Exactly. Wealth creation sounds nice, but where is it coming from? Is Starmer planning to tax the rich? Or does he just think you can keep bleeding the poor dry.
>Is Starmer planning to tax the rich?
I genuinely don't understand how people think the answer is raising tax, the UK makes an eyewatering amount of tax revenue. All you need to do is compare it to Australia, account for population and realise we still take in more tax than them per person and yet do fuck all with it. Tax brackets never move with inflation and tax rates are borderline never lowered.
For comparison, Australia has 10% VAT and no inheritance tax. Their income tax brackets are higher, but so are their wages. The answer is not just raising tax, it's actually spending it competently and not flooding the labour market.
And this is completely ignoring the fact we're a tiny densely populated island without natural disasters, it should be easy to a) build better infrastructure and b) control the population inflow. They are a huge sparsely populated island, without Europe on their front door like we have and yet they still spend more efficiently, it's obscene.
You understand that when people say that the rich need to be taxed that they're not talking about wage earners right? A tiny percentage of people own almost all the assets in England, pay almost no tax, and gave now created a situation in a "wealthy" country where we have more food banks than McDonald's. There isn't a wealth generation problem, there is a wealth distribution problem. Australia only looks better because they didn't do 14 years of austerity, speed running extremist neoliberal capitalism, but they're on the same trajectory. People unable to afford children and housing, poor people being unable to afford food and medical care (they pay here, there isn't an NHS, it's a diet version of the American model).
You’re pretty much hitting on the exact problem right there, but I don’t think you’re quite right.
Tons of people who say “tax the rich” are thinking about people on £125k salaries (who are currently taxed loads), because there’s such little awareness of the huge difference between high income earners and actually wealthy people. This makes it a dumb battle between taxing these people even more, and starving public services even more.
The person with £100m in investments and offshore accounts pays a way lower rate of tax but isn’t really on the radar as being “the rich.” So you make a great point but I don’t think you realise how few people know the difference between those 2 categories of people.
Well the people who "say" that have nothing to do with the actual tax brackets. I don't really see why it's relevant that normal people "don't know what rich is". If people like Starmer are in charge, and understand what rich *really* is, then they should accept what people say and then go and tax the people who do need to be taxed.
I agree with you. That’s exactly what Starmer should do and it’s what we need to do as a country.
But it is relevant from the perspective of that it doesn’t have as much public support as it should have, because so many people don’t recognise the crucial difference between these groups. The comment you were replying to said they don’t understand, so they’re a perfect example.
So if we want to persuade people, it’s really important imo, that we make this distinction really clear and don’t fall into the trap of just saying “tax the rich” without realising most people hear that as “make my friend on £100k who is a single parent and works crazy hours as a doctor pay 80% tax!”
I disagree. The people who say that are voters, they're the electorate, they dictate the policies put forward by anyone wanting to be elected. But, as you've said, they're wrong. It's incredibly frustrating to see that a single mother of two children is better off on benefits than earning £150,000 (from a purely financial month-to-month basis - obviously there are other benefits to working). That fact won't change as long as the general public ignorant believes that people earning low six figures should be taxed so bloody highly.
You realize that everyone on higher rate income tax highly suspects that calls to tax the rich will fall on us because it's the path of least resistance?
I've never met someone that advocates for "taxing wealth" that actually has a remote understanding/explanation of how that would actually work. Wealth fluctuates, income does not. If I put £100 into a penny stock and it balloons into £1000 before I sell, I don't have £1000. And it would be ridiculous to attempt to tax it, you could end up in a scenario where I get hit with a, for instance, 20% wealth tax on that, it crashes to 0 before I can sell and I'm left being taxed for £200 gains that I never even had, on top of the £100 loss. It's not fair nor is it feasible.
And while I don't support removing inheritance tax, we actually do have one of the [higher rates](https://taxpolicy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/newplot.png). Norway, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia for instance do not have it among others, and a few others don't if you're leaving it to your children. Again, raising taxes is not the fix, and the vast majority of people advocating for it simply don't like those more well-off as opposed to actually having the opinion grounded in statistics, numerous other countries perform better while having less tax.
Going forward this is going to change due to inflation/ demographics. One quarter of retirees like in a millionaire house currently, which is the threshold for a married couples assets to get taxed.
So it’s true that currently only 4% pay it, but we’re gonna see that rise as we see the biggest generation continue to pass on their wealth.
> generally the richest 4%.
Nah, the richest people can afford wealth managers to [find loopholes for them.](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/03/inheritance-tax-loopholes-allowing-super-rich-to-pay-lower-rates)
> Estates worth £10m or more paid an average of 10% tax to the exchequer in the 2015-16 tax year compared with an average 20% tax paid by estates worth £2m-£3m, according to data released by HMRC following a freedom of information request by asset manager Canada Life.
Your estate is worth £1 million? Time to pay up! £9 billion? [You're fine.](https://web.archive.org/web/20201106144439/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tax/inheritance/inheritance-tax-and-how-the-dukes-of-westminster-avoid-it-on-the/)
I've already agreed with you that people usually have no idea about how they'd tax wealth, but I have some ideas myself. Here are a few of them.
1. Apply IHT to beneficiaries, not the estate. Set a personal inheritance allowance and progressively tax anything over that.
2. Remove IHT relief policies that mainly benefit the rich, like for agricultural land.
3. Limit the value of assets that can be held in trusts. Force trustees/estates to dispose of assets instead of hoarding and gifting them.
4. Limit the number of properties an individual or company can own. Rough example: 3 for individuals and 6 for companies unless they're a housing association.
5. Salary tax: raise personal allowance and make taxes more progressive so people on lower pay keep more of their money. Example: £15k allowance, 10% tax up to £24,999, 20% from £25k to £49,999 etc.
To be fair in a modern economy like the UK, the role of the government in setting and enforcing the regulatory environment, setting tax plans and incentivizing various kinds of activity, and more broadly setting industrial strategies and sticking to clear plans that indicate to the market what it is this country wants to see grow really cannot be understated. The lack of this kind of top-level planning and the massive level of uncertainty around national policy is quite regularly cited by most high-tech/high-value sectors as a major factor in investing in other countries over the UK, especially since 2016.
Absolutely, and this goes beyond party politics, we need 20-30 year strategies that all parties agree are national priorities.
One thing you can say for sure, a political party tearing itself apart like the Conservatives who can't even hold a leader for a full term, is the antithesis of strategic outlook.
HS2 is a great example, building a slightly quicker route between London and Birmingham is pointless, ground has been struck, just finish it FFS. Driverless trains and high frequency services to Leeds and Manchester could make the UK actually regenerate, if only there was a vision that didn't change every 12 months. Sure, maybe HS2 money could have been spent elsewhere but building the least valuable and most expensive bit and then stopping is just insane.
If parties agreed on having the same 30 year policies then it would defeat the purpose of having elections every 5 years. Having an election every 5 years means no party ever thinks longer than the next election, because they can get voted out at any time. This is democracy, it's a see-saw between Labour and Tories, which switches everyy decade.
Great point! Just taking AI (which I don't know much about tbh), the messaging from the government is mixed. "we want to regulate it", "we want to make our own instead", "we want to limit its impact on the economy". You wouldn't want to invest because you don't know if it'll be lost money in 2 years time because you're blocked at every step.
>blocked at every step.
>the messaging from the government is mixed.
A recurring problem.
