[Politics] Is this current Government to the right or left of Tony Blair's Government

[sussex_guy2k2]

They’ve lost winter fuel payments they didn’t need and the inheritance tax farmland loop hole for their investment funds has been reduced.

But I agree, lots more to do.

The thing is, you need to be very careful about tax adjustment when in government. The markets are like startled pigeons as the lettuce found out when she decided that cutting tax for the wealthy was going to see unrivalled growth. One can postulate that these inane ideas popped into her head as this sweating, grunting and gurning slab of gammon loomed and wobbled over her in moments of ecstasy:
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Taxing the rich has the potential to extinguish growth even more than the lettuce achieved.

A hard left populist party would just pull the levers and go for it. Perhaps the grown-ups making the hard decisions are going to be more strategic about it. Drip, drip, drip. Let’s see where we are in 4 years time.

You do have to be careful about taxation, but bringing income tax in line with recent inflation would help a lot. The idea that the 40% tax bracket kicks in at £50,000 still is frankly ludicrous. And I do appreciate that this is still a lot of money to a lot of people, but bearing in mind minimum wage now is around £25,000, you end up not taking home much more once you hit that £50,000 mark. And a £50,000 salary won’t even allow you to buy a house in the South East anymore, so it’s really not a lot.

 

[chickens]

Every new government seems to think that there are massive savings to be made in the welfare system.

This is only true if employers are actively seeking to employ individuals who:

a) attend erratically
b) work under the influence of substances
c) those with addiction issues may steal from their employers
d) may regularly break down in the work place, requiring support and supervision for their safety and everyone else’s.
e) require employers to almost become social workers and support staff with what many would consider day to day activities.

Now, how many employers actually want this?

Without this, there will be no saving on welfare. PIP came in to try and reduce the expense of DLA, PIP is now costing significantly more than DLA ever did.

Effectively it had to expand as without it expanding, people were being left absolutely destitute, those who weren’t employable weren’t getting employed, and couldn’t manage the conditionality of work related benefits.

This effectively left charities overwhelmed with square pegs which the DWP were fruitlessly trying to hammer into round holes.

If these cuts go through, they will inflict more needless misery on society’s most vulnerable, until slowly and quietly over time, allowances are made for the fact that very few employers wish to employ those with the characteristics above, and the numbers will again exceed current levels.

Work would have to be reimagined to effectively be a sort of social support club for these reforms to work. I’m not sensing any enthusiasm for that from business. My honest answer to this is leave it alone, accept welfare as one of the costs of civilization and crack on elsewhere.

I have some experience in this sector, and I have to say that in my time I was not seeing loads of perfectly all right individuals gaming the system. I was seeing perhaps one in every two hundred people where it felt like there was a strong element of taking the piss.

What I mainly saw was people with quite significant health issues, often completely alone and unsupported, who were trying to keep their heads above water in a world they didn’t really understand and was largely passing them by.

To employ them would often require significant alterations being made to a place of work, with the potential that they would still have erratic attendance and perform poorly in comparison with their colleagues. If I’m an employer, where’s the upside? I’m spending more to get less.

How would employers feel about being forced to accept a percentage of their staff being those with significant barriers to employment? Would they rather just contribute their taxes toward welfare?

I don’t know, my feeling is that especially smaller businesses would struggle. If you employ five people and one of them’s either rarely there or incredibly unproductive, or requires almost constant supervision, I’d have thought that this would be a real struggle to work around.

TLDR - stop punching down, there aren’t the savings you think there are unless employers are actively seeking to completely reimagine the nature of working.

 

[Bry Nylon]

my State pension is going up £7 a week.

Which doubtless you’ll just blow on fags, booze and bingo

 

[Weststander]

A bit more to the right.

My theory is that they feel they need to cater for voters concerned with immigration, the gender rows, etc. Whilst also trying to balance the financial books .... Brown in 1997 inherited a far better position.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

Which doubtless you’ll just blow on fags, booze and bingo

and waste the rest.

 

[Withdean South Stand]

The reality is that they are to the right of center. But the narrative is wild in all directions, depending on which tin-foil hat merchant you listen to and then immediately discard the opinions of.

 

[beorhthelm]

...If these cuts go through, they will inflict more needless misery on society’s most vulnerable, until slowly and quietly over time, allowances are made for the fact that very few employers wish to employ those with the characteristics above, and the numbers will again exceed current levels. ...

the "cuts" amount to reducing the future 2030 budget target of £58bn to £53bn, up from £38bn now.

seems from the preamble we should simply accept a cohort of people that dont work for various reasons and it's worth the cost to subsidise them through disabilities. as it goes both the last government and current agree, with current one trimming the budget 10% 5 year out.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Which doubtless you’ll just blow on fags, booze and bingo

You know me well, Bry.

 

[Mustafa II]

It's a very different time to Tony Blair's Labour.

Everyone with any sense that the benefits system is broken and, in many cases, counter-productive.

It's not beneficial or sustainable to have so many people who are able to work, not working - for them as individuals, or for society.

It is not a left or right wing policy - it is just address a serious political crises in the current climate.

Overall though, all things considered, I would say Blair and Starmer are about on a par on the political spectrum.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

On the point of cancelling my Labour membership. The current incumbents seem intent on harvesting Low Hanging Fruit that can't fight back. Cuts in Winter Fuel Payments, Benefits etc is not a Labour Party that I recognise anymore. A brave Labour Party would go after the big money c*nts that are taking the piss

 

[Mustafa II]

On the point of cancelling my Labour membership. The current incumbents seem intent on harvesting Low Hanging Fruit that can't fight back. Cuts in Winter Fuel Payments, Benefits etc is not a Labour Party that I recognise anymore. A brave Labour Party would go after the big money c*nts that are taking the piss

I'm the opposite - I think Starmer has been the best Labour leader in my lifetime. I'm rejoining the party after over a decade.

