Spring Statement - what nonsense!

[Dragonflytamer]

So according to Reeves it is all going swimmingly, Labour are doing a great job, and we should all be grateful.

She lives in a different world.

Just to add to the general gloom, the OBR calculates that in 2030-- thanks to fiscal drag, the tax burden on income will be 38.3%, which beats the record of 37.2% set in 1948. Pensioners without any private pension will be above the tax threshold, and while the Chancellor has said that state pension will not be taxed
as income, any savings interest will be. So much for saving prudently.

Blimey that is so high. Agree with your pp too, that’s bad too.

Neither would come remotely close to the amount needed.

Rishi Sunak froze TH until 2029 and various previous Govt's froze student loan TH for 10years.

Our tax burden might seem high for us but in a European context, even at 38% it is still low.
With both Germany and France far higher.

Even with tax on savings interest, you still get to keep 20% and if you re a higher rate pensioner, you don't need it "The Shroud has no pockets"

Keeping welfare spending at 2024/25 levels rather than the current sweeties for all would have saved 30bn alone. The government can't keep on giving more and more money to people. The amount people get from welfare insane.

So freeze all in work benefits, pensions, pension credits, disability benefits, all at a time of high food and utilities inflation.

& thats before we get to the effects of that clown Trump on Tariffs and war.

Political suicide too.

Its going to happen at some point. It is completely ridiculous that as a country we disincentivise work so much.

But we get it you're in the benefits for all camp.

Ummm there is a happy median.

Personally, i think benefits should be contributory but thats another argument.

I do think though, some benefits/PIP are far too high but hell, look at the anger from the Tories when they realised the "extra" money for SENDS wont be and the number of children getting it will reduce.

We have almost 1m NEETS, yet a single person, will get as a NMW earner around 4 times what they would get on benefits, so £400 vs £1720, surely thats a good enough incentive, yet we still have 1m NEETS.

@jasflowers doesnt want benefits for all. She's more than happy to take every penny from pensioners who saved into their pensions so that they would not need to claim benefits in old age. They are the ones keeping many people in work as they cant do their own DIY, heavy gardening and sometimes cant cut their own nails or wash their own hair. Very short sighted to think they dont need money - how else do they keep younger people employed. Of course if taxed too much they'll be back to claiming state benefits.

I agree that benefits should be contributory, based on duration of employment, but there need to be opportunities and incentives (perhaps even an element of duress) for young people to work. However, employers also have to be willing to take them on.

My DS eventually found a temp job last summer, and it was turned into an apprenticeship and made permanent a couple of months later, but it's in the southeast and NMW for 40 hours doesn't cover the rent, plus food and bills for a flat share.

Fortunately BoMaD can subsidise for now as we both continue to work PT in our SME, but it isn't taking on anyone new or unskilled. There simply isn't capacity. And there are 20 more SMEs and one-man-bands on our industrial estate alone who are hunkered down worrying about the new landlord's plans to raise rents and impose new leases. If that's the situation in a single postcode, the picture looks bleak.

I think it is better than if the Conservatives had remained in power, not that from 2022 onwards that seemed even a remote possibility.

However you note the successes (and there are several as noted), I do not think it is going at all swimmingly.

I think you are tagging the wrong poster or misread what i wrote.

It was @Dragonflytamer who wants this.

Taxing interest on savings, bear in mind you need £20k min to be paying tax on interest, its also at 20%.

Quite why you think people with money should pay less tax into old age is a bit weird.
Pensioners already don't pay NI and very wealthy pensioners still get a state pensioner and those with an income over 35k get WFA.

How much more do you want to give people at the end of their lives?

WFA stops at £35k @jasflowers but I assume that's a typo. I agree that well-off pensioners should contribute as long as their income is high enough but I also think the NI exemption is justified, given that the rationale underlying it is that it pays for unemployment benefits (by definition, pensioners are ineligible) and state pension (already in receipt).

