You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Jo Cox was murdered.
And wasn't the only MP murdered. Or constantly being abused and threatened.
It does feel like the country is a shambles at every level
https://twitter.com/NotThatBigIan/status/1699441269150224610?t=_flJz1od1MUaS-7yBY6aCg&s=19
gues which chancellor oversaw big cuts to prisons in 21/22 budget ?
Where are these utopias?
Asking for an engineering type friend who is genuinely fed up with copping the blame for shit going wrong after putting forward the opinion that stuff done right takes X amount of time and not one eighth of that time.
Best example I have is Germany, as above. I worked for several weeks on a bid to migrate a shedload of code to a new platform for a big bank in the UK. We also had a German guy with us who'd done it before for a German insurance company. I came up with estimates based on an actual methodology rather than finger-in-air which is usual, and they started haggling with us and forced us to reduce the time because the customer wanted a fixed price contract. There's always huge uncertainty in this sort of thing - after all, none of it was our code and most of it was written by people who weren't there any more. So by forcing us to reduce estimates they were almost guaranteeing failure or at least overrun, or forcing us to skimp on other areas.
The German guy who'd done the same thing in Germany had been employed on a time and materials basis. They'd asked him to come in, worth with a few of their guys and stay until it was done properly. They trusted the engineers to do it right and gave them the time they needed.
Germany's not utopia - they do other things wrong in general, but they do listen to engineers.
germans? berlin international airport not being a shining example at 9 years late.
from wiki:
The airport was originally planned to open in October 2011, five years after starting construction in 2006. The project encountered a series of successive delays due to poor construction planning, execution, management, and corruption. Berlin Brandenburg Airport finally received its operational license in May 2020,[2] and opened for commercial traffic on 31 October 2020, 14 years after construction started and 29 years after official planning was begun
anyhow there was a very hollow LOL at the poster who suggested a labour government would be a disaster for us after the 13 years of tory mismanagement we've endured. what do you reckon, give them another 10 years to put it all right? f right off mate.
full disclosure i really like germany and, by and large, the german people.
Is the UK becoming a third-world country?
No, but others are catching up but financially they still behind even in the developing countries.
However, one day in the distance future things will be different where the migration etc will be heading East instead due to greener grass (financial prosperity etc) This is not a bad thing because for once the west can rest and chill. No more influence and no more headache.
The UK government spends money, and did do during austerity.
But it doesn't spend it on the right things - you know for the many not the few.
Not Third World - just an economic model that is taking its last gasp before it really destroys itself, and us .
It's terrifying that neither party has the brains to pull the correct strings on spending for all the stuff that is broke.
The only restriction is political will not money. The money bit is simple but we still need to target the most desperate broken things with government spending - tax things that are too luxury for their own good, look at what resources we need and to what end.
It's mostly going to be about green infrastructure/energy, fixing the NHS and forcing the private element back into public use.
Fiscal policy should work far better than it does and monetary policy is inherently stupid when it causes so much grief for the larger end of society but gives basic income to those with wealth.
During WWII we managed to bring something approaching 90-95% of available farming land back into production from a pre war level of 35-40%. We also managed to decay the soil to such an extent they probably took decades off it’s productive life and are still dealing with the consequences of that decision today
You need a link for that, nickc or it's false.
There are 18 million hectares of agricultural land in the UK and only 2 million additional hectares were ploughed up. Lots of allotments (1.5 million) and gardens were also used but in terms of area that's small.
Whilst cereal and potato production increased (though not in the proportions your numbers suggest - about half that given the increase in self-sufficiency stated in Wiki an elsewhere) food imports remained high -particularly meat (about half), diary products and fruit. The impact on soil quality you greatly exagerate, most of the damage came post war with more intensive fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide use to increase yield - that has continued to this day.
Thank you for inspiring an interesting browse which has supported the view that it's Britain's high meat and dairy diet that is the biggest factor in being unable to feed itself.
But it’s just not the case that violence is routinely used against politicians and activists or that perpetrators are not punished.
You say that like it’s a good thing. How shall we end the current situation of concentration of land and other resources in the hands of a few, if not by violence ?
How shall we end the current situation of concentration of land and other resources in the hands of a few, if not by violence ?
Is that what you are proposing? Seriously?
Is that what you are proposing? Seriously?