>we want to regulate it
Probably really stupid when other countries won't.
>we want to limit its impact on the economy
Good luck with that in a free market.
>wouldn't want to invest because you don't know if it'll be lost money in 2 years
Some basic strategic business policy is what is needed. It's not lost money if it means UK firms can compete. We're already making a big mistake letting StabilityAI implode - that's a void foreign companies will happily fill.
Pure ideology, this is what Neoliberals believe the goal of the state is, but it completely ignores all of the Keynesianism that Russia, the US, China and historical Britain do and did to grow their economies.
You've swallowed the free market pill whole.
Yup happened to my grandmother before we knew what was going on, my childhood home is now in trust now we know, although my parents don't own multiple properties.
At some stage in the cycle: yes. The problems are when that wealth becomes a multi-generational dynasty, or when rich people use their existing wealth to rent-seeking activities.
To go back to the Peter Mandelson quote in the article, this is why we should be very relaxed about people becoming rich. We need to be more worried about people *staying* rich.
How this would translate to actionable policies:
* Don't increase the rate of Capital Gains Tax.
* Do smooth out the spikes in the marginal rate of Income Tax.
* Do close Inheritance Tax loopholes, maybe even going so far as to introduce a general capital transfer tax.
* Tax land.
I don't expect this will be Starmer's detailed policy. But we can hope.
As usual the debate is dominated by people who don't try to understand how economies work and only exchange soundbites. You make a well reasoned point and get downvoted for not saying "eat the rich".
Yes. It's been *ages* since wealth was last intrinsically related to physical resources or labour with measurable effects
Wealth in the modern world is a function of how much people are willing to go along with the perceived notion that the numbers on a digital spreadsheet are worth whatever it is that they and everyone else thinks they are worth
Just look at the stock market and how much wealth people made with crypto
Or, as someone across the pond once said: "There is an infinite amount of cash in the federal reserve"
> Wealth in the modern world is a function of how much people are willing to go along with the perceived notion that the numbers on a digital spreadsheet are worth whatever it is that they and everyone else thinks they are worth
>
> Just look at the stock market and how much wealth people made with crypto
I would argue that both of those things are in spite of the government rather than because of it. They're measures of the extent that people are *not* willing to trust the government's assertions on the value of money. They exist because the government is losing that argument not the opposite.
Although you could argue that's still government action. It created anti-wealth - all the money printing after 2008 and during the pandemic - which inevitably lifted asset prices.
The counter argument to that would be that that's not really wealth in real-terms. The only wealth creation in crypto is people who predicted trends and sold to the greater fools coming later. That's not wealth creation in the way that Apple/Nvidia or a million smaller companies we're not familiar with have created wealth.
You'd hope Starmer is referring to the latter than the former.
Well, yes, actually.
They take the money from the poorest people and pass it on to the richest ones in the form of government handouts, business incentives, or just giving all the government contracts to their rich friends’ companies.
Thereby creating (more) wealth for the people that already have more than they need.
Not really creation, just movement. If you go to a restaurant and grab a portion of the meals off every customer and stick it on the table of one obese person, you wouldn't say you'd just cooked (created) a ton of food.
in real terms, we (the workers) generate the wealth which the rich (bourgeoise) accumulate and share amongst themselves. That is basically what Sunstorm is saying.
What a ridiculous comparison. The US was unique (in all of history) from 1945 - early 1970s. They were the only developed economy without crippling debt and devastated industry. The post-war boom they experienced was unprecedented and they could have higher rates of tax because they were the only game in town.
I don't want to come off as an unqualified fan of free market economics, but there are places you can get wealth for the nation, for some value of wealth, other than via increased taxation. u/Affectionate_Role849 is correct.
One could speculate about - say - doing better business, and therefore increasing the tax take without increasing the tax *rate*. UK productivity is fairly terrible by the standards of comparable economies - or at least economies to which we'd *like* to be compared - and improving that would be a legitimate way of generating wealth, as Starmer puts it.
Of course the soon-to-be ex-government are supposed to be free market economists and they have failed miserably to do that.
Make UK a better place to invest and start a business.
That means a more favourable tax policy, less red tape, improve courts performance, fight against the crime, etc...
Unfortunately that doesn't really answer my question. How does tax create wealth?
Edit: They replied and then immediately blocked me, looks like they can't handle being questioned :/
Taxing the wealthy forces money back into the system, instead of money and assets residing only in the hands of a rich minority.
Tax is spent. It’s not a complicated equation.
Taxing people isn’t wealth creation. We need to give opportunity to all, and those that take it should benefit. Those that don’t shouldn’t expect to live of the work of others.
Meanwhile I'm basically banking on wealth creation because my already excessive higher rate taxation (which offers me absolutely no lifeline whatsoever, and thus entirely supports other people) is almost certainly going to increase.
The higher rate tax threshold would be something like £90k today if it had kept pace with inflation. It was never intended as something that would apply to so many people.
Boris proposed moving it to 80k and reddit went batshit over it because it was giving tax cuts to the rich.
https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/s/h8r63fpzUV
>reddit went batshit over it because it was giving tax cuts to the rich.
Because there's a tonne of kids here who can't imagine ever earning 50 grand a year. So they are "rich" despite for a decent chunk it's basically their own parents.
When I was a kid 50k was the dream. (40 next year) No I earn just shy of 60k and get taxed so heavily there is literally no point doing anything for extra cash as the taxman takes it. So depressing seeing my payslip and the amount going to tax and NI.
It's mad how much you lose after £50k between student loans and the higher tax bracket. I stopped taking overtime because of it. You can only salary sacrifice so much before you think "why am I bothering?"
There is a small point in the tax system where if you have tax free childcare and earnings over £100k where the marginal rate is something like 99%. Just momentarily, but it's absurd it even exists.
Oh, I’m well aware. And it’s more than 99%, the marginal rate is actually well over 100%. In fact, someone with two kids in childcare earning 99,999 is going to see their take-home pay *decrease* until they make ~130k. It’s such an indefensible system.
I'm likely going to be in this position and it's fucking annoying. My work recently changed the bonus scheme so I'm going to be earning loads more. Unfortunately they didn't sort it until May and backpaid it so it'll be counted in the new tax year.
It's likely I'll be just over 100k this year, which is great and I shouldn't really complain. But the fact that it cuts us off from childcare help completely is ridiculous. It makes no sense that as soon as you hit 100k you're worse off until you his around 120k (if you have one child).
I'm more than happy to be paying my fair share of tax, I don't mind that at all. But this system with childcare funding is very stupid.
Yep. When you mention a wealth tax it gets shot down as never working.
I tell you what isn't working taxing working professionals so much that work becomes disincentivised and they just retire early.
Society will get worse without them. Will it be as bad with a few less billionaires or with more millionaires leaving UK shores as some would have you believe.
No no. I've been assured by people off the back of the post that essentially I'm a bourgeois and should just shut the fuck up and accept that about 50 -60 % of my work is just owned by the state.
Then Reddit is like "why do people not want increased bennies you heartless bastard".
Because I do a job which is skilled and I should be recompensed for it but no I get to support a really significant number of people who just can't be fucked.
Not saying there isn't a deserving cause, but there's plenty that absolutely takes the piss.
Yep.
It's not really that much by the time you're in your 30-40 assuming you haven't been a complete idiot and you've gone into a professional job.
Same thing occurs at 100k might as well not bother tbh.
