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But Brum to Paris could be <4hrs if HSx was implemented correctly
Yup. And it's centre to centre, with short check in times. I reckon door to door (for central locations) it would be quicker than flying.
The point is that all UK tax-payers money is being used for SE based projects yet there is almost no investment in other regions. The SE just benefits whilst all the other regions do not prosper.
The notion that we all benefit is a nonsense, go to any impoverished area in Bristol, Leeds, Blackburn etc. and tell the locals how ,if they are fortunate enough to work and pay tax, that their taxes are being put to good use in funding yet another infra project to get a city worker from Chelmsford to Leadenhall 3 minutes faster
I know it's an oversimplification but genuinely I still don't see the upside to the most regions whether they are impoverished or not. You guys also need to remember that many people have regular jobs in shops, schools, factories etc. Going to London on business is never going to happen. The major employers outside of the large cities are nearly always the NHS and the council, they are busy providing services for locals not gallavanting off to London for a meeting.
With the advent of digital tech most meetings do not need to be face to face any more, Covid proved this
At what point would you pay that ?
If you are upgrading to a more expensive home then you will want that money to help pay for it. Who is going to want to move if you have tens of £k’s to pay on top ?
No different to stamp duty then, except it would be inversely proportional to how often you move.
Some grandparents in Surrey would have to pay 20% on it's rise since they paid 3 and sixpence in 1953. Working people who want to change jobs and move up the career ladder would pay very little as they might want to move every 5 years. The current system prevents people from moving, whilst rewarding people who can sit on their property for decades by taxing the same rate whether you've been there 6 months or 60 years.
The system works perfectly well for inheritance tax, when one half of a couple dies, the tax is calculated, but nothings taken until the surviving parter dies and the home can be sold.
Same could easily work for a CGT, you could either pay it off each time you moved like stamp duty, pay it off when you downsized, or pay it off when the house is sold when you're dead.
Like I said, why do you believe it's fair that a young family has to pay 100% of those capital gains to get onto the property ladder, but older generations shouldn't pay 20% of those un-earnt gains to society.
Perhaps if you make a good profit you could donate 20% of your profits to your local schools / hospitals/ emergency services or any other worthy causes. Cut out the government middle man and make sure 100% of it gets to where it needs to be 😉
The games already rigged in favor of older generations, I'm not going to play it with one hand tied behind my back as well.
Exactly, unless you are not going to buy another house you haven’t made a profit as the next house you buy will have risen in price just as much as yours. The effect of such an ill thought out tax would be nobody could sell their house other than those not buying another one (very few people)
How do you pay stamp duty?
High speed rail network - 30 year planning horizon, endless public enquiries, prolonged construction programme.
If you can point me to the government's national infrastructure plan I'll search that for any meaningful reference to the development of high speed rail infrastructure; should also be able to see the time period covered.
For reference, molgrips, it was you who referred to a nationwide high speed rail network.
No different to stamp duty then, except it would be inversely proportional to how often you move.
Some grandparents in Surrey would have to pay 20% on it’s rise since they paid 3 and sixpence in 1953. Working people who want to change jobs and move up the career ladder would pay very little as they might want to move every 5 years. The current system prevents people from moving, whilst rewarding people who can sit on their property for decades by taxing the same rate whether you’ve been there 6 months or 60 years.
The system works perfectly well for inheritance tax, when one half of a couple dies, the tax is calculated, but nothings taken until the surviving parter dies and the home can be sold.
Same could easily work for a CGT, you could either pay it off each time you moved like stamp duty, pay it off when you downsized, or pay it off when the house is sold when you’re dead.
Like I said, why do you believe it’s fair that a young family has to pay 100% of those capital gains to get onto the property ladder, but older generations shouldn’t pay 20% of those un-earnt gains to society.
You are assuming the person in your story doesn't need care.
In the case of several family members, they may have accrued money in the their home, but invariably all this, bar (I think £16k to pay for funeral arrangements), will eaten up in care home fees which are running at >£100k a year.
So in your planning, Ethel runs up £200k equity in her home. This is sold and £40k (using your 20%) goes to the tax man. OK, but her care home fees eat up her remaining equity sooner and then the tax man has to bear the cost of her ongoing care.
So the only way us, the tax payer, would see any benefit was if Ethel dies in her own home before she needs care.
Therefore your policy would both be unpopular with the general public AND raise no real revenue in most instances.
Some of them work for a digital agency doing work for a client in London
Has Covid working from home not taught us anything? All that could be done in a zoom / teams meeting. I used to have to do an 8 hour round trip to near London for pre- start meetings for new contracts . Do all that on line now .
