The Final Irony.
The public school educated Ed Miliband believes that ‘the best of the country we love’ is represented by non-jobs in the public sector supporting those who contribute nothing to the economy.
Britain owes £876bn in total – all that Osborne and co are promising to do is not borrow any more than that – in four years time! In the meantime they have made no attempt to actually pay off that £876 billion, no one is even talking about it – the argument is totally about how much we should increase it by.
Just how long do Miliband and Co think the rest of the world is going to wait for their money?
Is that really the best of Britain? Is that what remains of a once proud country? A vast pool of the helpless, the disadvantaged, the sick, the disabled, the discriminated against?
He called for people to ‘fight’ to preserve the towering edifice of support services – and ‘fight’ they did.
They smashed up the premises of a charitable organisation whose 450 employees relieved the rich of £56 million and returned it to its holding company which promptly redistributed £37.6m to 1518 different charities. In Milibandland this is obviously a despicable way of carrying on. If Fortnum and Mason’s have any business savvy whatsoever, they will not promptly relocate to somewhere like Monaco, where they can continue to relieve the rich of their millions and despatch their hampers by mail order without feeling any ethical need to support Britain’s helpless or disadvantaged.
They smashed up the offices of Singapore based HSBC, the one High Street Bank which neither asked for, nor needed, bailing out by the government, and which is shortly to make a decision as to whether to pull out of Britain altogether.
They smashed up the premises of Topshop, a company which has made millions out of bringing cheap affordable clothing to those who are not rich – apparently in revenge for Sir Phillip Green only paying that tax which the British tax laws say he should pay. The British tax laws also say that every single person can legally avoid paying any tax whatsoever on the first £6,475 of whatever you earn. Are we about to see UKuncut insisting that it is only ‘fair’ that everyone should hand over an additional £1,295 in tax – why should Philip Green be singled out simply because the figures are large? Let’s abandon all tax relief – everybody gets to pay full tax on everything they earn.
In a final irony, they smashed up property belonging to Lloyds Bank, 40% owned by the British public. 40% of the bill for repairing the damage will be paid from the money that might have gone to the public sector, but what does that matter?
The BBC, 100% owned by the British public, was cringingly supportive of this nonsense, Newsnight produced this gem:
‘UK Uncut is a new kid on the block. They only got together after the Chancellor’s Budget cuts last year but they’ve already got quite a following. They are a social media success story and more than 1,000 of them will be out tomorrow. They think that’s more than enough to close down shops and banks.’
Right, so you close down all the banks and shops, you chase all the entrepreneurs out of your God forsaken communist haven, no more tax relief for anyone left, who is going to pay for all those helpless vulnerable poor then?
According to UKUncut’s own web site, ‘During and after the march, activists from UK Uncut turned banks and tax-dodging stores on Oxford Street into hospitals, libraries and homeless shelters’. Has anybody seen any evidence of these new hospitals set up in Topshop or Fortnum and Mason’s?
March 30,
2011 at 11:54
-
Also, I think you will find Ed Miliband went to a bog-standard state comp.
But apart from that great post.
- March 30,
2011 at 11:40
-
HSBC is actually based in London, although most of its offices are outside
the UK. We benefit because it pays UK corporation tax on the profits that it
repatriates to pay dividends, so the UK tax payer gets a free ride on profits
made elsewhere. HSBC could easily move its headquarters, just as it did when
it moved from Hong Kong to London 20 years ago.
-
March 29, 2011 at 21:36
-
This is how I see it, be it just a tad simplified. The public sector worker
doesn’t produce anything but offers a service to the public. They can never be
value for money because they have no incentive to improve the service they
give at a lower cost. In fact they will endeavour to cost the public more
whilst offering a poorer service. Their managers may pretend they are looking
at ways to cut costs and improve services, but they would rather look at ways
of persuading, nay forcing, the taxpayer to part with more money to pay for
what is often an inferior service.
