The Labour Government

Metal Biker said:
Living Wage going up by 30p an hour next April.

30.....pence. Thanks Labour...

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Supposed to be £14.80, instead it'll be £12.51. Come on defenders, explain this.
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Minimum wage rather than living wage isn’t it?
 
threespires said:
I fear in the wider scheme of things the budget will be irrelevant. Starmer and Reeves have always sought to position themselves as pragmatic grown ups, almost technocratic in their approach. Whether you think they are doing a decent job of that or are completely incompetent is imo totally irrelevant because to position our current issues as fixable through technical or economic policy means I think is to misunderstand where we are at this point in history.

The root of our problems are not mismanagement of the economy by an individual Chancellor be that a red one or a blue for that matter. Our problem is that from the perspective of ordinary people our system is completely and utterly fucked and the world is sliding into a variety of different flavours of authoritarianism. This is not an issue fixable by trying to wrangle economic policy within an economic system that in itself has increasingly become a fundamental part of the problem. Though you can't fully decouple them, the capture of the nation state is a political not an economic problem. The current labour government doesn't at this time have anywhere near the political juice to address this, if anything their refusal to do anything other than tactical politics has surrendered the narrative to a party who only want power so they can finish the job and impoverish virtually everyone. I'd like to think someone could mobilise a mass movement before the only option for change becomes something more chaotic as and when the next stage of the latest industrial revolution bites. But who?
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Mass mobilisation is impossible in this country we are too divided and therefore can't even agree what we would be mobilising against.
My only hope and its a long shot is that enough supporters and politicians from the libs greens and the Labour back benches can come together to fight off this current cabinet and reform.
It can only start with Labour back benchers and members fucking off Starmer and his ilk.
I have a feeling though that come the next election we will have parties coming out with all sorts of fantasy crap to scrape a win or enough support to form a coalition.
 
Also, there is this from the BBC report, buried in the article.

The idea is that they would:

"Introduce trial by judge alone for cases involving fraud and financial offences - if the judge considers the case to be suitably technical and lengthy."

So it might not be for every case not involving murder, rape etc. But for only certain, lengthy cases?
 
hampshireblue said:
Bloody hell, it's a thought about how it COULD be done not a detailed policy. The main point is that wealthy people are making large gains in their wealth and are not subject to any tax repurcussions on those gains. Meanwhile those that are actually going out to work are at the same time subject to taxes on anything above £12550 and at the same time paying towatds the state pension of the likes of my mate. It's a one way process.

As an aside, take the state pension of £12000 and work out how much someone still working has to pay in taxes to pay for that pension.
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Think the problem is its an unrealised gain until you sell the shares/bonds and take it out of your pension. In which case you might as well just have a higher tax rate for pension drawdowns over a certain amount. If the pension grows and it isn't taken its clawed back by IHT anyway.

Now if we are looking at unrealised capital gain then there is a much larger prize which affects the seriously wealthy. That being art, cars, wine, whiskey, watches, Class A shares etc which are all bought as investments, held and untaxed, or in some cases (Class A shares) used as leverage to borrow money against at preferential rates using securities based lines of credit or similar lending tools for the wealthy.
 
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hilts said:
Mass mobilisation is impossible in this country we are too divided and therefore can't even agree what we would be mobilising against.
My only hope and its a long shot is that enough supporters and politicians from the libs greens and the Labour back benches can come together to fight off this current cabinet and reform.
It can only start with Labour back benchers and members fucking off Starmer and his ilk.
I have a feeling though that come the next election we will have parties coming out with all sorts of fantasy crap to scrape a win or enough support to form a coalition.
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Yep, Mass mobilisation.
We cant agree on a Muffin, Barm or Bap.

Its muffin by the way :)
 
Metal Biker said:
Living Wage going up by 30p an hour next April.

30.....pence. Thanks Labour...

images


Supposed to be £14.80, instead it'll be £12.51. Come on defenders, explain this.
Click to expand...
Apparently all the big corporations can’t afford it, regardless of how much they pay their investors and heads of sheds, while they also take their cut from the public purse.

Everybody wants their share, tell those that need it to just claim UC.
 
argyle said:
I think that's made up?

Edit: Looks like it's true that it's a briefing but unsure if would be made into government policy.

I think the idea is crimes that would lead to imprisonment of 5 years or less would be heard by a new tier of court.

So Magistrates, this new tier and then the Crown court.

I think if you're on the edge of what sentence you could face, you can choose either this new tier or the crown. Just like you can now between Magistrates and the Crown.
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Even if this new middle court happens, I don’t think defendants will actually get a choice. It would all be set by strict rules about which cases go where. If your charge falls into that new tier (like offences with max sentences of around 3-5 years), it’ll almost certainly be automatically sent there.

So whether it’s Magistrates, the new tier, or Crown Court, the venue would be based on the offence and sentencing powers, not what the defendant prefers.
 