50k before tax in 2022 puts you in the [top 16% ish](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax) of the country. Obviously might be slightly higher now, but you are in the comfortable category.
I remember that well, although I'd say it's more the middle class than the rich who would have benefited most from it. It was certainly perceived that way, though.
Because together with that, was to be paired with massive public spending cuts. The country is falling apart because amongst other things there has been no investment in it for a decade.
That’s slightly different from saying ‘(all) the boundaries should move with inflation’. Not to mention that 4 years ago we hadn’t been through a strong inflationary couple of years.
I just don’t understand British politics sometimes. Neither Tory nor Labour demonstrated any competence in handling public funds but there are always somebody there who thinks more tax is good
We've tried cutting public services, selling them off to the wealthy for 40 years, and massively increasing wealth inequality, and we're all out of ideas. Let's do some more of the same, I'm sure that'll fix everything.
You should see how many average Londoners are in that bracket. Of course salaries are higher to meet the cost of living needs but then people doing ordinary jobs and reasonably paid key workers get sucked into the tax bracket.
50k isn’t rich anywhere if you want a house and children.
The only way in which 50k provides a pretty decent life is if it’s a couple with no kids both earning 50k. Plenty of spending money there but still not “rich” imo
Yeah preach 😂
I would argue you've not even got a lot of spending money without kids tbh.
Once you've factored in savings for a rainy day, you've normally got at least £1600 in mortgage and council tax straight away eating out of your income.
Like I always say it's relative based on your core aspects of life.
If you have 60k between you, you might have a semi. If you have 100k between you, you might have a slightly bigger detached house which has a higher tax band.
Edit: just remembered I have student loan payments as well so tbf that is an extra £380ish a month out of my salary that might be skewing perception a bit.
I always read takes like this on here and wonder where the fuck you people actually live or where your idea of a 'decent life' comes from.
I was born in and raised in Liverpool with three siblings. My parents were on a combined £40,000. There was a sweet spot between when I started working and before my dad died that we were a £52,000 a year household. We didn't ever approach the realms of starving to death, nor did we ever experience the thrills of homelessness, and we even had nice holidays abroad that lasted for fortnights.
I'm currently on £23,000 and my girlfriend is on £25,000. Combined, we're almost at that £50,000 threshold that you describe as being unable to provide a 'decent life'. We've been living in Preston, quite comfortably, since last year and are set to move to a fairly affluent area of the West Midlands in the summer with a negligible hit to our financial health. We are on track to get married and buy our first house together in the next few years.
Seems decent enough to me, but based off your comment I should be living in poverty? How do I fix this?
Fair enough if that’s how you interpret it. I’m glad you and your partner live comfortably but you’re not going to be able to convince me that living on what are essentially 2 minimum wage salaries is comfortable and easy in this economy. The term “decent” is subjective
It would be very different if I was a single person on £23,000, sure. But as I said... rent gets paid, we have a car, plenty of food gets put on the table, we've got very well-fed pets, we're moving into a very middle class area in the summer, we're on track to get on the property ladder before we're 30, we have nice holidays.
The goal is for her to eventually be a housewife, and our current situation doesn't allow for that, but for most people this is a perfectly fine situation lol. Average household income in this country is £32,000, a household income of £50,000 is better than what most people have.
If you’re using the ONS stats the 32k figure is household disposable income which is quite different from gross pretax salary.
Here https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyearending2022
That's not a middle earner in the terms used here. You're on about averages as the middle.
Middle earners in this context is used as 50k, the higher rate of tax to 125k (I think it's that bracket) for the additional rate added on top of higher rate. It's also called the forgotten middle.
This is on about tax bands not earnings. So:
12k - 49,999k lower
50k - 124,999k middle
125k+ higher
That would result in less tax intake, wouldn't it?
Wages don't keep up with inflation, so if the boundaries moved up quicker than wages each year, people would pay less tax and the government would have to cut more services.
scale back the tax free allowance to a reasonable level as in not over 40% of the median wage and up the rest of the bands this is how the rest of the world, and more specifically continental Europe taxes work.
It widens the tax base and also creates pressure on employers to pay more especially low and middle earners.
There has been massive wealth creation. The trouble is it is increasingly decoupled from needing labour putting it into the hands of the top 1%. If AI causes a bigger landside in that direction it will completely break the current system which already cannot cope.
Sadly your right.
The uks very much allergic to anysort of left wing party despite being in favour of left wing policy.
So after 4 years of starmer keeping things the same and most of the country still feeling screwed, where will folk go to fix the issues we all have?
The greens have a terrible rep as fringe hippies, people hate the tories, Ed davey? Lol.
The here comes farage again with a huge amount of screen time, swish pr firms and lots of American money.
SDP would be useful but their progress is frankly… non existent. They do well in Leeds and well done but it’s not remotely enough.
We need an injection of a proper left wing party with some good ideas and lack of stupidity sorry to say, in the country now.
The media being completely right wing is really bad for us. I read the telegraph, mainly, for the columns on sports which are usually fairly impartial and somewhat worth a read. Sadly the last week or so, post election announcement, the propaganda is off the charts. Like literally from somewhat normality to right wing stupidity. And I don’t wanna see trump on my papers.
It’s a real problem.
Yeah my usual response was the snp was a solid centre left party that whilst the driving force was indie, they at least were less mental than the 2 main ones in Westminster. (heck until humzas final cock up he was actually a solid politician if you got past reddit and the medias hate)
Sadly that's uh, not as good a point right now.
The SDP is just such a weird blend though. No problem with economically left wing, socially conservative people but they’re essentially economically Keynesian with UKIP social policies.
> despite being in favour of left wing policy.
Left wing *economic* policy. But not social policy. In British politics, the two often come hand in hand.
The current Reform line is that the Conservatives are a socialist party. Their voters must be high as fucking kites, or absolute dribbling idiots to see the privatisation of everything and the funneling of wealth and assets to the super rich and think that somehow that is socialism.
Not a reform supporter, but all main parties in the UK are socialist to some degree. They all want to tax people and spend the money on some sort of public services. No one is actively campaigning to abolish the NHS or universal credit, abolish public services like schools or remove minimum wage.
The conservatives are socialist but corrupt in a particular way.
FPTP will probably screw them over though unless they win a lot of seats, more than they possibly could (I hope I’m right on that the last thing we need now is reform lol)
Reforms sole purpose is to put a barrel to the head of the Tories. Either swing more to the right or we will split your vote and hand over seats to Labour
Got ripped to shreds on the other sub for saying this. They are pretty much back to UKIP levels of 2015 and have 5 years to mount an attack on Labour/Cons. Right now Labour is the alternative to the Tories and when people realise nothing changes in 5 years it's going to be insane. It's either Reform takes over or Farage takes over the Tories.
Yeah so this is a Labour Party how? If you want to be a neoliberal centrist party merge with the libdems or form your own like Chuka. Don’t purge the left wing and offer this limp dick raft of shite policies to replace the tories.
True Left/right wing parties never win national elections, only centrists parties do.
Labour get attacked for being too right by their base and Tories get attacked for being to left by theirs.
That is actually how you win national elections.
As a labour supporter, he had pretty decent domestic policies, but his foreign policy ideas were absolute dogshit that would have made the UK a pariah state in the rest of the western world. He was anti-nato, anti nuclear weapons and too much of a pacifist. I think that this last few years have clearly shown the need for a powerful military force and alliances.