No, but I’m not holding up our supine acceptance of injustice as a source of pride.
You are putting words into DrJ's mouth rather than answering his question.
My reply is "vote" and use your vote to further your own interests which will mean not voting Tory. (Edit: Mefty excepted, I can't think of anyone else on here who could benefit from Tory policy) 😉
It does feel like the country is a shambles at every level
This is it for me. I said a similar thing as the OP to my wife the other day. I didn;t really mean the UK is actually a 3rd world country now, as I'm sure the OP didn;t really mean that. But it has gone very down hill. It used otbe that you'd go abroad and come back here thinking our infrastructure was great and we were generally in a good place in the world.
Now they just laugh at us, the country is crumbling beneath us while the rich reap the benefits. The UK is truely a shit hole nowadays.
You need a link for that, nickc or it’s false.
No, he needs a link or it's unconfirmed you confrontational sod!
You confrontational sod
😯 cough....splutter....
My reply is “vote” and use your vote to further your own interests which will mean not voting Tory
i admire your optimism, but we’ve been voting for a good while now and it doesn’t seem to have helped, and it’s likely to get worse as the information needed to make a voting decision is increasingly controlled by bad actors (and I’m not talking about Ronald Reagan 🙂
Now they just laugh at us
I don't think anyone overseas particularly gives a shit about the UK. Apart from the Irish, they're always banging on about the Brits, not realising that average UK person thinks about Ireland once a decade. But to be fair there may be a historical context for that.
No, he needs a link or it’s unconfirmed you confrontational sod!
Pot kettle black with added insult. 🙂 How about doing some reading and checking who's right before taking the wrong side, Molgrips. Britsh agriculture was in decline pre-war but the level of land use claims are false as are the claim that it was land use in WW2 that ruined the soil for decades to come. On the contrary land that had become unproductive due to neglect was durably returned to productive use. Pre war the land was still in use but not productively. Rabbits proliferated, growing crops wasn't profitable, land drainage and irrigation weren't maintained, fertilizers were used in very low qualtities because commodity prices were so low the investment couldn't be justified. Facinating what you learn when something doesn't sound right and you do a bit of fact checking. An unfertilized, non-irrigated, undrained field used for grazing or hay isn't very productive but it's still in use.
Is that what you are proposing? Seriously?
I would. On the single issue of land ownership, that was entirely achieved by violence in the past, so I'd have no problem with an unruly mob forceably taking over an estate and banishing the incumbent landlord. That being said I'd prefer to do it peacefully, via a vote for a party which proposes to redress the inequality and imbalances of power which we experience in or society. We've tried that though and it doesn't work. 🤷♂️
I’d have no problem with an unruly mob forceably taking over an estate and banishing the incumbent landlord
I'm not sure countries thst have tried that approach have found it to be very successful. Seems to result in starvation.
I've met plenty of awful landlords when i dealt with rural estates for work, but I'd probably say they were a minority. Many seemed to actually care about the welfare of the land and their tenants, even if it was for selfish financial reasons
On the single issue of land ownership, that was entirely achieved by violence in the past
Hmm what you're proposing isn't exactly what happened. Plus that was a thousand years ago, things are a little different now. Also, even if it did happen the same that doesn't mean it was the right course of action then or now.
Pot kettle black
You asked him for a link whilst not providing one yourself. So yeah.
tenants
so why are some folks landlords and some tenants? Is it right that you get a free pass if your ancestors were pals with the king some centuries ago? It’s symptomatic that we ( I actually mean “you”) accept as given a glaringly inequitable situation.
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji';">Seems a lot of middle aged, middle class white men in this thread complaining… I wonder how many of them have actually spent any significant time in a developing country? You need to get some perspective.</span>
I definitely tick the first two boxes AND have spent time working across a whole spread of countries - from the richest to the poorest, but also know that many 'rich' countries are actually full of poor people.
The UK has moved to the US model, folk just haven't realised yet.
The UK has moved to the US model, folk just haven’t realised yet.
Not sure we ever left the US model. The UK has mirrored the US in almost all socio-economic policy for centuries*. The only real difference between us is the NHS. In a world of cut-throat capitalism the NHS is an outlier, a uniquely socialist concept which has survived the decades of asset stripping and privatisation. It's one of the few things I find much hope in TBH.