Don't forget Labour is all about WORKING people.

Starmer is making some incredibly difficult, unpopular but important decisions - which are for the good of the country and for its people.

I fear the media will be successful with the social manipulation and he won't get a second term to continue this great work.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

You do have to be careful about taxation, but bringing income tax in line with recent inflation would help a lot. The idea that the 40% tax bracket kicks in at £50,000 still is frankly ludicrous. And I do appreciate that this is still a lot of money to a lot of people, but bearing in mind minimum wage now is around £25,000, you end up not taking home much more once you hit that £50,000 mark. And a £50,000 salary won’t even allow you to buy a house in the South East anymore, so it’s really not a lot.

I agree that tax brackets need to rise a little. The basic allowance is almost at state pension level, which considering the basic state pension is less than the living wage is ridiculous.
As it is, the British state pension is very low compared to most of Europe. Last year the numbers of pensioners owning their own homes dropped from 73% to 68%.
Rents & council tax are rising, plus the added factor of more pensioners needing care or residential, and no means to finance it.
It‘s a ticking time bomb.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I'm the opposite - I think Starmer has been the best Labour leader in my lifetime. I'm rejoining the party after over a decade.

Don't forget Labour is all about WORKING people.

Starmer is making some incredibly difficult, unpopular but important decisions - which are for the good of the country and for its people.

I fear the media will be successful with the social manipulation and he won't get a second term to continue this great work.

Disagree. That's the Tory agenda. No Such Thing As Society Why are Labour primarily attacking retired people? People who can't work? Those who would like to work but live in areas where there is no paid work that would make them less well off than on benefits? For sure there are many individual piss-takers. But there are huge numbers of corporate piss-takers. That's the c***s that Labour should be targeting. ÌMHO, like

 

[Flounce]

Labour are being accused of things they aren't doing.
I see that spare head 3 (McConnell) is out and about again.
Not bovvered by his ilk. I'm sure the Daily Mail will give him a column if he wants.

Everyone said Starmer would do nothing.
Now he's trying to do sumpfink, people are outraged.
Fancy that.

I can’t tell you how behind him I am on this benefits shake up. I imagine it will be more than very complicated to police but I have known so many people for decades who are actually very proud to be milking the system. I don’t think I am alone. A BIG thumbs up from me!

As to the OPs question I am not up enough on politics to make a meaningful contribution.

 

[Mustafa II]

Disagree. How about retired people? People who can't work? Those who would like to work but live in areas where there is no paid work that would make them less well off than on benefits? For sure there are many individual piss-takers. But there are huge numbers of corporate piss-takers. That's the c***s that Labour should be targeting

For a lot of people, it's the path of least resistance - sometimes people DO need some sort of encouragement to get back to work (for their own good), especially if the easier option is to exaggerate a mental health issue, which is clearly so often the case.

On the radio earlier, there was a couple who between them, both autistic, both working, who earn £7.5k a month between them. The taxpayer is paying for their therapy at a cost of £800pm. This is not fair, or not right. This is just one case study, but there will be many more like it.

Starmer intends to have more MEANS tested benefits - while getting rid of the pointless re-assessments of those who are long-term serious sick (eg. If you're blind, it's incredibly unlikely you're going to stop being blind).

 

[Thunder Bolt]

For a lot of people, it's the path of least resistance - sometimes people DO need some sort of encouragement to get back to work (for their own good), especially if the easier option is to exaggerate a mental health issue, which is clearly so often the case.

On the radio earlier, there was a couple who between them, both autistic, both working, who earn £7.5k a month between them. The taxpayer is paying for their therapy at a cost of £800pm. This is not fair, or not right. This is just one case study, but there will be many more like it.

Starmer intends to have more MEANS tested benefits - while getting rid of the pointless re-assessments of those who are long-term serious sick (eg. If you're blind, it's incredibly unlikely you're going to stop being blind).

Is the therapy available on the NHS?

 

[Mustafa II]

Is the therapy available on the NHS?

No, it was CAT therapy, not provided by the NHS.

But the point is, they earn good money and could easily pay for it themselves. This is similar to the winter fuel allowance, where wealthy pensioners often got money they didn't need, at the expense of working tax payers who are seriously struggling.

These decisions aren't popular - the right-ring media are all over it - but they are the correct decisions.

 

[Cheggers]

Telling people to do as they are told is a socialist one.

Telling people to do as they are told is an authoritarian strategy, one used by both Tories and 'socialists'.

 

[Cheggers]

And yet the last Tory governments have overseen massive increases in benefits expenditures

OK. Do you want to open this up a bit? I am not trying to project onto you, but I get the sense there is more below the surface that you want to say?

 

[Brian Munich]

Why does making hard decisions always mean taking money from the poor? The last dozen Tory budgets saw endless cuts in tax at the top, it would hardly be radical to start reversing them.

Cuts in tax for the rich? I don't remember any introduced by the Tory government apart from the Liz Truss brain-fart budget that abolished the 45% rate for a very short while; however that was reinstated, and they reduced the threshold from 150K to 125K.

Putting VAT on private school fees is not exactly taking money from the poor either.