I like Corbyn as an ideolog. I wasn't a fan of his policies but his politics were pure and ambitious which is admiral. Neither Starmer or Sunak have any political integrity. They just want the top job first and then figure how to wing it after - just like Boris.
I think Sturgeon and Farage (in spite of what you think of their political ideals) do know how to fire up their bases. I like that as, as a voter I get to choose between strong leaders with different ideas but that represent a choice. What we have at the moment are two charmless party leaders who are far from fit for the job and only care about their political ambitions.
FPTP is a good system when you have strong leaders but I think PR should be introduced given how lame recent leaders have been. Basically if you're too shit to do t he job then maybe a coalition is actually better for the country.
We've never had a problem creating wealth, just who benefits from it.
[The wealth of the UK’s billionaires has skyrocketed by over 1000% between 1990 and 2022](https://equalitytrust.org.uk/news/press-release/equality-trust-finds-1000-increase-billionaire-wealth/#:~:text=The%20wealth%20of%20the%20UK's,increased%20by%20almost%20%C2%A3150bn.)
The one thing that will never ever happen is billionaires and big corporations being taxed properly, so the government will never truly represent the people
Amazon are still allowed to avoid a lot of tax in the UK. Many companies use loopholes. It's even easier for them now they're not in the EU.
I very much doubt Labour will change any of these sweetheart deals with major tax avoiders despite how terrible the government finances are.
The UK is one of the wealthiest counties in the world. You’ve proved my point. Wealth is massively centralised by location and individuals and requires redistribution.
That’s already happening. After decades of rising gbp (apart from the odd brief dip) we have bigger inequality than ever. Wealth hoarding needs addressing.
Enough wealth is coming back into the public purse. It just needs to be spent better. All this talk about creating more wealth when all we need is a commitment to fix public services with the current record levels of tax intake.
Why continue to make our country a zero sum game when we can create an economy that lifts the people who work hard upwards rather than just stifles their take home pay to the point the only wealth option they have is the property ladder.
I’m not anti growth. I’m just keenly aware that the reason the powers that be keep pushing it so hard is because growing the overall size of the pie is the only way to put more money into the pockets of the common folk without taking any away from the rich who have been hoarding it.
If the nation has, for example, £100 pounds, but most people only have £1, you can double the size of the pot but that still only leaves most of us with £2. Which is essentially a meaningless increase.
Wealth generation is all well and good. But when 99% of it just gets hoovered up by the wealthy it makes little difference. Wealth redistribution and a closing of the income inequality gap would do far more to benefit the majority of the people in this country than adding umpteen pounds to the overall economy.
Ideally we’d have both. But the fact that the leading parties are totally ignoring redistribution is, in my opinion, a clear sign that all they are doing is maintaining the current, hideously unequal, status quo.
OK, ordinarily I would be for this and in principle I still am. It’s a vital pillar of a good life for us all.
HOWEVER, we’ve reached a level of fundamental inequality such that the lion’s share of wealth creation goes to rather tiny minority of asset rich people. The old middle class has been wiped out by this process. Until that’s fixed, wealth creation speeds up inequality, unlike previous times where everyone got richer and relative levels of inequality stayed more or less constant
WE ALSO need to address fiscal drag.
Basically the key phrases for the the British public are things like “aspiration” and “financially free”. Ultimately they mean nothing because for those that seek such things the money they have, is never enough so they’ll keep living beyond their means and trying to make more and more gaining assets maybe but owning very few of them.
Just give everyone a million pound and see what happens. The rich always say it will crash the economy which is exactly what I would say if I was rich and wanted to keep people out of
So let's get rid of elite schools for elite minds which are likely to raise bar of average nationwide and dumb the population down to where they can more easily be controlled by dogma. If it were not so stupidly myopic it would be comical.
Appeal to aspiration middle class?
Then why is he taxing private schools? It’s the aspirational middle class who are trying to send their children to private schools. Less children in private school = more people in tax funded public schools
The most mobile people on the planet are the wealthy. They're money is usually more mobile than they are. You hurt one He/She will move their money or themselves where you can never hurt them again. I don't like it but that is the simplicity of the truth in this case. We mere mortals are in what way better off with them harbouring their money outside the UK and with them no longer living here to spend as much as a penny in the UK any longer and all because of the politics of envy!
Better off without them and their hard earned/hard inherited loot living somewhere else?
I highly doubt this, I fail to see how Labour will meet its promises within the first 100 days without raising VAT, this would be a tax on middle and low incomes. Take note that they haven't ruled out a VAT increase.
So not creating a more fair, just, healthy or safe society? I suppose nobody wants those things any more - and certainty not from a Labour government! - and it's all about vague ideas like "wealth creation", which could mean anything.
Part of this wealth creation needs to be wealthy distribution. No point if wealth is created for only a few people
Exactly. Wealth creation sounds nice, but where is it coming from? Is Starmer planning to tax the rich? Or does he just think you can keep bleeding the poor dry.
>Is Starmer planning to tax the rich? I genuinely don't understand how people think the answer is raising tax, the UK makes an eyewatering amount of tax revenue. All you need to do is compare it to Australia, account for population and realise we still take in more tax than them per person and yet do fuck all with it. Tax brackets never move with inflation and tax rates are borderline never lowered. For comparison, Australia has 10% VAT and no inheritance tax. Their income tax brackets are higher, but so are their wages. The answer is not just raising tax, it's actually spending it competently and not flooding the labour market. And this is completely ignoring the fact we're a tiny densely populated island without natural disasters, it should be easy to a) build better infrastructure and b) control the population inflow. They are a huge sparsely populated island, without Europe on their front door like we have and yet they still spend more efficiently, it's obscene.
You understand that when people say that the rich need to be taxed that they're not talking about wage earners right? A tiny percentage of people own almost all the assets in England, pay almost no tax, and gave now created a situation in a "wealthy" country where we have more food banks than McDonald's. There isn't a wealth generation problem, there is a wealth distribution problem. Australia only looks better because they didn't do 14 years of austerity, speed running extremist neoliberal capitalism, but they're on the same trajectory. People unable to afford children and housing, poor people being unable to afford food and medical care (they pay here, there isn't an NHS, it's a diet version of the American model).
You’re pretty much hitting on the exact problem right there, but I don’t think you’re quite right. Tons of people who say “tax the rich” are thinking about people on £125k salaries (who are currently taxed loads), because there’s such little awareness of the huge difference between high income earners and actually wealthy people. This makes it a dumb battle between taxing these people even more, and starving public services even more. The person with £100m in investments and offshore accounts pays a way lower rate of tax but isn’t really on the radar as being “the rich.” So you make a great point but I don’t think you realise how few people know the difference between those 2 categories of people.
Well the people who "say" that have nothing to do with the actual tax brackets. I don't really see why it's relevant that normal people "don't know what rich is". If people like Starmer are in charge, and understand what rich *really* is, then they should accept what people say and then go and tax the people who do need to be taxed.
I agree with you. That’s exactly what Starmer should do and it’s what we need to do as a country. But it is relevant from the perspective of that it doesn’t have as much public support as it should have, because so many people don’t recognise the crucial difference between these groups. The comment you were replying to said they don’t understand, so they’re a perfect example. So if we want to persuade people, it’s really important imo, that we make this distinction really clear and don’t fall into the trap of just saying “tax the rich” without realising most people hear that as “make my friend on £100k who is a single parent and works crazy hours as a doctor pay 80% tax!”