*Or you could argue it's the other way round. In many respects the UK is much worse than the US.
Seems a lot of middle aged, middle class white men in this thread complaining
This can't be the first STW thread you've read surely!?!
lol
Haha!
It isn't and don't call me Shirley.
Yeah, I know... this is why I stopped frequenting this forum as much. Grumpy old men with nothing better to do that spout nonsense. This thread is a fine example.
Go sit back down and keep getting your world view direct from the DailyMail 🙂
Violence is not the answer really. The last big riots in the UK were a shopping spree unlike the political led ones in the late 80's 90's which I was happy to take part in. I'd place us as a second world country with worse infrastructure than most second world countries I've been in.
Violence is not the answer really
it seems to be the answer if you’re a Tory Home Secretary and you don’t like people objecting to your party’s policies on climate change; you have your violent thugs lock people up. Or if you don’t like people questioning the legitimacy of the monarchy; you have the same thugs arrest them and imprison them with no good excuse.
To chime back in after five pages, 'becoming' was the operative word and 'third-world' was used loosely.
The United Kingdom is obviously not comparable to a developing country, given it is food secure (and poverty is therefore a political/economic choice), energy secure, and still, despite the collective idiocy of Brexit, maintains valuable currency and more importantly control over it. That said, if we continue down this path, at one point will we lose the features of how one would define a modern, Northern European state.
Talking about violence, in my mind we're the last colony of the Empire and destined to remain so, while an Oxford Brogue stomps relentlessly on our collective face forever. For the forebearers of the Camerons, the Osbournes, the Johnsons, etc., dark-skinned folk were their playthings, whom they were free to exploit and subjugate, but now it is us, albeit in more nuanced but still incredibly destructive ways.
Historically, we are still under the yoke of invasion of 1066, with land rights, titles, the entire system of royalty and landowners, etc., fanning out in all directions with tendrils so deeply rooted as to be invisible to most people who simply accept the reality of living in a neo-feudal economy as normal. That we are effectively an occupied country in terms of land was highlighted to me when threatened with violence for cycling on the 'Dukes' land.
Given violence has been mentioned, the difference between the English and say the Irish, is that for the Irish, the answer was the IRA, but for the English, it's the ballet box and the Tory party. It's truly astonishing to me that even after the most venal, most corrupt, most utterly useless and wasteful period of governance in recent history and perhaps in all histories of successful modern nation states, is that a significant minority of the populace will march out and tick the blue box — in spite of all the evidence, even in spite of their own best interests.
In terms of not having enough money, it’s curious that even after COVID-19, the Truss budget, and indeed Brexit itself, which saw the BOE print off something insane like 50 years of EU membership in a day to stabilize the tanking ecocnomy, people can still somehow equate a nation state that has a sovereign currency to a household budget. It is nothing of the sort. The level of illiteracy around even the most basic concepts of what a currency is remarkable.
What’s particularly appalling about the situation is the level of apathy and cynical acceptance. If such violence and destitution, as well as the general nuisance of day-to-day reality in post-Brexit Tory Britain was implemented by an occupying force, surely you would see widescale disobedience and resistance, but because it is conducted by strange-looking men in expensive costumes with funny accents, it’s mostly met with at best a collective sigh, but at worst, public demand for more of it, as though the body corpus demanded a second dose of the poison to cure the effects of the first.
Actually I retract my violence is not the answer statement, sometimes it is. In the 3 years leading to COVID our rampantly corrupt Labour council issued a licence for neo nazi groups from the NE to come and march in Liverpool on a Saturday. Lots of fighting with police trying to enforce the march and lots of trying to kick fascist heads in. The council only refused to issue a license when it was very visible to tourist and shoppers as a few hundred anti demonstrators fought mounted police and riot police and brought the Britain First march to an abrupt halt. More than happy to give up a Saturday and oppose it. Rise of extreme politics very third worldy.
the difference between the English and say the Irish, is that for the Irish, the answer was the IRA, but for the English, it’s the ballet box and the Tory party.
While it sounds like a great aphorism, this is just a misreading of both Irish and English history. It was Sinn Fein's electoral success in Dec 1919 that precipitated independence, not IRA action as a revolutionary vanguard, and in England you just need to look at the rise of loyalist militias on "the mainland" to see the English have been happy to use violence to pursue political aims.
