That is yet another gross generalisation from Boris.
Quite how he thinks he can say or even know the views of millions of people is typical of how blinkered he is.
Westminster Politics
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Quite how he thinks he can say or even know the views of millions of people is typical of how blinkered he is.
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kier starmer once again bettered boris who floundered all the way through PMQ'S
I agree, and appreciate that it's difficult for him as he's obliged to be somewhat restrained (given Labour's desperate need for credibility, in order to be taken seriously by the electorate again), but...where is the anger at what this government and Prime Minister have done? Who will speak for those of us who are outraged at the misconduct, the casual and lazy neglect, the amateurishness, the arrogance?
As it stands, PMQs on a Wednesday is a bit of trial for Johnson - a brief trial - then it's an all too rare briefing appearance and his one-day-per-week job is apparently done; then he disappears again. All of this is simply not good enough, and should be called out with justified anger and contempt, regardless of how it would be framed as 'the looney Left frothing at the mouth, as usual'.
I believe that there is increasing annoyance at the government mishandling and incompetence in the overall handling of this pandemic.
It is no good Boris looking around in his usual stupid way without identifying a clear and coherent strategic plan.
He must know that Labour were going to attack him on the school debacle.
So where was his sound reasoning.
Instead, he resorted to his usual tactic. Blame Starmer.
He is rapidly becoming a laughing stock.
Notice how Boris starts banging the dispatch box harder and harder as sessions go on against Starmer.
Boris pretty much tried this today in reframing Starmers criticism on the death numbers as a criticism not of the government but of the NHS and countries effort. Wasn't so blatant but that was the angle.
Incapable of anything but deflection.
I'm honestly not criticising Johnson for the sake of it, or because of my personal politics, but I'm really struck by how incredibly bad he is at this tactic (i.e. making out that Starmer is attacking the government or the NHS instead of helping matters as Labour stated they would do during the crisis). It says a lot that Johnson is viewed by his set as some great entertainer and wit; how the hell does he think words like 'tergiversations' will go down with the rest of the public? Such deeply serious circumstances are hardly the arena for verbal grandstanding...
Is it true Sunak is meeting the 1922 committee? Any chance this is a quiet conversation about ousting Boris?
Be amazing to have another unelected PM.
Be amazing to have another unelected PM.
Mr Future PM Material was out and about at a market this morning, with his shirts sleeves up in the time-honoured focus group-inspired way. Bleugh.
I doubt it ... probably linked to boris calling them up and promising spending ... they all probably want to push their pet causes to sunak
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...nks-back-increase-public-spending-in-lockdown
Honestly, I don't get this future PM thing.
It is not that difficult to hand out public money, especially during a situation like we have now.
The really difficult thing is managing the economy through a deep recession which will be caused by corona as well as the self inflicted problems of brexit.
Let's see how he manages the economy through the next few years before we think about him as a future PM.
indeed - most probably there is going to have to be some tax increases - lets see how his popularity fares at that point ... and besides if anybody pushes in line in front of gove he will 100% knife them in the back
Agreed, when he starts delivering bad news we will see how ‘future PM’ he will be.
To be fair, the Tories have been defunding the police since before it was fashionable.
Ultimately, there will be a need for tax increases.
But in my view, that should not be the first action.
The first action has to be to stimulate the economy.
Unfortunately, we are far too reliant on the service sector.
So we can not manufacture our way out.
I would like to see VAT temporarily reduced in order to stimulate growth.
Once the economy has stabilised at whatever level of recession, increasing taxes will only stunt potential growth.
And let's not forget the impending hit from finally leaving the EU.
Agreed (although my reduction of VAT wouldn't be temporary).
I'd also like to see an increase in the tax free allowance. Increasing the minimum wage above inflation in the current climate is going to be hugely counterproductive but giving a pay rise to particularly lower earners should be a priority.
I'm not sure if it's workable but I also wonder whether some sort of temporary corporation tax relief could be given to companies that take on young people over the next few years too since they'll be the worst hit (possibly a % of corporation tax so that businesses that avoid huge amounts would be prejudiced against).
With the minimum wage as it is and the pool of possible candidates for unskilled jobs as it will inevitably be I can't see the incentive for businesses to employ for example a 25 year old with very little experience.
I expect you will see tax breaks (for example ni reductions) for employing apprentices graduates or long term unemployed
Possibly tax credits for training similar to r&d
I expext corporation tax to rise across most countries with the mantra of we bailed out companies in their hour of need... its now their duty to repay that help
All good points.
I would certainly like to see petrol and diesel taxes increased so as to offset VAT reduction as well as a reduction in NI.
The fuel tax increases can easily be justified to help with climate change as well as increasing the incentive toward more electronic cars.
There is a need for large-scale innovation in order to mitigate the worst effects of the impending large recession.
Would make sense although as corporation tax is so manipulatable I'd like to specifically see corporation tax relief factored in to training/graduates/employment.
Having businesses who've paid almost no corporation tax historically, who've also been the beneficiaries of the various Covid schemes, then being able to exploit subsidised labour in my view isn't equitable.