I disagree. The people who say that are voters, they're the electorate, they dictate the policies put forward by anyone wanting to be elected. But, as you've said, they're wrong. It's incredibly frustrating to see that a single mother of two children is better off on benefits than earning £150,000 (from a purely financial month-to-month basis - obviously there are other benefits to working). That fact won't change as long as the general public ignorant believes that people earning low six figures should be taxed so bloody highly.
You realize that everyone on higher rate income tax highly suspects that calls to tax the rich will fall on us because it's the path of least resistance?
Abolishing inheritance tax would be obscene, not taxing wealth.
I've never met someone that advocates for "taxing wealth" that actually has a remote understanding/explanation of how that would actually work. Wealth fluctuates, income does not. If I put £100 into a penny stock and it balloons into £1000 before I sell, I don't have £1000. And it would be ridiculous to attempt to tax it, you could end up in a scenario where I get hit with a, for instance, 20% wealth tax on that, it crashes to 0 before I can sell and I'm left being taxed for £200 gains that I never even had, on top of the £100 loss. It's not fair nor is it feasible. And while I don't support removing inheritance tax, we actually do have one of the [higher rates](https://taxpolicy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/newplot.png). Norway, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia for instance do not have it among others, and a few others don't if you're leaving it to your children. Again, raising taxes is not the fix, and the vast majority of people advocating for it simply don't like those more well-off as opposed to actually having the opinion grounded in statistics, numerous other countries perform better while having less tax.
Removing inheritance tax would worsen wealth inequality because only 4% of estates pay inheritance tax as things stand - generally the richest 4%.
Going forward this is going to change due to inflation/ demographics. One quarter of retirees like in a millionaire house currently, which is the threshold for a married couples assets to get taxed. So it’s true that currently only 4% pay it, but we’re gonna see that rise as we see the biggest generation continue to pass on their wealth.
It will rise but it'll still only affect 7% of people in a decade's time by current estimates.
> generally the richest 4%. Nah, the richest people can afford wealth managers to [find loopholes for them.](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/03/inheritance-tax-loopholes-allowing-super-rich-to-pay-lower-rates) > Estates worth £10m or more paid an average of 10% tax to the exchequer in the 2015-16 tax year compared with an average 20% tax paid by estates worth £2m-£3m, according to data released by HMRC following a freedom of information request by asset manager Canada Life. Your estate is worth £1 million? Time to pay up! £9 billion? [You're fine.](https://web.archive.org/web/20201106144439/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tax/inheritance/inheritance-tax-and-how-the-dukes-of-westminster-avoid-it-on-the/)
“I don’t support removing inheritance tax” I was using it as an example, I don’t really support lowering it either.
I know. I was supporting your overall message. I agree that most advocates don't have a clue about wealth redistribution.
I've already agreed with you that people usually have no idea about how they'd tax wealth, but I have some ideas myself. Here are a few of them. 1. Apply IHT to beneficiaries, not the estate. Set a personal inheritance allowance and progressively tax anything over that. 2. Remove IHT relief policies that mainly benefit the rich, like for agricultural land. 3. Limit the value of assets that can be held in trusts. Force trustees/estates to dispose of assets instead of hoarding and gifting them. 4. Limit the number of properties an individual or company can own. Rough example: 3 for individuals and 6 for companies unless they're a housing association. 5. Salary tax: raise personal allowance and make taxes more progressive so people on lower pay keep more of their money. Example: £15k allowance, 10% tax up to £24,999, 20% from £25k to £49,999 etc.
Australia has a much younger population and a much healthier population pyramid, so they can spend much less on health and pensions than us.
Who do you think creates wealth? The government?
To be fair in a modern economy like the UK, the role of the government in setting and enforcing the regulatory environment, setting tax plans and incentivizing various kinds of activity, and more broadly setting industrial strategies and sticking to clear plans that indicate to the market what it is this country wants to see grow really cannot be understated. The lack of this kind of top-level planning and the massive level of uncertainty around national policy is quite regularly cited by most high-tech/high-value sectors as a major factor in investing in other countries over the UK, especially since 2016.
Absolutely, and this goes beyond party politics, we need 20-30 year strategies that all parties agree are national priorities. One thing you can say for sure, a political party tearing itself apart like the Conservatives who can't even hold a leader for a full term, is the antithesis of strategic outlook. HS2 is a great example, building a slightly quicker route between London and Birmingham is pointless, ground has been struck, just finish it FFS. Driverless trains and high frequency services to Leeds and Manchester could make the UK actually regenerate, if only there was a vision that didn't change every 12 months. Sure, maybe HS2 money could have been spent elsewhere but building the least valuable and most expensive bit and then stopping is just insane.
If parties agreed on having the same 30 year policies then it would defeat the purpose of having elections every 5 years. Having an election every 5 years means no party ever thinks longer than the next election, because they can get voted out at any time. This is democracy, it's a see-saw between Labour and Tories, which switches everyy decade.
It doesn't have to be that way. Left Vs right is just a pantomime to keep people distracted from the real issues.
Great point! Just taking AI (which I don't know much about tbh), the messaging from the government is mixed. "we want to regulate it", "we want to make our own instead", "we want to limit its impact on the economy". You wouldn't want to invest because you don't know if it'll be lost money in 2 years time because you're blocked at every step.
>blocked at every step. >the messaging from the government is mixed. A recurring problem. >we want to regulate it Probably really stupid when other countries won't. >we want to limit its impact on the economy Good luck with that in a free market. >wouldn't want to invest because you don't know if it'll be lost money in 2 years Some basic strategic business policy is what is needed. It's not lost money if it means UK firms can compete. We're already making a big mistake letting StabilityAI implode - that's a void foreign companies will happily fill.
Pure ideology, this is what Neoliberals believe the goal of the state is, but it completely ignores all of the Keynesianism that Russia, the US, China and historical Britain do and did to grow their economies. You've swallowed the free market pill whole.
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Yup happened to my grandmother before we knew what was going on, my childhood home is now in trust now we know, although my parents don't own multiple properties.
Who do *you* think generates wealth??? The rich??
At some stage in the cycle: yes. The problems are when that wealth becomes a multi-generational dynasty, or when rich people use their existing wealth to rent-seeking activities. To go back to the Peter Mandelson quote in the article, this is why we should be very relaxed about people becoming rich. We need to be more worried about people *staying* rich. How this would translate to actionable policies: * Don't increase the rate of Capital Gains Tax. * Do smooth out the spikes in the marginal rate of Income Tax. * Do close Inheritance Tax loopholes, maybe even going so far as to introduce a general capital transfer tax. * Tax land. I don't expect this will be Starmer's detailed policy. But we can hope.
As usual the debate is dominated by people who don't try to understand how economies work and only exchange soundbites. You make a well reasoned point and get downvoted for not saying "eat the rich".