And, if there are going to be cuts, they have to be found in the public
sector. That’s where the debts come from – more money going out than coming
in, hence borrowing. The private sector is always working harder to increase
business and optimise the service they offer at the best price which sometimes
means hiring people and spending more, but sometimes the reverse.
Because their employer doesn’t generate any income, the public sector
worker is paid by the taxpayer. They don’t pay any income tax or NI because
the taxpayer also pays that for them; the taxpayer also pays both their
pension contributions and their employer’s contributions. And yet their work
entitlements, benefits, salaries, pensions are often superior to many of those
who work in the private sector or who own a business or are self-employed, and
who have to generate the money for all they receive and all the public sector
worker receives too.
So, if the public sector are marching against cuts, they are also marching
in favour of increasing the tax burden for the private sector and for the
Government to borrow even more money to pay for… errr… the public sector and
all that it enjoys.
- March 27, 2011 at 23:04
-
I have been racking my brains for some time trying to work our if there is
any public service job that actually directly, or indirectly, provides wealth
to the nation and I can’t think of one – they all suck wealth from the nation.
The more of them there is the greater drain on the nation.
If anyone can think of one it would be nice to know.
- March 27, 2011 at 22:13
-
@ Anna
Please note my earlier comment about schools.
- March 27, 2011 at 19:40
-
In addition to the pathetic “argument” in this piece there is at least one
factual inaccuracy – Milliband didn’t go to public school. He went to
Haverstock School in Camden – a very average comprehensive.
- March 27, 2011 at 22:11
-
Absolutely correct. As a simple matter of fact, both Milliband boys went
to the local comprehensive – in accordance with the (avowed) Communist
sympathies of their father, Ralph.
- March 27, 2011 at 17:13
-
Actually, the most “progressive” tax reform ever made was Nigel Lawson’s
slashing of the top rate of tax to 40%. And this is something that the stupid
people who hate other people’s success will never understand.
- March 27, 2011 at 18:02
-
I can assure you that I have experienced quite a bit of the world, in
some cases a little too much.
-
March 27, 2011 at 16:32
-
Of course they are holding down a job, how else would you describe it?
A job with guarantees that have nothing to do with effort or performance; a
job with promotions ditto. Undentable great perks, unremovable great pensions;
therein lies a HUUUUUGe difference.
They also pay taxes and buy consumer goods.
The main cuts
will come in redundancies No they won’t; in many cases they should, but
they won’t.
at the same time putting an extra burden on the benefits system. Not
so. But I’d rather pay 10,000 in benefits to many of the non-job incumbents
and lose their spending power than pay them 100,000 in salary and perks.
- March 27, 2011 at 16:47
-
I’m afraid that is a rather simplistic view. If you wish to attract high
level executives to run the public sector than you have to pay the going
rate. I agree the difference between the bottom and the top in public sector
pay scales is large, but show me a business where it isn’t. Redundancies
will come, it is always the easiest way to slice large costs quickly.
- March 27, 2011 at 17:10
-
Saul, I’m afraid you are working on a rather simplistic and deluded
view that the people in the public sector who are being paid these private
sector salaries are actually “high level” at anything. Have you ever met
any of these people?
- March 27, 2011 at 17:19
-
Actually, no I haven’t. Perhaps you can give me your views on the
ones that you have?
- March 27, 2011 at
17:37
-
Invariably stupid and incapable of making sensible decisions and
yet still think they deserve as of right the same amount of money as
directors of profitable large international companies. Perhaps before
you form your next opinion you should actually get out there and
experience some of the world?
- March 27, 2011 at 18:01
-
I concur with Blue Eyes but I know I have met a tiny tiny
percentage – as have most people – but this is why, despite the fact
that they are generalisations – tend to have certain ‘truth’. With no
hyperbole at all they wouldn’t last 2 months in similar positions in a
company that needed to make money. The problem is they themselves
don’t know this and get to think they are “something” which makes
dealing with then even more of a chore.