The last big riots in the UK were a shopping spree unlike the political led ones in the late 80’s 90’s which I was happy to take part in.
Come off it, grandad. "Eeeeh, in my day we had proper riots, not the rubbish you get now..." 🤣
It was Sinn Fein’s electoral success in Dec 1919
Tsk, 1918, obviously... 🙄
As I've spent the majority of my working life in failed states, developing nations and the such like, I know where I'm happier being.
Clue: the UK.
Some of you need a break from the internet, maybe it's time to take up cycling?
It was Sinn Fein’s electoral success in Dec 1919 that precipitated independence, not IRA action as a revolutionary vanguard,
Electoral success which was garnered as a consequence of the Easter rising and the subsequent executions carried out by the British and independence was forced by the War of Independence. It wasn’t a result of parliamentary democracy.
gues which chancellor oversaw big cuts to prisons in 21/22 budget ?
Not the same guy who decided to cut back on the schools budget?
mr alpin, I think you've won the jackpot with your guess.
Unfortunately there is no money to pay the prize - so here's a nice certificate.
violence is not the answer statement, sometimes it is.
F-in be more French.....
It works wonders there and they don't get down trodden.
Genannt Could learn a lesson or two from their neighbours, too.
I've often said that our current plight (be that in my adopted county of Germany or my county of birth, they UK) is a mix of "I'm alright, Jack", "uns geht's gut" and apathy.
Make noise. Burn shit. Make your choice heard.
Mouthing off online ain't going to change squat. Direct action is where it's at.
mr alpin, I think you’ve won the jackpot with your guess.
Ms Alpin to you.
Newsnight laying out the state of UK prisons right now just highlights how badly parts of the country have been run into the ground
Ms alpin - oops!
Is it right that you get a free pass if your ancestors were pals with the king some centuries ago?
Try talking about inheritance tax (pretty much anywhere on the internet or in real life) and see where that gets you.
You need a link for that, nickc or it’s false.
It's good to see the art of conversation isn't dead.
I heard it on a WWII podcast a couple ago, spoken by some prof of agriculture who happened to be interested in the subject. I could look up the Ep guide I suppose, but really, if you want to be the forum expert on British agriculture policy during WWII, the floor's all yours.
Is that what you are proposing? Seriously?
F-in be more French…..
The French got their freedom and citizenship by violent action.
It's what our species do and have always done
Hmm what you’re proposing isn’t exactly what happened. Plus that was a thousand years ago, things are a little different now.
and before the Normans ??
Also, even if it did happen the same that doesn’t mean it was the right course of action then or now.
1000 years later we are still doing as our masters tell us.. we still are property of a monarch who's ancestors took charge through violence and living off the scraps they throw under their table then fighting amongst ourselves over the scraps.
Things are a little different because our schools and religions have taught generations to be submissive.
What’s particularly appalling about the situation is the level of apathy and cynical acceptance. If such violence and destitution, as well as the general nuisance of day-to-day reality in post-Brexit Tory Britain was implemented by an occupying force, surely you would see widescale disobedience and resistance, but because it is conducted by strange-looking men in expensive costumes with funny accents, it’s mostly met with at best a collective sigh, but at worst, public demand for more of it, as though the body corpus demanded a second dose of the poison to cure the effects of the first.
No we wouldn't ... we have had humanity driven out of us through forced education and religion.
The UK couldn't do what Ukraine is doing because our masters want a breed of subservient subjects and natural law to disappear. The aristocracy fears violent uprising by the masses so we are taught violence is bad, unless they sanction it.
There is a reason we have tanks stockpiled outside London ready to put down the masses but we couldn't stockpile PPE.
To all intents we are like the Hindu Caste system where those defining things that make us human are taken away.
In modern English we have sheep (something the peasants look after) and mutton (something the French speaking aristocracy eat or may throw scraps to the peasants)
In Welsh we have defaid and cig dafad
We can compare the 6 characteristics in the description of the caste system by Ghurye (copy and paste from wikipedia)
With a little latitude these all fit UK society... and hardly surprising it was the British that codified these into law.
We can pretend all we like that peaceful subjugation means we all get a equal chance if we just play the game and do as we are told and keep spreading the lies.