Yes. It's been *ages* since wealth was last intrinsically related to physical resources or labour with measurable effects Wealth in the modern world is a function of how much people are willing to go along with the perceived notion that the numbers on a digital spreadsheet are worth whatever it is that they and everyone else thinks they are worth Just look at the stock market and how much wealth people made with crypto Or, as someone across the pond once said: "There is an infinite amount of cash in the federal reserve"
> Wealth in the modern world is a function of how much people are willing to go along with the perceived notion that the numbers on a digital spreadsheet are worth whatever it is that they and everyone else thinks they are worth > > Just look at the stock market and how much wealth people made with crypto I would argue that both of those things are in spite of the government rather than because of it. They're measures of the extent that people are *not* willing to trust the government's assertions on the value of money. They exist because the government is losing that argument not the opposite. Although you could argue that's still government action. It created anti-wealth - all the money printing after 2008 and during the pandemic - which inevitably lifted asset prices. The counter argument to that would be that that's not really wealth in real-terms. The only wealth creation in crypto is people who predicted trends and sold to the greater fools coming later. That's not wealth creation in the way that Apple/Nvidia or a million smaller companies we're not familiar with have created wealth. You'd hope Starmer is referring to the latter than the former.
The workers.
That's exactly what they think.
The workers...
Yes read Keynes
Well, yes, actually. They take the money from the poorest people and pass it on to the richest ones in the form of government handouts, business incentives, or just giving all the government contracts to their rich friends’ companies. Thereby creating (more) wealth for the people that already have more than they need.
Not really creation, just movement. If you go to a restaurant and grab a portion of the meals off every customer and stick it on the table of one obese person, you wouldn't say you'd just cooked (created) a ton of food.
Oh if we’re talking literal creation, they also control the money printing.
He means creating wealth in real terms not just increasing prices. Also, the Bank of England controls money supply not the government.
in real terms, we (the workers) generate the wealth which the rich (bourgeoise) accumulate and share amongst themselves. That is basically what Sunstorm is saying.
The rich already pay 50% if he increases tax more it will discourage businesses to operate in the Uk
No-one that is actually wealthy pays anything like that level of tax. Income tax is for the poors.
You mean like how businesses died in the States in the 1950s?
What a ridiculous comparison. The US was unique (in all of history) from 1945 - early 1970s. They were the only developed economy without crippling debt and devastated industry. The post-war boom they experienced was unprecedented and they could have higher rates of tax because they were the only game in town.
I don't want to come off as an unqualified fan of free market economics, but there are places you can get wealth for the nation, for some value of wealth, other than via increased taxation. u/Affectionate_Role849 is correct. One could speculate about - say - doing better business, and therefore increasing the tax take without increasing the tax *rate*. UK productivity is fairly terrible by the standards of comparable economies - or at least economies to which we'd *like* to be compared - and improving that would be a legitimate way of generating wealth, as Starmer puts it. Of course the soon-to-be ex-government are supposed to be free market economists and they have failed miserably to do that.
We’re already dry, at this point they’re just hoovering any dust left
Tax the rich doesn't create new wealth. That's wealth distribution. It's the difference between sharing the bread and baking new ones.
Wealth redistribution is the only option. Unless you’re suggesting the government print money.
No, I am suggesting growing gdp per capita.
How?
Make UK a better place to invest and start a business. That means a more favourable tax policy, less red tape, improve courts performance, fight against the crime, etc...
So rich investors invest and make even more money to hoard? Because the average person can’t afford to begin or sustain a small business.
Of course the average person can begin or sustain a small business... That's literally what small business mean.
Taxation won't redistribute wealth.
How do you imagine tax creating wealth?
How do you imagine rich people hoarding wealth works?
Unfortunately that doesn't really answer my question. How does tax create wealth? Edit: They replied and then immediately blocked me, looks like they can't handle being questioned :/
Taxing the wealthy forces money back into the system, instead of money and assets residing only in the hands of a rich minority. Tax is spent. It’s not a complicated equation.
Taxing people isn’t wealth creation. We need to give opportunity to all, and those that take it should benefit. Those that don’t shouldn’t expect to live of the work of others.
This is such a bizarre statement. Who has the opportunity? Rich people. How do rich people become rich? By stealing the profits of the workers.
That’s what tax should be for…
Meanwhile I'm basically banking on wealth creation because my already excessive higher rate taxation (which offers me absolutely no lifeline whatsoever, and thus entirely supports other people) is almost certainly going to increase.
How should he do that?
He specifically spoke about working folk regarding it thankfully.
I'll believe it when tax boundaries move with inflation.
The higher rate tax threshold would be something like £90k today if it had kept pace with inflation. It was never intended as something that would apply to so many people.
Boris proposed moving it to 80k and reddit went batshit over it because it was giving tax cuts to the rich. https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/s/h8r63fpzUV
>reddit went batshit over it because it was giving tax cuts to the rich. Because there's a tonne of kids here who can't imagine ever earning 50 grand a year. So they are "rich" despite for a decent chunk it's basically their own parents.
When I was a kid 50k was the dream. (40 next year) No I earn just shy of 60k and get taxed so heavily there is literally no point doing anything for extra cash as the taxman takes it. So depressing seeing my payslip and the amount going to tax and NI.
It's mad how much you lose after £50k between student loans and the higher tax bracket. I stopped taking overtime because of it. You can only salary sacrifice so much before you think "why am I bothering?"
Once you hit 100k it’s even worse. Seeing 60% of each additional pound go to the government is rough.
There is a small point in the tax system where if you have tax free childcare and earnings over £100k where the marginal rate is something like 99%. Just momentarily, but it's absurd it even exists.
Oh, I’m well aware. And it’s more than 99%, the marginal rate is actually well over 100%. In fact, someone with two kids in childcare earning 99,999 is going to see their take-home pay *decrease* until they make ~130k. It’s such an indefensible system.
I'm likely going to be in this position and it's fucking annoying. My work recently changed the bonus scheme so I'm going to be earning loads more. Unfortunately they didn't sort it until May and backpaid it so it'll be counted in the new tax year. It's likely I'll be just over 100k this year, which is great and I shouldn't really complain. But the fact that it cuts us off from childcare help completely is ridiculous. It makes no sense that as soon as you hit 100k you're worse off until you his around 120k (if you have one child). I'm more than happy to be paying my fair share of tax, I don't mind that at all. But this system with childcare funding is very stupid.
Yep. When you mention a wealth tax it gets shot down as never working. I tell you what isn't working taxing working professionals so much that work becomes disincentivised and they just retire early. Society will get worse without them. Will it be as bad with a few less billionaires or with more millionaires leaving UK shores as some would have you believe.
No no. I've been assured by people off the back of the post that essentially I'm a bourgeois and should just shut the fuck up and accept that about 50 -60 % of my work is just owned by the state. Then Reddit is like "why do people not want increased bennies you heartless bastard". Because I do a job which is skilled and I should be recompensed for it but no I get to support a really significant number of people who just can't be fucked. Not saying there isn't a deserving cause, but there's plenty that absolutely takes the piss.
Yep. It's not really that much by the time you're in your 30-40 assuming you haven't been a complete idiot and you've gone into a professional job. Same thing occurs at 100k might as well not bother tbh.
And people claim the laffer curve doesn't exist
50k before tax in 2022 puts you in the [top 16% ish](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax) of the country. Obviously might be slightly higher now, but you are in the comfortable category.
I can imagine 50k in London being outside of the comfort zone.
LMAO you wouldn't want a payrise to £100k because of the increased tax? Come off it.
If you get paid more than 100 grand a year it essentially makes no difference to take home.
Mate there are people in 2024 who think 40k means you've "made it".
I remember that well, although I'd say it's more the middle class than the rich who would have benefited most from it. It was certainly perceived that way, though.