- March 28, 2011 at 17:23
-
“Actually, no I haven’t. Perhaps you can give me your views on
the ones that you have?”
Let the facts speak for themselves, Saul.
I’ve read the full transcript. Now, I consider myself a hardened
woman, but even I felt a teeny bit of sympathy for a woman so utterly
out of her depth…
- March 27, 2011 at 21:41
-
The fat cats in the public sector love to compare themselves to
executives running similar size organisations. But they’re nothing like
them. If you’re at the top of a private sector company, you have to get
people to voluntarily part with their hard earned cash to buy something
you provide. If you’re at the top of a public sector organisation, you
just have to spend the money that people have to give you in taxes. That’s
quite a big difference, as anybody who has ever tried to get someone to
buy things to keep a company in business will tell you.
Top public
sector salaries and pensions are hugely inflated. It’s time we stopped
these leeches drinking the nation’s blood.
- March 27, 2011 at 15:35
-
Of course they are holding down a job, how else would you describe it? They
also pay taxes and buy consumer goods. The main cuts will come in
redundancies, thereby diminishing the amount people spend, at the same time
putting an extra burden on the benefits system.
(Transferred from above, I’m not au fait with this new fangled commenting
system)
- March 27, 2011 at 15:33
-
Fact check: Ed Miliband when to a state school, specifically the Haverstock
Comp. Can’t you tell? If he’d gone to public school and still mangled his
worms like that, I’d want me money back. Ed Balls went to the private
Nottingham High School.
Otherwise, right on.
-
March 29, 2011 at 20:21
-
Private till his secondary education. Same place as BOJO.
- March 27, 2011 at 15:31
-
Of course they are holding down a job, how else would you describe it? They
also pay taxes and buy consumer goods. The main cuts will come in
redundancies, thereby diminishing the amount people spend, at the same time
putting an extra burden on the benefits system.
-
March 27, 2011 at 20:29
-
Public-sector non-jobs do not create wealth – they merely redistribute
it.
cf. digging holes in order to fill ‘em in.
Not only that, but that
redistribution takes money away from those taxpayers who do create wealth
and real jobs, and the whole system is poorer as a result.
- March 27, 2011 at 14:34
-
“Ed Miliband believes that ‘the best of the country we love’ is represented
by non-jobs in the public sector” – presumably he includes himself in this
group of non-jobs? He should never have committed to this demonstration as any
fool would have told him the good old anarchists would be out in force! What a
complete waste of space he is and a godsend to the coalition. Ed Balls must be
rubbing his hands in anticipation of the coming putsch…
The coalition
should be begging Labour to keep him as leader.
- March 27, 2011 at 14:03
-
There seems to be a misconception that public sector workers and people
living on benefits don’t contribute to the economy. They also have to buy
consumer goods, or perhaps is their money somehow tainted?
- March 27, 2011 at 20:38
-
No. They are an overhead. The bit of the economy which adds value pays
taxes which are used to provide food to the bit which consumes but does not
add value. If the lot which adds value dies or emigrates or refuses to pay
or cannot pay then there is nothing to feed the other bit with.
Some of what the state does is only able to be done by it. I would prefer
my army to not be a private militia. But Im not sure my police force should
be driving BMW’s or Mercs. And I cannot understand why my local hospital has
Powwow water fountains funded by taxpayers when the tap water my local (
crap, but thats another story ) water company provides is highly
potable.
But should my ex Primeminister get 4 bodyguards, let alone 1st class
tickets paid for by us to bring them from a private junket home?
Don’t you think it would be better anyway if people cannot find gainful
employment for our caring society to provide them with say 37 hours of paid
employment at say minimum wage rather than have them waste away providing an
audience for daytime TV on frankly a subsistence pittance?
I want a health service – but I dont think it should be providing
fertility treatment or nose jobs. I want an army – but to defend our island
and its overseas dependencies only. I want a police force – but one that
provides value for money and catches serial rapists rather that motorists. I
want everyone to work in good highly paid jobs, to pay their taxes and to
have enough left to eat well, travel a bit and afford their gas bills. Is
that so much?