We can all pretend otherwise but accepting this is no different to the class traitor who maoned about being denied a peerage by posh boys.
Ghurye offered what he thought was a definition that could be applied across India, although he acknowledged that there were regional variations on the general theme. His model definition for caste included the following six characteristics:[34]
Segmentation of society into groups whose membership was determined by birth.[35]
A hierarchical system wherein generally the Brahmins were at the head of the hierarchy, but this hierarchy was disputed in some cases. In various linguistic areas, hundreds of castes had a gradation generally acknowledged by everyone.[36]
Restrictions on feeding and social intercourse, with minute rules on the kind of food and drink that upper castes could accept from lower castes. There was a great diversity in these rules, and lower castes generally accepted food from upper castes.[37]Segregation, where individual castes lived together, the dominant caste living in the center and other castes living on the periphery.[38] There were restrictions on the use of water wells or streets by one caste on another: an upper-caste Brahmin might not be permitted to use the street of a lower-caste group, while a caste considered impure might not be permitted to draw water from a well used by members of other castes.[39]
Occupation, generally inherited.[40] Lack of unrestricted choice of profession, caste members restricted their own members from taking up certain professions they considered degrading. This characteristic of caste was missing from large parts of India, stated Ghurye, and in these regions all four castes (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras) did agriculture labour or became warriors in large numbers.[41]
Endogamy, restrictions on marrying a person outside caste, but in some situations hypergamy allowed.[42] Far less rigidity on inter-marriage between different sub-castes than between members of different castes in some regions, while in some endogamy within a sub-caste was the principal feature of caste-society.[43]
if you want to be the forum expert on British agriculture policy during WWII, the floor’s all yours.
Thank you for your confidence. 🙂
Try talking about inheritance tax (pretty much anywhere on the internet or in real life) and see where that gets you.
I’m not sure that taxing granny’s bungalow resets 1000 years of cumulative injustice?
it seems to be the answer if you’re a Tory Home Secretary and you don’t like people objecting to your party’s policies on climate change;
This is an excellent point. The violence of the state far outweighs the violence from any other part of society. Weirdly people seem to be completely accepting of state violence, but put a couple of hippies on the news breaking a few windows and you get public outrage. In 'third world' countries people tend to be far less accepting of state violence and more willing to defend themselves against it. I guess we've a long way to go before we get to the point where people think they have nothing left to lose.
A progressive inheritance tax with a sensible threshold and wealth tax on peoperty holdings beyoond a sensible value could be a vote winner if only the opposition could see it. France has a wealth tax on property but I don't own property above the threshold so I'm more than happy with it, the same is true for the vast majority of the population.
The problem with inheritance tax is that it used to be a thing where if you were eligible to pay it you were rich enough not to care. That's not the case now so people now just see it as the state making a grab for money off those who've worked a lifetime to acquire it. The problem with tax in this country is that the very rich don't have to pay it, the middle pay too much, and the poor pay a little when they shouldn't have to pay any at all. We need to transition from a system where we tax income to one where we tax assets, capital gains, and consumption.
Electoral success which was garnered as a consequence of the Easter rising and the subsequent executions carried out by the British and independence was forced by the War of Independence. It wasn’t a result of parliamentary democracy.
The Easter Rising showed the abject failure of a violence-led strategy. It was only by very conventional organising ahead of elections that republicans was able to build popular cohesion and legitimacy for independence, and shift the moment beyond an urban elite. The Brits could have recognised the electoral and political mandate of Sinn Fein for independence - but it didn't, and war was the result.
Suggesting that the Irish liberate themselves through violence and the English cravenly reach for the ballot box to elect the same Tories every time is just nonsense. Independence was not merely an eruption of violence, Ireland was incredibly stifling across the middle of the 20th century, and the cozzy livs is just as bad in Ireland as it is in the UK.
F-in be more French…..
It works wonders there and they don’t get down trodden.
France was a very conventional and homogenous society before 1968, which is what made the 68ers so shocking to the establishment. And yet 1968 was about very little and achieved very little, and France as a whole didn't change that much as a result (although to be fair some workers got a great pay deal).