What they need to develop is a virtual reality system like in Kingsmen where you can sit round a table with each other remotely 😄
You are assuming the person in your story doesn’t need care.
You're assuming that taxing everyone fairly wouldn't result in a heathcare system that stops caring for you when it gets expensive.
Although yes, I'd also be in favor of an inheritance tax system that meant the only things that could be passed on were of sentimental value. The biggest part of most estates is going to be the house, and for most people they're going to have seen it go up 5x-10x what they paid for housing over their lifetime. None of that gain was "earned". Infact arguably most of it is earnt by younger generations still working in the economy, earning money and outbidding each other for the assets owned by the generations above them.
So your 20% property tax is going to cover the whole cost of nursing homes and care homes for everyone, abolishing bog standard, but private care homes which cost £2k a week?!
Blimey! you must be expecting a bumper haul!
So your 20% property tax is going to cover the whole cost of nursing homes and care homes for everyone, abolishing bog standard, but private care homes which cost £2k a week?!
Blimey! you must be expecting a bumper haul!
If your options are either
a) take 100% of the assets of 20% of the population to fund their care
b) take 20% of the assets of 100% of the population to fund their care
Then yes, yes I am.
Actualy you seem to have missread it, I'm saying 20% CGT on property, AND substantially higher inheritance tax, you can inherit grandads gold watch, but not the million pound bungalow in Sevenoaks. We're in the bonkers scenario where some kids born to parents in the SE stand to inherit more than the lifetime earnings of someone on minimum wage.
If your options are either
a) take 100% of the assets of 20% of the population to fund their care
b) take 20% of the assets of 100% of the population to fund their careThen yes, yes I am.
(Actualy you seem to have missread it, I’m saying 20% CGT on property, AND substantially higher inheritance tax, you can inherit grandads gold watch, but not the million pound bungalow in Sevenoaks).
It seems like you are actually proposing to take 100% of the assets from 100% of the population. Unless they don't have any assets that is.
That's a shitty deal any way you market it.
I think we can all agree that a high speed rail network is 'a good idea'.
Where it goes, how much it should cost and how long it takes (to build) are the matters for debate.
This is my understanding of hs2
The gov has used our taxes over the last 5+ years to buy up the land, property and houses required to implement a good proportion of it.
It's taken decades of debate, planning and infrastructure design to get to the point where construction contracts have been made and boots are on site.
Id assume it'll now cost us far more in lost public money with predicted fall in house prices to get out of building it that it would to actually implement it. The time to get out of building was 12-18months ago when house prices were high and some money could have been reimbursed, but BoJo gave it the go ahead.
The point is that all UK tax-payers money is being used for SE based projects yet there is almost no investment in other regions. The SE just benefits whilst all the other regions do not prosper.
thats demonstratably untrue. The south east puts more money into the pot than any other region, and takes less-per-head out again. This is good, it pays for making things more even across the country, but to claim it doesn't exist is nonsense.
For reference, molgrips, it was you who referred to a nationwide high speed rail network.
Yes, I said that HS2 wasn't a complete network in itself (obviously) simply part of one.
The notion that we all benefit is a nonsense, go to any impoverished area in Bristol, Leeds, Blackburn etc. and tell the locals how ,if they are fortunate enough to work and pay tax, that their taxes are being put to good use in funding yet another infra project to get a city worker from Chelmsford to Leadenhall 3 minutes faster
The worker in Leadenhall is literally making money and should be generating taxable income. That income should be going to help those people in impoverished areas. And it is, just not enough. Those places would be even worse off if the money making parts of the UK weren't making any money.
The fact that wealth is distributed unequally is a political choice. And yes, as I said. ALL areas need investment, in different ways. I'm not advocating neglecting anywhere, of course I'm not. As a resident of South Wales I'm quite aware of the issues.
The south east puts more money into the pot than any other region, and takes less-per-head out again.
Yes - not enough, of course, but there you go.
That's not completely true though and is a parochial view. The notion that the City pays so much tax that the rest of country benefits isn't really representative. Many other cities like Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Cambridge, Oxford have thriving insurance, banking, tech sectors and contribute to the national coffers.
We're turning into France where Paris completely dominates to the detriment of other cities/regions. We have a lot of major cities outside of London where prosperity is possible given better Govt policy (national and local).
The south east puts more money into the pot than any other region, and takes less-per-head out again.
Are you talking absolutes, relatives or ratios? Otherwise it's apples vs pears comparisons
Things gravitate to the SE due to policy, the Govt won't change that and sadly neither will Labour. We all saw Truss & KamiKwasi banging on about people outside the SE don't work hard enough 🤦♂️
Many other cities like Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Cambridge, Oxford have thriving insurance, banking, tech sectors and contribute to the national coffers.