- March 28, 2011 at 22:19
-
Aren’t the “back-office” staff in private sector companies overheads as
well? After all they don’t directly make or sell anything. What about the
companies that make office furniture and sell it to companies selling
electricity to government or civil servants? Which is the overhead? Remove
all the overheads and you get soaked when it rains. At least you can look
up and see the stars at night. Perhaps some jobs facilitate the business
of earning money either domestically or through exports.
- March 28, 2011 at 15:51
-
You obviously have some difficulty comprehending the difference between a
tax payer and a tax eater.
- March 28, 2011 at 15:52
-
Should have added that reply was to Saul.
- March 27, 2011 at 13:53
-
Reminds me of an old joke…
Someone received a letter from a creditor demanding payment, or else! His
reply was as follows.
My outgoings exceed my incomings, so each month I put all my bills into a
hat and pull 5 out to be paid. If I receive anymore threatening letters from
you then next month you won’t even go into the hat!
- March 27,
2011 at 14:04
-
Well done Saul! You managed to sum up the attitudes of the protesters in
a nutshell: “Yeah, I owe you money. So what? I’ve no intention of paying my
debt!”
- March 27, 2011 at 14:10
-
Hardly, it is only a joke.
The vast majority of people pay their debts. Why they were allowed to
accumulate it is the big problem.
- March 27,
2011 at 14:05
-
Plus, of course, the usual refrain of the left: “Yes, I’m spending money
I don’t have. So what? There’s always someone else I can find to pay
it!”
- March 27, 2011 at 14:10
-
…but it was quite funny
- March 27, 2011 at 13:34
-
The Top Shop Temporary Hospital
“Dr Swampy will see you now”
“Ahrrg, I got this pain, doc, it comes and
goes and I feel like throwing up”
“Been overdoing the skunk, man?”
“No,
it’s a sharp pain and……..”
“Just tryin’ to break the ice, man. Want some of
these?”
“Ohh, groan, are they painkillers?”
“Dunno, I got ‘em from a
bloke at the peace camp, swapped ‘em for some of me waccy crop”
“It’s
getting worse, doc, OOOOOHHH!!!”
“Tell you what, I got a secondhand plaster
I’ll stick on it, then piss off, I’m getting bored”
“OHHH, ARRRRGH, could
it be appendicitis?”
“You posh or summink? Come in here with your middle
class words, you can GET OUT RIGHT NOW!!”
*crash* *silence*
“We built a
morgue in ‘ere yet?”
-
March 27, 2011 at 13:30
-
I find Jeff Randall a bit annoying, but I found this article
enlightening
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeffrandall/8404945/Not-the-devils-Budget-but-a-necessary-evil.html
G
the M
- March 27,
2011 at 12:46
-
In the 60s we had Mods and Rockers, I was at school in Clacton back then
and saw the violence and damage. Then as that calmed down we had football
hooligans, organised fights and violence based around football clans. Now
times have moved on, we have hooligans and idiots taking over the political
and environmental spectrum.
We will always have people on the edges of
society with more energy than sense, they will always look for causes, hang
onto them and cause trouble and violence. Nothing really changes.
- March 27, 2011 at 12:30
-
by non-jobs in the public sector supporting those who contribute nothing
to the economy.
I can’t complain, it kept me off the dole queue for 18 months , but even I
knew it couldn’t last forever So it’s back to the other side of
the desk for me, because sure as hell things aren’t getting any better.
- March 27, 2011 at 12:20
-
“More than 250,000 took part in the march… But a group of about [only] 500
people gathered in Oxford Street, before targeting Topshop… Protesters,
unconnected to the anti-government cuts rally… a black-clad mob… condemned by
Ed Milliband… TUC General Secretary said he “bitterly regretted” the violence…
engaging in criminal activities for their own ends…”
See, nothing to do with the march at all. They just happened to be in town
on the same day. The BBC says so, so it must be true.