For everything else, there's income tax, VAT, vehicle and fuel duties, air passenger tax, insurance premium levy, capital gains, SDLT and finally IHT on their (already taxed) estates. Did I miss any big ones?

Our income tax burden on low to moderate incomes may be fairly middle of the road by European standards, but look around you and it is hard to see evidence that it is being well spent. Our infrastructure is aging, the NHS limps along, and we have a huge cadre of ineffectual public "servants" who rush around telling everyone else what they can and can't do. The police don't police, except to issue parking fines and speeding tickets. The UK is cripplingly over-regulated to the point of inertia... by every single government of the last 30 years... all equally culpable.

• Inflation down
No it is higher than before GE
• Waiting lists down dramatically
Some are but 12 months down to 9 maybe 25% but it is still a long time to wait.
• Net migration halved
Students and skilled people prefer to go elsewhere. Or Arabs banned by own Governments because of Radical groups here.
• Economy grown
No only a few factories the closed retail stuff not yet in figures
• Energy price cap coming down by 7%
The key words are going to or should do.
• Strikes ended
Cave in buy them off, easy.
• Breakfast clubs and free school meals
Giving your child breakfast is a parenting job not the state.
• Rail fares frozen
Only some NOT AL, read the small print. Still 2X the European prices

I think it's clear that Labour have already committed political suicide. There's more chance of the Monster Raving Loony Party winning the next GE than Labour. Quite impressive considering they've been spunking taxpayer money on benefits, public sector wages, keeping their union paymasters happy, etc - i.e. their core voters!!

Rishi finished off the Tories, Starmer has finished off Labour. Amazing how we keep getting such utterly useless and incompetent MPs and Ministers.

We're on target for a Reform/Green coalition due to the two major parties (and of course the hapless Libdems) committing political suicide.

Nope @jasflowers tagged the right person. WFA stops at 35k, I also assume that was a typo. You claim that older people dont need money, you'd obviously prefer to push them into a grave by ensuring they cant heat their homes.

The point I am making is that old age is actually very expensive because when you can no longer do as much for yourself you have to pay people to do things for you. Money that remains in the uk economy and keeps people in work, work that is not easily replaced by AI and often done by those who would otherwise be neets. As for the savings - if not used for care needs they will be paying eventually for the funeral. Would you rather the state pay for that too? Have you looked at funeral costs recently - even the most basic will cost thousands. The average cost is over 5k now.

I would like to see higher tax allowances for those over 80.

My main grumble is that borrowing money to pay welfare benefits is a hiding to nowhere.......... and I cannot believe that the Greens, Reform, Labour and the Lib Dems are all colluding in this mass deception.

The Tories, of course, had already shown themselves incapable and were handed their marching orders in July 2024.

Indeed they were also incapable. The point is that Labour are no better. Hence why a majority are now preferring the Greens and Reform!

Where have all the capable MPs and ministers disappeared to??

I wish I knew! I would struggle to vote right now. More likely to spoil the ballot paper.

I really wish I was 50 rather than 70. I think I would stand for Parliament now. Past misdemeanours are probably forgotten, and I have much better formed opinions and ideas as to what should happen, for everyone to progress.

Yes 35k threshold, very generous isn't it.

Its the very fact we have paid less in tax, over decades, than our European neighbours is why we have awful public services & roads.

It never used to be like this, even in the 70s, lane to the village got resurfaced every year, we had a local maternity hospital, with a 24hr AE, dental services etc all gone, the lane is actually dangerous now.

But Govts cut cut and cut in the name of "efficiencies/tax cuts" but all we end up with is this.

Thing is, the Tories totally screwed up public services. They decimated them. Labour can only reverse the damage at a slow rate as people don’t want to pay the necessary taxes needed to fix the many years of Tory damage. Tories only care for the rich.

Yes, heaven forbid we pay public sector workers a decent wage and support the poor and vulnerable. Much better to make the rich even richer like the Tories do…

Unfortunately Starmer only cares for himself, not the poor, the rich or anyone in between, just himself, likewise Reeves.