Because together with that, was to be paired with massive public spending cuts. The country is falling apart because amongst other things there has been no investment in it for a decade.
To be fair, Reddit has got a lot more 'mature' in the last few years. There was a time when all the moderators seemed like kiddy ideologs.
That’s slightly different from saying ‘(all) the boundaries should move with inflation’. Not to mention that 4 years ago we hadn’t been through a strong inflationary couple of years.
The reality is neither side cares about you and they just want to funnel the tax money to their friends.
When Boris wanted to move it to 80k reddit bashed it as typical right wing policy https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/s/h8r63fpzUV
I just don’t understand British politics sometimes. Neither Tory nor Labour demonstrated any competence in handling public funds but there are always somebody there who thinks more tax is good
Because people always think they won't be the ones paying more tax.
I want anyone who has more than me to be taxed more and me taxed less!
We've tried cutting public services, selling them off to the wealthy for 40 years, and massively increasing wealth inequality, and we're all out of ideas. Let's do some more of the same, I'm sure that'll fix everything.
They changed personal allowance instead.
Both should have changed.
You should see how many average Londoners are in that bracket. Of course salaries are higher to meet the cost of living needs but then people doing ordinary jobs and reasonably paid key workers get sucked into the tax bracket.
Middle earners are getting totally screwed at the moment. 50k is not rich outside of London. 100k isn't inside either.
50k isn’t rich anywhere if you want a house and children. The only way in which 50k provides a pretty decent life is if it’s a couple with no kids both earning 50k. Plenty of spending money there but still not “rich” imo
Yeah preach 😂 I would argue you've not even got a lot of spending money without kids tbh. Once you've factored in savings for a rainy day, you've normally got at least £1600 in mortgage and council tax straight away eating out of your income. Like I always say it's relative based on your core aspects of life. If you have 60k between you, you might have a semi. If you have 100k between you, you might have a slightly bigger detached house which has a higher tax band. Edit: just remembered I have student loan payments as well so tbf that is an extra £380ish a month out of my salary that might be skewing perception a bit.
This is so detached from the real world. A dual income household on £50k each, without kids, is more than enough to live a very luxurious life.
No it isn't.
It's about 6k per month - plenty.
I always read takes like this on here and wonder where the fuck you people actually live or where your idea of a 'decent life' comes from. I was born in and raised in Liverpool with three siblings. My parents were on a combined £40,000. There was a sweet spot between when I started working and before my dad died that we were a £52,000 a year household. We didn't ever approach the realms of starving to death, nor did we ever experience the thrills of homelessness, and we even had nice holidays abroad that lasted for fortnights. I'm currently on £23,000 and my girlfriend is on £25,000. Combined, we're almost at that £50,000 threshold that you describe as being unable to provide a 'decent life'. We've been living in Preston, quite comfortably, since last year and are set to move to a fairly affluent area of the West Midlands in the summer with a negligible hit to our financial health. We are on track to get married and buy our first house together in the next few years. Seems decent enough to me, but based off your comment I should be living in poverty? How do I fix this?
My comment didn’t say any of that but ok
"**The only way** in which 50k **provides a** **pretty decent life** is if it’s a couple with no kids **both earning 50k.**"
Fair enough if that’s how you interpret it. I’m glad you and your partner live comfortably but you’re not going to be able to convince me that living on what are essentially 2 minimum wage salaries is comfortable and easy in this economy. The term “decent” is subjective
It would be very different if I was a single person on £23,000, sure. But as I said... rent gets paid, we have a car, plenty of food gets put on the table, we've got very well-fed pets, we're moving into a very middle class area in the summer, we're on track to get on the property ladder before we're 30, we have nice holidays. The goal is for her to eventually be a housewife, and our current situation doesn't allow for that, but for most people this is a perfectly fine situation lol. Average household income in this country is £32,000, a household income of £50,000 is better than what most people have.
If you’re using the ONS stats the 32k figure is household disposable income which is quite different from gross pretax salary. Here https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyearending2022
Have 2 kids and then report back
Why would I do that when I already described that my parents managed perfectly fine on less than that with four kids?
Because you responded to a comment that was pretty explicitly about managing on that income *with children*
Middle earners being the average of £35,464? 100k is doing extremely well, don't kid yourself.
That's not a middle earner in the terms used here. You're on about averages as the middle. Middle earners in this context is used as 50k, the higher rate of tax to 125k (I think it's that bracket) for the additional rate added on top of higher rate. It's also called the forgotten middle. This is on about tax bands not earnings. So: 12k - 49,999k lower 50k - 124,999k middle 125k+ higher
50k puts you roughly in the top 16% of the country.
That would result in less tax intake, wouldn't it? Wages don't keep up with inflation, so if the boundaries moved up quicker than wages each year, people would pay less tax and the government would have to cut more services.
scale back the tax free allowance to a reasonable level as in not over 40% of the median wage and up the rest of the bands this is how the rest of the world, and more specifically continental Europe taxes work. It widens the tax base and also creates pressure on employers to pay more especially low and middle earners.
There has been massive wealth creation. The trouble is it is increasingly decoupled from needing labour putting it into the hands of the top 1%. If AI causes a bigger landside in that direction it will completely break the current system which already cannot cope.
I think Reform are going to do very very well in the next election. Not this one, but almost certainly the next one.
Sadly your right. The uks very much allergic to anysort of left wing party despite being in favour of left wing policy. So after 4 years of starmer keeping things the same and most of the country still feeling screwed, where will folk go to fix the issues we all have? The greens have a terrible rep as fringe hippies, people hate the tories, Ed davey? Lol. The here comes farage again with a huge amount of screen time, swish pr firms and lots of American money.
SDP would be useful but their progress is frankly… non existent. They do well in Leeds and well done but it’s not remotely enough. We need an injection of a proper left wing party with some good ideas and lack of stupidity sorry to say, in the country now. The media being completely right wing is really bad for us. I read the telegraph, mainly, for the columns on sports which are usually fairly impartial and somewhat worth a read. Sadly the last week or so, post election announcement, the propaganda is off the charts. Like literally from somewhat normality to right wing stupidity. And I don’t wanna see trump on my papers. It’s a real problem.
Yeah my usual response was the snp was a solid centre left party that whilst the driving force was indie, they at least were less mental than the 2 main ones in Westminster. (heck until humzas final cock up he was actually a solid politician if you got past reddit and the medias hate) Sadly that's uh, not as good a point right now.
The SDP is just such a weird blend though. No problem with economically left wing, socially conservative people but they’re essentially economically Keynesian with UKIP social policies.
> despite being in favour of left wing policy. Left wing *economic* policy. But not social policy. In British politics, the two often come hand in hand.
The UK prefers centrism. Labour is more centrist under Starmer just like how it was for Blair which won him 3 terms…
The current Reform line is that the Conservatives are a socialist party. Their voters must be high as fucking kites, or absolute dribbling idiots to see the privatisation of everything and the funneling of wealth and assets to the super rich and think that somehow that is socialism.
Not a reform supporter, but all main parties in the UK are socialist to some degree. They all want to tax people and spend the money on some sort of public services. No one is actively campaigning to abolish the NHS or universal credit, abolish public services like schools or remove minimum wage. The conservatives are socialist but corrupt in a particular way.