- March 27, 2011 at 13:46
-
Yes indeed and the violence was completly unforseen by the organisers.
Who could have possibly have predicted it? Eh Ed? Eh Brendan?
- March 27, 2011 at 12:18
-
For newsbites they’ve nurses so who could say “nyet”?
They keep us alive
when Reaper’s a threat
But behind all the nurses I spot Comrade Crow
And
the Reaper’s paid hireling I certainly know
- March 27, 2011 at 12:15
-
Funny how when riots take place in other countries it is acknowledged and
accepted that it is because the people are protesting against their
governments/dictators oppressive regimes.
The UK is disappearing down into the sewer as a direct result of our
polticians policies, who knows if the politicians don’t change their policies
and the riots continue to grow perhaps some other countries will send out
their armies to help our ‘freedom fighters’…?
- March 27,
2011 at 12:30
-
And the people ‘protesting’ yesterday wanted the vote, did they? Some
human right denied to them?
No, they just want other people to pay for stuff they want.
-
March 27, 2011 at 13:16
-
And our vote influences what any of the politicians do?
I was just playing devils advocate on the issue of State
oppression.
All Cameron has done is applied his own ‘brand’ whilst picking and
continuing what the last incumbent started.
To date, Camerons decisions are continuing to put us and future
generations, without so much as a by-your-leave, into further debt to fund
his ever growing number of pet foreign projects. Telling us we must live
on less and expect less for the taxes we pay, whilst at the same time it
is acknowledged his decision will increase the terrorist threat?
Why should the riots over here, caused as a direct result of Cameron
policies or lack of them should be considered different?
How and in what way is this supposed to be acceptable to the people who
are refused any say in this?
As I say, I am playing devils advocate
- March
27, 2011 at 13:38
-
“How and in what way is this supposed to be acceptable to the
people who are refused any say in this?”
We have a representative democracy. If these disaffected others want
to change things, they are welcome to. Let them put their money where
their mouth is, form a party, get enough votes.
If not, well, shut up, sit down, and ‘enjoy’ the ride…
-
March 27, 2011 at 15:10
-
The devils advocate wonders where on the ballot paper we could vote
for a coalition who could renege and/or u-turn on nearly everything
that was in the LibDem and conservative manifestos to follow the
statist policies of NuLabour and the undemocratic EU?
- March 27, 2011 at 13:42
-
They were demanding the right to carry on spending at the expense of
their offspring.
- March
30, 2011 at 11:37
-
“They were demanding the right to carry on spending at the expense of
their offspring.”
I think you meant *the rest of the country and our offspring*.
- March
27, 2011 at 12:12
-
UK Uncut doesn’t condone violence, as far as I can see. Most of the UK
Uncut protests have been peaceful occupations and so on.
Now, as a percentage of GDP, it appears the UK was in a much worse state in
1945 than it is now. From what I can find out, in 1945 the UK national debt as
a percentage of GDP was over 200%; in 2009 it was 44%.
(Don’t ask me to explain what that actually means. I’m not an economist,
and most numbers beyond 50 blur into insignificance.)
Anyway, why is it now deemed necessary to slash and burn in order to reduce
anything? I’m all for efficiencies, but what is proposed smacks of pure
ideology over actual need.
- March 27,
2011 at 12:29
-
“UK Uncut doesn’t condone violence, as far as I can see. Most of the
UK Uncut protests have been peaceful occupations and so on.”
Because it’s somehow not ‘violence’ to prevent others from going about
their lawful business..?
-
March 27, 2011 at 12:43
-
The reason the debt was so large in 1945 was because of a single event.
An event that has not happened since. Every other year other than around
1945 the debt was low. It’s only been increasing again in the last ten years
or so.
