The Labour Government

BrianW said:
The thing is, no one wants to pay more tax. Do they?

They either want 'other people' to pay more tax or massive cuts to things that won't touch them.

There is no sense of social solidarity in this country. Least of all from those who claim to be 'patriots'. It's all 'Fuck anyone who isn't me or very like me.'
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Straying off the Labour thread, but the "patriots" jibe got me wondering (a) how many Reform voters would want to go to war to save Estonia and (b) so I searched for Reform's policy on national service and I got

www.reformparty.uk

Policies Reform UK

www.reformparty.uk www.reformparty.uk

There was this:

www.mirror.co.uk

Nigel Farage called out for 'racist' response to National Service plan

Reform UK founder Nigel Farage was called out after claiming there are a growing number of Muslims who do not subscribe to British values in an incendiary rant on Sky News
www.mirror.co.uk www.mirror.co.uk
 
hilts said:
There is also the mistrust that money is spent wisely. I mean we have one of the biggest economies in the world but don't appear to very good at using it very well.
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Yep. I think there are plenty of people who would be happy to go for a high tax, quality public service route like Scandinavia. What they don't want is a "high tax to pay for juicy public contract for the minister's mate's company" economy. Or a high tax to pay the insane debt from bailing out a bunch of private companies economy. Or high tax to pay insane rents to private landlords because we have no more social housing. Nor do they want an economy where working people in the middle pay a fortune while the extremely wealthy hide their earnings offshore and pay fuck all while continuing to access all the services they refuse to pay for.
 
I'm With Stupid said:
Yep. I think there are plenty of people who would be happy to go for a high tax, quality public service route like Scandinavia. What they don't want is a "high tax to pay for juicy public contract for the minister's mate's company" economy. Or a high tax to pay the insane debt from bailing out a bunch of private companies economy. Or high tax to pay insane rents to private landlords because we have no more social housing. Nor do they want an economy where working people in the middle pay a fortune while the extremely wealthy hide their earnings offshore and pay fuck all while continuing to access all the services they refuse to pay for.
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Yep we took a wrong turn at some point and instead of turning back just ploughed on regardless.

Like a lost bloke in a car whose ego won't allow him to except he fucked it up, if he ends up in grimsby rather than Windermere so be it.
 
I'm With Stupid said:
Yep. I think there are plenty of people who would be happy to go for a high tax, quality public service route like Scandinavia. What they don't want is a "high tax to pay for juicy public contract for the minister's mate's company" economy. Or a high tax to pay the insane debt from bailing out a bunch of private companies economy. Or high tax to pay insane rents to private landlords because we have no more social housing. Nor do they want an economy where working people in the middle pay a fortune while the extremely wealthy hide their earnings offshore and pay fuck all while continuing to access all the services they refuse to pay for.
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All countries have public money scandals and waste. The new Berlin airport took 14 years to build amidst corruption allegations and design flaws - a nine year overrun.

Former Conservative party leader Anna Kinberg Batra, who was appointed Stockholm County governor in March 2023, is accused of having hired at least three people close to her for high-paying positions, without looking for other candidates – apart from posting an advertisement in a corridor near her office. "Of course, in retrospect, I understand that it wasn't right," she said, responding to criticism.

Where there is money and people you will get corruption. And if you elect grifters while knowing they are grifters you compound the problem.
 
BobKowalski said:
All countries have public money scandals and waste. The new Berlin airport took 14 years to build amidst corruption allegations and design flaws - a nine year overrun.

Former Conservative party leader Anna Kinberg Batra, who was appointed Stockholm County governor in March 2023, is accused of having hired at least three people close to her for high-paying positions, without looking for other candidates – apart from posting an advertisement in a corridor near her office. "Of course, in retrospect, I understand that it wasn't right," she said, responding to criticism.

Where there is money and people you will get corruption. And if you elect grifters while knowing they are grifters you compound the problem.
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It's not about corruption though, it's about a deliberate policy and ideology that private companies are better at delivering services under any and all circumstances, which is basically what we've just come out of 14 years of. What you end up with isn't the odd politician creaming off the top, but a system where every public service has to have a profit creamed off the top of it. A 5% profit for shareholders is 5% that isn't being spent on the public service. Repeat that for every public service in the country for a decade and you're suddenly paying a lot for a shit service.

Add into that the banking crisis and covid bailouts, and you're suddenly spending a huge chunk of tax income on stuff that doesn't deliver any current value to taxpayers, so you have a high tax, shit service country.
 
I'm With Stupid said:
It's not about corruption though, it's about a deliberate policy and ideology that private companies are better at delivering services under any and all circumstances, which is basically what we've just come out of 14 years of. What you end up with isn't the odd politician creaming off the top, but a system where every public service has to have a profit creamed off the top of it. A 5% profit for shareholders is 5% that isn't being spent on the public service. Repeat that for every public service in the country for a decade and you're suddenly paying a lot for a shit service.

Add into that the banking crisis and covid bailouts, and you're suddenly spending a huge chunk of tax income on stuff that doesn't deliver any current value to taxpayers, so you have a high tax, shit service country.
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Agreed. The privatisation policy has not served us well.
 
BrianW said:
The thing is, no one wants to pay more tax. Do they?

They either want 'other people' to pay more tax or massive cuts to things that won't touch them.

There is no sense of social solidarity in this country. Least of all from those who claim to be 'patriots'. It's all 'Fuck anyone who isn't me or very like me.'
Click to expand...
I think it was on politics live last week a tory talking about rich cunts fucking off should Labour introduce wealth taxes. The lefty was on the ball with their answer. I can't rememember who it was. To paraphrase; "Their patrotism only extends to keeping their money and not investing in the country they proclaim they love"
 
TinFoilHat said:
I think it was on politics live last week a tory talking about rich cunts fucking off should Labour introduce wealth taxes. The lefty was on the ball with their answer. I can't rememember who it was. To paraphrase; "Their patrotism only extends to keeping their money and not investing in the country they proclaim they love"
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Citizens of nowhere = the rich.

Scrub that - they can buy multiple citizenships.
 
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