The UK experienced riots on the same or greater scale as France throughout the 70s and 80s (and that's leaving alone NI). The pension riots are pretty similar to the poll tax riots in the UK. And despite the biblical car bonfires and decades of terrorism, violence hasn't "worked wonders" for the black and Arab French youth who are beaten with gay abandon by the CRS (the same CRS that helped murder 40-400 people in Paris in 1961!), or the Corsicans, or the Basques.
Not really sure comparisons with France are very useful. France is a very patriarchal and authoritarian society, much more so than the UK IMO. Much as I love the place that's one of the reasons I don't want to live there. It's all very nice and egalitarian on the surface, but try go against the norm or established traditions and you'll be quickly shut down.
If we're talking about direct action and the use of violence* then the UK has many examples where this has worked and been effective at changing things in the favour of working people. Almost every freedom, rights or protection we have has been achieved through this method.
*quite often it's not violence at all, just a bit of trivial property damage.
France is a very patriarchal and authoritarian society, much more so than the UK IMO. Much as I love the place that’s one of the reasons I don’t want to live there.
In your opinion maybe, but a few facts to bear that out might be useful.
I would argue that since 1972 most freedoms, rights and protections for the working people of the UK have come from EU legislation and the ECJ, not violence.
I would argue that since 1972 most freedoms, rights and protections for the working people of the UK have come from EU legislation and the ECJ, not violence.
Lets not turn this into another bloody brexit thread. We've had freedoms, rights and protections from long before 1972, and most of the things legislated by the EU would have been legislated here had we not been members.
The Easter Rising showed the abject failure of a violence-led strategy. It was only by very conventional organising ahead of elections that republicans was able to build popular cohesion and legitimacy for independence, and shift the moment beyond an urban elite. The Brits could have recognised the electoral and political mandate of Sinn Fein for independence – but it didn’t, and war was the result.
As a military engagement it was a failure but it’s wider impact, such as Sinn Fein electoral success, a could lead it to be considered, ultimately as a success. The subsequent war forced mandate forced independence through, otherwise the British could’ve just continued to ignore the mandate.
I was under the impression that as the war for independence progressed the IRA membership became more urban-centric rather than less.
Suggesting that the Irish liberate themselves through violence and the English cravenly reach for the ballot box to elect the same Tories every time is just nonsense.
I didn’t agree with this just with the idea that Irish independence was achieved without violence.
most of the things legislated by the EU would have been legislated here had we not been members.
Nope, highly unlikely, the British government (along with many other countries) had to be taken to court because it wouldn't implement or respect EU rules, check out the judgements the UK lost. As for "Brexit" I didn't mention it, you did, I simply correctly stated the origin of progressive labour legislation since 1972.
I simply correctly stated the origin of progressive labour legislation since 1972.
Yep, see Working Time Directive etc...
the idea that Irish independence was achieved without violence.
Sure, but to be fair no-one said this.
It was, obviously, very bloody (which makes it even weirder that the UK had a revolution and civil war on soil it considered domestic, and yet you rarely hear about it in the UK).
Nope, highly unlikely
It's an exercise in whataboutery. We might have had more protections. We simply don't know.
It’s an exercise in whataboutery. We might have had more protections. We simply don’t know.
Given the fuss over the EU ones, it's pretty obvious that the answer is we wouldn't have.
The Tories have been consistently watering down our own domestic ones for the last 13 years eg right to strike keeps having the thresholds upped to make it more difficult.
Sorry, got to say this. We've been living in Portugal for three years, supposedly one of the poorer countries of Europe but on almost every measure it is a far better place to live than the UK! It's far from perfect but each day I live here I realise that the general population of the UK ('United' seemingly more and more tentative) are being royaly screwed, socially, economically and most certainly financially!
I hope for the sake of my friends and family there things are starting to change?
Scotland’s got Haciendas/ highland estates.
Somewhat embarrassing in this age.
I’m not sure that taxing granny’s bungalow resets 1000 years of cumulative injustice?
Bingo. It's always someone else who has the unjustly inherited privilege.
The problem with inheritance tax is that it used to be a thing where if you were eligible to pay it you were rich enough not to care.
It's always been a thing where if you're eligible to pay it you're dead enough to neither know nor care. And it's also certainly a thing that the vast majority of inherited wealth passes to rich people who have done the square root of bugger all to earn it, whereas anyone who gets off their arse and legitimately earns any significant amount of money has to pay vastly greater taxes on that.
