesses and workers and the economy shrinks.

Government spending- on paper if the Government increases spending then the economy will grow. However the crucial part is where is the money coming from for increased Government spending. If it is higher taxes then the growth from Government spending will be cancelled out by the contraction from higher taxes. And in reality this will be negative as businesses and individuals are far more efficient and productive with their spending than the Government is.

Government debt - increasing debt to fund Government spending produces a boost to the economy in the short term but the debt and the interest acts as a drag on the economy in the long term.
Given the four to five year term of Governments there is a huge temptation to fund increased spending through debt (and thereby boost political popularity) in the short term and then leave the long term debt problem for the next Government. This is where we currently are due to increases in debt by both the previous Conservative Government (with a big chunk of £500 billion on Covid) and also by the Blair / Brown Labour Government.

So what can be done?
Increasing debt is no longer an option (as Liz Truss found out the hard way).
Increasing taxation will slow the economy as Reeves and her NI increase and fiscal drag has found out.
Cutting spending is economically the only way out to fund tax cuts to grow the economy. However politically this is massively unpopular as Reeves and her back bench rebellions has found out.

So the current Labour policy is to cut spending enough to keep Bond holders happy (owners of Government debt) but not too much to upset her back benchers. And to increase taxes enough to cover extra spending but only so that it slows the economy rather than tanks it.
And increase spending to keep the back benchers happy.

In short Keynesian economics is no longer relevant and simply doesn't work given high levels of debt. Economically and to actually grow the economy long term (will cause a contraction in the short term) the solution is to cut Government spending. Politically the solution is to tinker around the edges and continue with the slow managed economic decline.

That was a really helpful explanation,thankyou

So everyone blaming Labour for the current situation,need to actually look at the conservatives as they caused it ..
I feel that

labour seem to be making things worse..well my DH says that depends on which papers you read

I was just wondering about the posts about Labour getting more people onto benefits. I think it was mentioned by @Snowonground
I do know that Universal Credit claims are up however it isn’t a massive amount when you take in the managed migration numbers from legacy benefits. IRESA was the last part of the migration to roll out and that is still ongoing. I think since July 2024 750,000 have moved over to universal credit and by the very nature of that benefit those people will not be required to work. That isn’t labours fault whether you vote for them or not. UC and the rollout was under the previous Government.

Incredibly hard thing to witness especially when it's your parent. I've done some heating work in a dementia nursing facility and I have to say it was pretty horrible to see.

The government is working on a bill to allow people to call the end when it's close but I'm not convinced it would be of any use in that situation.

I've witnessed my dad die of cancer, my father in law and my partner has just come threw her cancer battle. The NHS has been there throughout.

I long for the day when there's a cure for these cruel diseases. We spend so much effort thinking of ways to build bigger and more destructive weapons but healthcare seems to be deemed too expensive.