The single event? World War II. An event which required a massive
spending on the military. And which immediatly after the war meant that
there was not productive work being done as many had been killed in the war
and many businesses had stopped because there were no employees. And don’t
forget the rationing too.
- March 27, 2011 at 13:00
-
SBML, of course we’d just fought a war, and we owed money to the USA.
But we still managed to invent a national health service and nationalise
most industries.
JuliaM, if you take a moment to look at how UKUncut handle their
peaceful protest, you’d realise that many times they make a point of not
getting in the way of actual business on the premises, and most times the
customers of said businesses end up joining in.
- March
27, 2011 at 13:31
-
“But we still managed to invent a national health service and
nationalise most industries.”
And that NHS dealt in basic ‘repairs’ rather than expensive lifestyle
support, and those nationalised industries quickly grew into bloated
monoliths dedicated to their own survival, and nothing else…
- March 27, 2011 at 13:40
-
I’m with you there.
We’re back to the efficiency saving again. =o)
- March
27, 2011 at 13:32
-
“…and most times the customers of said businesses end up joining
in.”
Not me. I’d cheerfully horsewhip the whinging little morons out of
the store…
-
March 27, 2011 at 13:42
-
Horsewhip! Now that really made me chuckle.
- March 27, 2011 at 13:40
-
That is of course utter bullshit. UkUncut’s single “MO” is to disrupt
the business of the firms they are attacking. They do this by hacking
their websites, damaging their property and preventing customers from
entering their premises.
-
March 28, 2011 at 19:01
-
“of course we’d just fought a war, and we owed money to the USA. But
we still managed to invent a national health service.”
What a odd thing to say. The government stole private hospitals and
used their monopoly of force to make doctors work for them. It ‘created’
nothing, the network of excellent modern hospitals was already there.
The state can not ‘create’ anything, it can only steal and destroy,
occasionally it can redistribute, but always less than it stole after
some of that was destroyed.
-
March 28, 2011 at 19:34
-
Rolls-Royce (1971) was created after Rolls-Royce Limited went into
administrative receivership. It was privatised in 1987 as Rolls-Royce
plc.
- March 27, 2011 at 14:01
-
Anyway, why is it now deemed necessary to slash and burn in order to
reduce anything?
It is precisely this sort of hyperbole that prevents many peopel from
enlightenment; I don’t blame you, the BBC have been at it for ages. Ther eis
no slash and burn, there are barely any cuts yet.
Look to the local council when you (not ‘you’, I’m generalising) want to
complain about a library closesure. Look at who they employ and what they do
for their money (not a lot, seriously, many have no idea what the ‘real
world’ is like), look at their expenses (regardless of political party)
.
- March 27, 2011 at 20:11
-
We made stuff after the war. We were still major players in world trade
and manufacture.
The numbers in pretend money don’t amount to a hill of beans. How the
hell are we going to pay it back. Maybe 4 moptops will be found in Liverpool
and the resulting taxes on their massive record sales will make up for the
cars we don’t export or the ships we dont build any more.
- March 27,
2011 at 12:04
-
The whole thing’s a temper tantrum – the money isn’t there, they know it,
and they are just hoping to kick the can down the road for just that little
bit longer…
- March 27, 2011 at 11:38
-
So, out of the estimated 250.000 plus who attended how many were involved
in the violence?
-
March 27, 2011 at 12:06
-
More than one, which is more than enough. I say the police should just
leave them too it – take the cost of damage repair from the UB40 pool…
- March 27,
2011 at 12:08
-
Does it matter?
The left insist that a number of people no more than the last Countryside
Alliance march somehow represents ‘the overwhelming public feeling against
the cuts’, so can’t then turn around and claim that the ‘small minority’ of
violent scum is somehow unrepresentative.
This was pointed out on a Tweet doing the rounds yesterday.
- March 27, 2011 at 12:41
-
A Tweet? What a ridiculous thing to say.
- March
27, 2011 at 13:25
-
Why? Does the medium diminish the message, somehow?
Good luck with that line of defence, Saul!