I'm With Stupid said:
Why does the government even have any say in the Living Wage? I thought it was some campaign group who based it on the actual cost of living. Or have they managed to bring it under government control as a way of conveniently shutting them up?
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No it’s still separate. He meant living wage as in the minimum wage above 21.

The real living wage is £13.45, £14.80 in London.
 
Kompany Car said:
Think the problem is its an unrealised gain until you sell the shares/bonds and take it out of your pension. In which case you might as well just have a higher tax rate for pension drawdowns over a certain amount. If the pension grows and it isn't taken its clawed back by IHT anyway.

Now if we are looking at unrealised capital gain then there is a much larger prize which affects the seriously wealthy. That being art, cars, wine, whiskey, watches, Class A shares etc which are all bought as investments, held and untaxed, or in some cases (Class A shares) used as leverage to borrow money against at preferential rates using securities based lines of credit or similar lending tools for the wealthy.
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You're right. But your unrealised gain is actual gain as the holder of the portfolio, could if they wished realise their gains by drawing that gain out immediately, but it either way it may persuade some, as it recently has my friend whose portfolio has done quite well, to drawdown a bit more than they otherwise would have done and spend it in the economy rather than it being saved in the pension which is effectively "dead" money as far as the economy is concerned.
 
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hilts said:
Mass mobilisation is impossible in this country we are too divided and therefore can't even agree what we would be mobilising against.
My only hope and its a long shot is that enough supporters and politicians from the libs greens and the Labour back benches can come together to fight off this current cabinet and reform.
It can only start with Labour back benchers and members fucking off Starmer and his ilk.
I have a feeling though that come the next election we will have parties coming out with all sorts of fantasy crap to scrape a win or enough support to form a coalition.
Click to expand...
I think we are creatures of habit once Covid and the parties in Downing Street have been forgotten then the voters will vote Conservatives or Lib Dem’s. If Starmer is replaced then Labour voters will stick with Labour or the Lib Dem’s
 
hilts said:
Mass mobilisation is impossible in this country we are too divided and therefore can't even agree what we would be mobilising against.
My only hope and its a long shot is that enough supporters and politicians from the libs greens and the Labour back benches can come together to fight off this current cabinet and reform.
It can only start with Labour back benchers and members fucking off Starmer and his ilk.
I have a feeling though that come the next election we will have parties coming out with all sorts of fantasy crap to scrape a win or enough support to form a coalition.
Click to expand...
What should Starmer be doing. It’s not like he isn’t spending on public services or taxing companies or the rich etc
 
threespires said:
I fear in the wider scheme of things the budget will be irrelevant. Starmer and Reeves have always sought to position themselves as pragmatic grown ups, almost technocratic in their approach. Whether you think they are doing a decent job of that or are completely incompetent is imo totally irrelevant because to position our current issues as fixable through technical or economic policy means I think is to misunderstand where we are at this point in history.

The root of our problems are not mismanagement of the economy by an individual Chancellor be that a red one or a blue for that matter. Our problem is that from the perspective of ordinary people our system is completely and utterly fucked and the world is sliding into a variety of different flavours of authoritarianism. This is not an issue fixable by trying to wrangle economic policy within an economic system that in itself has increasingly become a fundamental part of the problem. Though you can't fully decouple them, the capture of the nation state is a political not an economic problem. The current labour government doesn't at this time have anywhere near the political juice to address this, if anything their refusal to do anything other than tactical politics has surrendered the narrative to a party who only want power so they can finish the job and impoverish virtually everyone. I'd like to think someone could mobilise a mass movement before the only option for change becomes something more chaotic as and when the next stage of the latest industrial revolution bites. But who?
Click to expand...
What should he be doing he is spending on public services he is taxing the rich and business etc
 
WRicko said:
What should Starmer be doing. It’s not like he isn’t spending on public services or taxing companies or the rich etc
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He's not taxing companies or the very rich enough, he needs to be braver on inequality of wealth, he's not leading he's gets sucked into media negatives and is shit scared of Reform, his welfare reform attempts have been embarrasing.
Arresting protesters on masse and it sounds like he's about to scrap some jury's sitting. Its a bit too authoritarian.
Frankly he sold himself to the members as a socialist, he ain't. He's a charlatan who only cares about his legacy of becoming PM. You could quite easily slap a blue rosette on him. He's about as radical as one of his beige suits.
Anyhow let's see what tomorrow looks like. Let's see how much he throws to those struggling and how much he's prepared to take off the very wealthy. The people who are no doubt in his 'circle'
 
WRicko said:
What should he be doing he is spending on public services he is taxing the rich and business etc
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I don't think he can do or is wired to do anything else, that was really my point. To make a difference he'd need to be making wholesale change to the tax system, trying to build or join a coalition to put some guide rails around big tech and a raft of other things he just doesn't have the political capital, allies or will to do. The things he can do and will try to do won't deliver enough to buy him the capital he needs to do the things that might start to make a difference.

All that said right now if he could fix the shitshow of the Blue Car Park I'd vote for him. I might even be inclined to let him pick the f***king team.
 
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