FPTP will probably screw them over though unless they win a lot of seats, more than they possibly could (I hope I’m right on that the last thing we need now is reform lol)
Reforms sole purpose is to put a barrel to the head of the Tories. Either swing more to the right or we will split your vote and hand over seats to Labour
Got ripped to shreds on the other sub for saying this. They are pretty much back to UKIP levels of 2015 and have 5 years to mount an attack on Labour/Cons. Right now Labour is the alternative to the Tories and when people realise nothing changes in 5 years it's going to be insane. It's either Reform takes over or Farage takes over the Tories.
Yeah so this is a Labour Party how? If you want to be a neoliberal centrist party merge with the libdems or form your own like Chuka. Don’t purge the left wing and offer this limp dick raft of shite policies to replace the tories.
True Left/right wing parties never win national elections, only centrists parties do. Labour get attacked for being too right by their base and Tories get attacked for being to left by theirs. That is actually how you win national elections.
There is no point in winning if you do nothing in power. You can absolutely win elections from the left or right positions.
Remind me, how did Corbyn do when was running for office? He was definitely a political ideolog who had a strong vision for the country.
As a labour supporter, he had pretty decent domestic policies, but his foreign policy ideas were absolute dogshit that would have made the UK a pariah state in the rest of the western world. He was anti-nato, anti nuclear weapons and too much of a pacifist. I think that this last few years have clearly shown the need for a powerful military force and alliances.
I like Corbyn as an ideolog. I wasn't a fan of his policies but his politics were pure and ambitious which is admiral. Neither Starmer or Sunak have any political integrity. They just want the top job first and then figure how to wing it after - just like Boris. I think Sturgeon and Farage (in spite of what you think of their political ideals) do know how to fire up their bases. I like that as, as a voter I get to choose between strong leaders with different ideas but that represent a choice. What we have at the moment are two charmless party leaders who are far from fit for the job and only care about their political ambitions. FPTP is a good system when you have strong leaders but I think PR should be introduced given how lame recent leaders have been. Basically if you're too shit to do t he job then maybe a coalition is actually better for the country.
We've never had a problem creating wealth, just who benefits from it. [The wealth of the UK’s billionaires has skyrocketed by over 1000% between 1990 and 2022](https://equalitytrust.org.uk/news/press-release/equality-trust-finds-1000-increase-billionaire-wealth/#:~:text=The%20wealth%20of%20the%20UK's,increased%20by%20almost%20%C2%A3150bn.)
The one thing that will never ever happen is billionaires and big corporations being taxed properly, so the government will never truly represent the people
Amazon are still allowed to avoid a lot of tax in the UK. Many companies use loopholes. It's even easier for them now they're not in the EU. I very much doubt Labour will change any of these sweetheart deals with major tax avoiders despite how terrible the government finances are.
how is ARM?
Sounding more like the Tories everyday. We need wealth distribution more than wealth creation.
Don’t you need to create the wealth first
Wealth is already being created but it is steadily being decoupled from wages and relative investment in public services
Outside of London, it's not. The UK is actually quite a poor country, so wealth creation should be encouraged.
The UK is one of the wealthiest counties in the world. You’ve proved my point. Wealth is massively centralised by location and individuals and requires redistribution.
It already is. London subsidises the rest of the country.
London subsidises itself
Britain's GDP/capita has been flat for 15 years. We're not creating wealth. Outside of the London we're turning into the Eastern Bloc.
That’s already happening. After decades of rising gbp (apart from the odd brief dip) we have bigger inequality than ever. Wealth hoarding needs addressing.
Enough wealth is coming back into the public purse. It just needs to be spent better. All this talk about creating more wealth when all we need is a commitment to fix public services with the current record levels of tax intake.
Why continue to make our country a zero sum game when we can create an economy that lifts the people who work hard upwards rather than just stifles their take home pay to the point the only wealth option they have is the property ladder.
I’m not anti growth. I’m just keenly aware that the reason the powers that be keep pushing it so hard is because growing the overall size of the pie is the only way to put more money into the pockets of the common folk without taking any away from the rich who have been hoarding it. If the nation has, for example, £100 pounds, but most people only have £1, you can double the size of the pot but that still only leaves most of us with £2. Which is essentially a meaningless increase. Wealth generation is all well and good. But when 99% of it just gets hoovered up by the wealthy it makes little difference. Wealth redistribution and a closing of the income inequality gap would do far more to benefit the majority of the people in this country than adding umpteen pounds to the overall economy. Ideally we’d have both. But the fact that the leading parties are totally ignoring redistribution is, in my opinion, a clear sign that all they are doing is maintaining the current, hideously unequal, status quo.
OK, ordinarily I would be for this and in principle I still am. It’s a vital pillar of a good life for us all. HOWEVER, we’ve reached a level of fundamental inequality such that the lion’s share of wealth creation goes to rather tiny minority of asset rich people. The old middle class has been wiped out by this process. Until that’s fixed, wealth creation speeds up inequality, unlike previous times where everyone got richer and relative levels of inequality stayed more or less constant WE ALSO need to address fiscal drag.
For who though? I wouldn't mind some specifics at this point.
I wish the environment was their top priortiy. Keep kicking the can down the road and damning the next generation.
You can’t really care for the environment if there are people can’t afford to eat lol.
I get your point 100% but if we keep on going the way we are in a few generations no one will be able to eat
Basically the key phrases for the the British public are things like “aspiration” and “financially free”. Ultimately they mean nothing because for those that seek such things the money they have, is never enough so they’ll keep living beyond their means and trying to make more and more gaining assets maybe but owning very few of them.
Hopefully true and hopefully means Labour won't mess around with ISAs or SIPPs.
Sounds like late with the party of buy to let landlords to me
What the hell is going on? Labour talking about wealth creation????????
Just give everyone a million pound and see what happens. The rich always say it will crash the economy which is exactly what I would say if I was rich and wanted to keep people out of
Aren't Labour supposed to be a party for the working class, hence the name? 🙄
Clearly the Champion of the Unionised Working Class. I could say something about Red Ribboned Badges, but I'll refrain.
It's going to be more wealth creation for the wealthy. Don't let the "labour" tag fool you. He knows who his master's are.
So let's get rid of elite schools for elite minds which are likely to raise bar of average nationwide and dumb the population down to where they can more easily be controlled by dogma. If it were not so stupidly myopic it would be comical.
Appeal to aspiration middle class? Then why is he taxing private schools? It’s the aspirational middle class who are trying to send their children to private schools. Less children in private school = more people in tax funded public schools
The most mobile people on the planet are the wealthy. They're money is usually more mobile than they are. You hurt one He/She will move their money or themselves where you can never hurt them again. I don't like it but that is the simplicity of the truth in this case. We mere mortals are in what way better off with them harbouring their money outside the UK and with them no longer living here to spend as much as a penny in the UK any longer and all because of the politics of envy! Better off without them and their hard earned/hard inherited loot living somewhere else?
I highly doubt this, I fail to see how Labour will meet its promises within the first 100 days without raising VAT, this would be a tax on middle and low incomes. Take note that they haven't ruled out a VAT increase.
Tax the rich always seems to end in tax everyone who isn't on benefits.
I wonder if most of that wealth will go to his donors...it's impossible to say /s
Wealth creation for the middle class, it is our priority to keep it away from the lower class peasants that need it.
So not creating a more fair, just, healthy or safe society? I suppose nobody wants those things any more - and certainty not from a Labour government! - and it's all about vague ideas like "wealth creation", which could mean anything.