But it seems that we are all in favour of our own inherited privilege and inequality, it's just other people who don't deserve it.
Biggest hurdle with a wealth tax imo is that somehow people think the rich would just leave the UK, as though they don't have family, friends, heritage and language here just the same as anyone else who doesn't leave for those reasons.
It would be very hard work to persuade that eg a millionaire can afford to pay a bit of wealth tax but don't have enough money for it to be worth leaving the UK to avoid paying it. I think this is because people imagine "wealth" to mean unimaginable amounts of money
No, he needs a link or it’s unconfirmed you confrontational sod!
Ironically he followed it with with sone claims not backed up by a link 🤨🤷♂️😀
But it seems that we are all in favour of our own inherited privilege and inequality, it’s just other people who don’t deserve it.
if course we wouid all prefer to pay less tax. That’s hardly profound. But it’s not the same thing as asserting a moral right to pay no tax. The ones doing that are <checks notes> the royal family.
Biggest hurdle with a wealth tax imo is that somehow people think the rich would just leave the UK, as though they don’t have family, friends, heritage and language here just the same as anyone else who doesn’t leave for those reasons.
The ones doing that are <checks notes> the royal family.
You can add the Duke of Westminter with his multi-billion trust fund...
UK corporation tax 25%, Ireland 12.5%
Where would you locate your corporate HQ?
taxes need to go down, we've not had it this bad since Atlee
Rich people going to other countries because of taxes is a perennial favourite threat.
Less of an issue when you understand a private individual no matter how wealthy can't create money. So we don't actually *need* their money.
They exist in the first place because of distribution problems in the supply of government money to the wrong sectors.
However I'm still an advocate of a dynamic private sector for some things but it should follow a much more robust public sector fixing all the crap the private sector does badly.
The wealthy need taxing mostly to halt their crusade on our resources.
That Norway situation is easily solved the way the US does it. If you move abroad you pay the difference in tax between where you live and what the US tax would be to the US goverenment. The only way out is giving up US nationality. I'd like to see every country adopt the same pricipal.
UK corporation tax 25%, Ireland 12.5%
Where would you locate your corporate HQ?
taxes need to go down, we’ve not had it this bad since Atlee
If, as an individual citizen, you were easily allowed to designate your country of residence for tax purposes, would the worlds governments just reduce taxation or sort out the blatant **** up?
<p style="text-align: left;">the last few years have been increasingly hard on those at the bottom</p>
https://twitter.com/resfoundation/status/1700157291297743062?t=VaePEM_7mQKDOLrmEaJ1Tg&s=19
<p style="text-align: center;"></p>
taxes need to go down
Which taxes specifically and can you explain the overall benefits of that to society as a whole, including those that don't pay much income tax and the issues with 'balancing the books' that the UK political parties are wed to?
if course we wouid all prefer to pay less tax. That’s hardly profound. But it’s not the same thing as asserting a moral right to pay no tax. The ones doing that are <checks notes> the royal family.
@DrJ,
I thought you were asserting a moral right for the family of granny to inherit her million-pound bungalow and savings without paying any tax. Happy to stand corrected on that.
I thought you were asserting a moral right for the family of granny to inherit her million-pound bungalow and savings without paying any tax. Happy to stand corrected on that.
No, my possibly gnomic posting was to say that tinkering at the edges with taxes in 2023 will not address a fundamental inequality resulting from centuries of privilege.
Interesting graph above, so Thatcher did raise living standards for most although it was rather skewed towards the wealthies, looks like the Blair years were the best for over all evenly distributed growth if im reading that right, that'll upset the lefties.
Projection for the current period is the lowest income households have seen real growth and the wealthiest have seen the most decline, good old socialist conservative politics or total cockup, you chose.
looks like the Blair years were the best for over all evenly distributed growth if im reading that right, that’ll upset the lefties.
Don’t worry about them, bless ‘em. They just shout IRAQ!!! and it’s like a ickle squishy comfort blanket for them and they can safely carry on pretending that nothing good happened for 13 years because he was just a Tory anyway
There you go again binners excusing the deaths of over a million people. 🙄
There you go again binners excusing the deaths of over a million people
No, he's saying that othet things happened. Blair and Bush should stand trial for their lies and crimes,but believe it or not, other, better, things also happened on his watch.
Blinkers are very restrictive.