I don't think it's anything like on the same scale, having worked for lots of companies in many of these places.
We’re turning into France where Paris completely dominates to the detriment of other cities/regions.
We've been this way for thousands of years. Thing is, this is the case across all European countries if you look at it historically. Most countries have one huge city (e.g France, Sweden, Finland) or the are modern amalgamations of territories that themselves had one huge city. So whilst Germany has lots of big cities it's made of states that have one major city each - so is Spain. It's a feature of how countries develop, I think.
Governments face a dilemma, because investing where all the businesses already are (e.g. London, Paris) benefits the most people and generates the most business; and in the case of transport is the most needed because the big cities are densest. Imagine London if it didn't have a tube - it wouldn't function at all. However, places where there aren't lots of businesses already need investment to create the businesses. So like I say - investment in both is needed.
Things gravitate to the SE due to policy
No, it's because businesses gravitate to places where other businesses already are. London has always dwarfed the other cities in the UK since long long before Tories and Labour existed.
Governments face a dilemma, because investing where all the businesses already are (e.g. London, Paris) benefits the most people
Hmm. Remind me again how Brexit has benefitted most people ;-(
No, it’s because businesses gravitate to places where other businesses already are. London has always dwarfed the other cities in the UK since long long before Tories and Labour existed.
Not really, it's quite a recent thing say the last 100 years but it accelerated as we demolished our manufacturing base and moved to service industries such as finance in the last 40yrs
London has dwarfed the other cities in the uk for centuries;
During the 18th-century towns in Britain grew larger. Nevertheless, most towns still had populations of less than 10,000. However, in the late 18th century new industrial towns in the Midland and the North of England mushroomed.
Meanwhile, the population of London grew to nearly 1 million by the end of the century. Other towns were much smaller. The population of Liverpool was about 77,000 in 1800. Birmingham had about 73,000 people and Manchester had about 70,000. Bristol had a population of about 68,000. Sheffield was smaller with 31,000 people and Leeds had about 30,000 people. Leicester had a population of about 17,000 in 1800. In the south, Portsmouth had a population of about 32,000 in 1800 while Exeter had about 20,000 people.
( https://localhistories.org/a-history-of-the-population-of-england/)
London had long been an economic powerhouse. The capital’s population steadily increased over the 19th century. In the ten years from the 1891 Census its population expanded by 20 percent (939,000). By 1901, 17 percent of the national population lived in the capital
( https://www.centreforcities.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/12-07-11-Cities-Outlook-1901.pdf)
Not really, it’s quite a recent thing say the last 100 years
I came back to post this wasn't true but kilo got there first.
But there's more to it than population. Most of the other big cities in the UK are based on industries that grew up there for geographical reasons, and most of the people living there were poor factory workers. I bet if you look at the population of affluent middle classes in London vs other cities it'd be 100x bigger than in 1800 it'd be far more disparate even than the total population comparison.
And it goes back further than c19th. In 1750 Manchester had 20,000 people, London had 650,000. In 1100 the estimated population of London was 15,00, but Manchester was a small village.
Fair point
I know the point's been made and acknowledged but I love this stuff so I am gonna share some more.
The Romans built a road network of course primarily for military reasons but the improved communication/transport links they created had an impact on development that continues today.
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-roman-roads-laid-foundation-modern-day.html
Because the big cities could get goods and the provincial ones got markets. It's a two way process. I don't think that modern transport links are any different.
Most of the current UK main roads aren't on the exact same roads as the Roman ones (although some are) but the places they go to and the cities they connect make the network look a lot like the modern one. It was already taking shape 1900 years ago.
How do you pay stamp duty?
Last time I checked stamp duty would not cost me £120,000 whereas your tax 'idea' would.
I guess a lot of opposition to HS2 is based around the experience of travelling by rail in the UK - slow, dirty, delayed, confusing and expensive.
It doesn't haveto be like that.
Modern rail can be fast, clean, punctual and affordable.
Like most shit things in the UK. Things don't have to be like this. It's the modern Tory scourge. Cut everything because **** you.
@molgrips – are the 2 black lines part of Northern Powerhouse rail?
Dunno but there is a road between Manchester and York on there!
I guess a lot of opposition to HS2 is based around the experience of travelling by rail in the UK
My opposition would be that it was just another London commuter line instead of a national project, It should have been
Southampton to Glasgow
London to Edinburgh
Dover to Swansea
Liverpool to Hull
Plus much better lines connecting other major cities to the HS2 network.