-
March 27, 2011 at 13:38
-
It doesn’t diminish it.
I merely thought that a; “Tweet doing the rounds” seemed to imply
that it was a source for earth shattering insights.
- March 27, 2011 at 12:20
-
Roughly the same proportion as the 250,000 represent of the £64 million
population of Britain.
If 250,000 can apparently ‘speak for Middle
Britain’, then 1,000 UKUncut can certainly speak for 250,000
demonstrators.
- March 27, 2011 at 12:45
-
The 250,00 represent themselves. nothing more and nothing less. Just as
the 1,000 represent whatever sponsored agenda they have. There is nothing
stopping the 64 million from speaking for themselves.
- March 27, 2011 at
12:47
-
According to Ed Miliband and Brendon Barber, they represent Middle
Britain, not just themselves……
-
March 27, 2011 at 12:58
-
Does that make it true then?
We are bombing Libya because David Cameron says it is right, is
that the opinion of everyone in the country.
As for Brendon Barber I have no idea who he is, and I suspect 99%
of the population don’t either.
- March 27, 2011 at 13:12
-
Ah for the days when everyone knew the name of the TUCs General
Secretary……..
Edited to add – my typo, it should be Brendan Barber, now you
know who he is? Yes?
-
March 27, 2011 at 13:24
-
I do now, but that doesn’t change the fact that the majority of
people don’t. The TUC is no longer the organisation it once was.
Some may say that is a good thing others may disagree. What we are
seeing from the TUC and the Labour party is political
posturing.
This all deflects from the main issue, where should the
inevitable cuts come, how big should they be, and who should
suffer?
- March 27, 2011 at 13:41
-
1) On Labour’s unproductive client state,
2) Huge,
3) See answer 1)
- March 27, 2011 at 13:43
-
Are the cuts inevitable? Surely, if most of the corporations
were persuaded to stop avoiding (quite legally, mind) paying the
full taxes they should owe to HMRC, we wouldn’t be expecting
such deep and painful cuts.
Well, it kind of makes sense to me. What do I know? I’m just
a pleb.
- March 27, 2011 at 13:49
- March 27, 2011 at 14:08
-
partly true but then there is also UNCOLLECTED TAX, which
surely much more of a “crime”, certainly more than legal
avoidance.
- March 27, 2011 at 13:48
-
Where should the cuts be made? Not as simple as just the
‘rich or the poor’, which is where I suspect you are going with
this.
In order to generate income, we need to encourage those
who produce, and yes, that may well be a the expense of those
who just consume – there is no one else, no magic money
tree.
Basing the Labour party’s policy on the idea that
somehow there are sufficient ‘fat cats’ around who can be
squeezed relentlessly and righteously so that no pain may be
felt by any one else is unrealistic – the fat cats will bound
off elsewhere and you will be left with nothing.
The Labour
party’s idea that preserving the jobs of the diversity officers
will magically save the kingdom is madness. Someone, somewhere,
has to actually make something that is worth someone paying more
than it cost to make – if that turns out to be encouraging
bankers to make profits, so be it – we don’t seem to be
manufacturing anything else these days.
It could never be a
simple as ‘its all the bankers fault’ they got us into this
mess, tax them relentlessly to pay for it, is to ignore the fact
that it was ordinary men and women who borrowed money from the
banks to buy a holiday home or a new kitchen or a bigger car.
Yes, maybe it will be more painful to repay that money than they
imagined, but pushing all the blame on the folks who lent them
the money is unrealistic.
- March 27, 2011 at 14:09
-
But so like the left, Anna. They don’t do personal
responsibility. It’s always someone else’s fault…
- March 27, 2011 at 14:57
-
I’m from the centre. I find the political spectrum has
shifted so far to the right in the past few decades that I
am now virtually a communist!
I’m open to ideas. If there is a better way for this
country to cope with the debt, then let’s hear it. I look
around and I am not happy the solutions being proposed by a
bunch of politicos who have never held down a proper job in
their entire lives are quite right.