Rewarding businesses who have paid corporation tax by having the relief tied to tax paid seems a no brainer to me (although it might be unfeasible administratively).
See this is where we disagree. Fuel taxes in my view are one of the most regressive taxes in existence. The poorest in society can't afford electric cars and outside of London most have to travel dozens of miles to work. A tax on fuel is a tax on working for the poorest.
Setting aside my personal opinion (to quote a great man "I am favour of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible), I think if any additional taxes were to be implemented there's room for some sort of land tax to replace stamp duty, business rates and council tax all in one. Calculated on purpose of land, acreage and location.
With a bit of thought huge warehouses in the middle of nowhere, vast country estates and upper middle class houses with a few acres would pay more but smaller houses and businesses (particularly on the high street) would pay less. You could possibly relax planning restrictions to compensate for large increases in tax so that people could build more houses on their land in order to split their land tax. This might be a driver for more houses to be built and lower house prices. It would also stop people owning huge swathes of land for years with planning and not building on it in order to keep supply repressed and prices high (the second planning was granted turning land from agriculture into housing the owner would have to pay a land tax equivalent to the volume of houses they've been given planning for).
Again though it could be too administratively challenging.
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You can kinda do that yourself. Don’t wait for better people to do it for you.
Reduce your employees working weeks to something sensible like, y’know, 35-40 hours a week, and it’s an effective pay rise.
Unless all my competitors do it at the same time it doesn't work as I'm effectively just ceding market share.
If the tax free allowance is increased its universal meaning a level playing field. If the philosophy is "let's wait for certain businesses to voluntarily make themselves less commercially competitive" we'll all be waiting a long time.
Question out of left field.... Are there any statues of you up in the UK?
So far out of left field you past John McDonnell about half an hour ago in a supersonic jet by any chance?
If you worked as many hours as your employees are forced to, you’d probably have enough time to write a decent comeback and find a personality.[Im sorry for being awful, but your posts and attitude have really annoyed me and will probably irk me forever. You should block me]
That really is a great thread. It needs to be constantly repeated where possible.
Was going through old files and saw this screenshot from December, a few days before the election
Try to play the post and not the poster.
We won't agree on many things politically but surely allowing the poorest in society to keep more of their own money isn't contentious?
Raising the tax free allowance is not universal. Lots of low earners dont benefit from it.
Not to be too pedantic but to define universal "relating to or done by all people or things in the world or in a particular group, applicable to all cases"
The particular group in question (of which it would apply to all cases) would be those working 30+ hours a week.
Apologies if the context was misleading though (and naturally those not in this group would be positively affected by the VAT/fuel changes I mentioned)
That's tragic, I wonder if it was a bad joke.Was going through old files and saw this screenshot from December, a few days before the election
He’s brilliant
Last week’s was a belter, as was the one re Dominic Cummings
If you're talking about giving a pay rise to low earners, why exclude part time workers?
Agreed. There are many reasons people work part time, often it's due to mental or physical health, and working part time is an achievement rather than something to be looked down on.
The people you're talking about are almost certainly disproportionately affected by all or some of the other reductions I spoke about (VAT, Fuel duties, council tax).
I would guess those people are also disproportionately weighted to the under 30 band and so if businesses had corporation tax relief on either employing them or giving them more hours then again they'd indirectly see the benefit.
A combination of making things cost less (VAT), reducing the cost of living (council tax), reducing the cost to work (fuel reduction) and providing greater opportunities (corporation tax relief) in my view would be a positive cocktail of measures.
However if you can think of any other taxes that cutting would benefit the poorest most pertinently is probably agree with those too (NI reductions for instance).
I've no problem with those other measures, or at least if tax reduction is your aim there are worse ways. But whatever benefits there were to raising the personal allowance back in 2010 when the Tories took over have long since been exhausted. The personal allowance has almost doubled in 10 years. At this point raising it further benefits middle and high earners but not low earners. That's before we consider who is impacted by the reduced spending power of the Government.
And by the way it mainly affects women, not young people. About 40% of women who work do so part time, vs about 13% men, and a quarter of women get paid below the voluntary living wage. About 60% of all low earners are women, and bear in mind there are less women in employment as a whole. So they're the one's most likely to miss out with personal allowance changes.
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That's where I disagree. In my view anyone earning £20k or less should not be paying a penny of income tax or national insurance. Truth be told any person that's entitled to benefits shouldn't be paying tax; it's illogical and cruel to take their money and then give it back to them like some sort of gift.
I'm sure if you plotted it as a Venn diagram young women would probably be the worst affected and they would be the ones who would most benefit from their wages going further with a reduction in fuel duties and VAT, a reduction in council tax and an extra few hours of work a week made possible by CT relief.
I'd also abolish all taxes on utilities and also on insurance that is mandatory by law (e.g. car tax), as taxing the poor for heating their homes, educating their children via the internet and driving to work is inhumane.
Does she expect people not to read the letter that's she's posted? And I mean actual people, not just the bots replying to her in support.