- March 27, 2011 at 14:41
-
Anna, you will never win the argument by using common sense
and facts. The modern education system has avoided such things
for years so the majority of the population doesn’t know how
to handle them.
- March
27, 2011 at 13:27
-
If they just ‘represent themselves’, we’re free to ignore them. Since
the 64 million said “Nothing to do with us, mate!’…
- March 27,
2011 at 15:21
-
Yet you’re happy with the solutions (‘Let someone else pay! Tax the rich!’)
proposed by the union & public sector leaders who’ve…errr, never held down
a job in their lives?
- March
27, 2011 at 21:47
-
Strange. I have found exactly the opposite. The principles I had when I was
a right-ish Labour supporter in the early 70s (freedom, fairness, honesty,
non-exploitation, independence and responsibility) now make me some kind of
rabid right-winger in the eyes of some.
- March 30,
2011 at 12:04
-
Easy – spend less.
Government spending has jumped from £350 billion in 1997 to £700 billion in
2010 (100%).
Meanwhile tax receipts have only increased from £350 billion to £530
billion – i.e. a bit over 50% and hence the deficit.
Why is that? The answer is that the rest of the economy (i.e.
GDP-government expenditure) only grew from £525 billion to £650 billion, or
less than 25%. A lot of that lack of growth is down to the lack of investment
which was deterred by the increasing tax burden relative to the size of the
public sector.
- March 27, 2011 at 15:36
-
Of course they are holding down a job, how else would you describe it? They
also pay taxes and buy consumer goods. The main cuts will come in
redundancies, thereby diminishing the amount people spend, at the same time
putting an extra burden on the benefits system.
(Transferred from above, I’m not au fait with this new fangled commenting
system, sorry)
- March
27, 2011 at 16:45
-
I want everyone to pay their fare share. In other words, if you earn more
than me, you ought to pay proportionately more tax than me. If I should ever
reach such heady heights of income, I’d still expect to pay my way.
It seems a lot of very big and very rich businesses are able to get away
without paying their fair share. The result seems to be that those of us least
able to afford to pay are being made to pay by cutting the very things we
might rely on to make life bearable.
- March 27, 2011 at 16:49
-
Exactly.
- March 27,
2011 at 17:20
-
“It seems a lot of very big and very rich businesses are able to get
away without paying their fair share.”
You mean, they take advantage ofvtax breaks and legal loopholes? Rather
like that well-known campaigner for ‘justice’, the Guardian newspaper…
- March 28, 2011 at 22:21
-
Snapto
Are you saying that everybody should pay, say, 20% tax, whatever
they earn or are you saying that it is unfair that some people earn more than
others and they should be penalised with a higher tax rate?
- March 27,
2011 at 17:18
-
Their ‘job’ appears to be paying very well, yet strangely, those who rely
on them to steal others money for them never seem to consider them ‘the rich’.
Very odd…
- March
27, 2011 at 17:54
-
Exactly.
- March
27, 2011 at 21:48
-
This should have been in reply to Snaptophobic 16:45.
-
March 29, 2011 at 20:24
-
Yup. I have experienced exactly the same. The Labour Party, since the
advent of the bastards Blair and Brown, has got some very nasty virus in its
bloodstream. I think the only cure may be to have it put down.
- March 28, 2011 at 19:43
-
You do realise that ‘proportionally more tax’ means that you are arguing
for a flat rate tax system?
IE a system whereby (to use round figures, and ignoring allowances) someone
earning £10K pays (at 20% flat rate) £2K in tax and someone earning £100K pays
£20K in tax? That is he earns ten times your income and pays 10 time your
tax?
What we have is a so called ‘progressive’ tax system and the man on £100K
pays circa 20% of £40K and 40% of £60k, or £32K. So he earns 10 times what you
do but pays 16 times as much tax.
How ‘fair’ is that?
{ 95 comments }