UK Politics General Discussion

[GooseOnTheLoose]

We cannot keep having more and more children . The planets population can't keep growing. And England is already the most densely populated country in Europe. So i maintain that encouraging people to have children is not a good long term solution. It just kicks the can down the road. And we certainly shouldn't be paying people to have 3 or more.

We are a country with a massive welfare bill which needs reducing, not increasing.

The triple pension lock needs to be scrapped.
Pensions should go up by inflation and no more.

So far I have not seen a single positive thing from this Labour government. And the way they are going they will not be in power again after this term, but unfortunately we could be out of the frying pan and into the fire if reform get in.

England is not the most densely populated country in Europe. The Netherlands has a population density of approximately 518 people per km², whereas England sits at around 434 people per km². Malta is significantly higher than both. If you include the micro states (Monaco and Vatican City), we are well down the list. The United Kingdom is also not just England, though I noticed that you specifically chose to use England's population density as it is higher than the UK as a whole which is around 280 people per km².

Population estimates for the UK, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - Office for National Statistics

National and subnational mid-year population estimates for the UK and its constituent countries by administrative area, age and sex.

www.ons.gov.uk

Demography of Europe – 2024 edition - Interactive publications - Eurostat

ec.europa.eu

The current economic model of the State Pension and the NHS is essentially a state sanctioned Ponzi scheme. It relies entirely on a large base of working age taxpayers to fund the services and pensions of the retired generation at the top. If you stop having children, and you restrict immigration, the base of that pyramid shrinks. Who pays the tax to fund the pension? Who staffs the care homes?

You are correct that we cannot keep growing indefinitely, but a sudden demographic collapse is economically catastrophic (see Japan).

I do, however, agree with you entirely on the Triple Lock. It is a fiscal anomaly that protects one demographic from the economic reality faced by everyone else.

Edit - This was meant in reply to Goose's last post.

With respect, I can't see anywhere there with regards to prisons where it breaks down how much it costs for one prisoners food, how much to heat that prisoners share of all the cells, how much that person's share of being looked after by a member of prison staff costs, how much their share of an educator's time costs etc. They could just be pulling figures out of thin air without having a much more detailed breakdown.

The reason you don't see a breakdown for "heating one cell" is because prisons are not itemised like a hotel bill. The overwhelming majority of the cost is staffing.

The daily food budget for a prisoner in England and Wales is currently £2.70. That is not per meal, that is for the entire day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. That works out to £985.50 per year, per prisoner.

If we take the average cost per prisoner place of roughly £51,724, and remove the food, you are left with over £50,000 unaccounted for. That money does not vanish into a black hole. It pays for the staff.

Prisons are 24 hour operations. To guard one door, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, requires you to employ more than five full time staff members once you factor in shifts, weekends, holidays and sickness. Now scale that up to a facility housing hundreds, or thousands, of people. You need security, healthcare professionals, maintenance teams, POMICs (Probation Officers in Custody), workshop / activity staff, administrative staff and management. They all need salaries, National Insurance contributions and pensions. You have to pay enhanced rates for nights, weekends, and bank holidays. That is where the money goes. It is not waste, it is the cost of employing humans to guard humans.

OK, well if there aren't so many genuine scroungers who just don't want to work, then great, we'll need fewer of these large facilities. But I still believe there would be savings to be made there.

Universal Credit is currently £400.14 per month, if you are single and over the age of 25. If you receive the housing element, you'll receive (on average) an additional £566.95. This equates to £11,605.08 per year. More than £40,000 less than it costs to incarcerate someone.

Back to my earlier point though, most of the savings would come from those of pension age freeing up social housing for working age people and having all of their accommodation and other needs met centrally in larger out of town places.

So, your solution to the housing crisis is to forcibly evict the elderly from their homes and communities, homes they likely own or have secure tenancies in, and move them into state run camps on the outskirts of town?

 

[Benzin]

Yup, many haven't forgiven them for their last lovefest with the Tories.

I just can't see people being fooled by reform for long enough to get in at an election.
Grief about members and fallouts every week.

As long as "man of the people" Farage keeps spouting off about the small boats most of their support will remain.

Even if Labour keep trying to garner that support.

 

[shakey]

England is not the most densely populated country in Europe. The Netherlands has a population density of approximately 518 people per km², whereas England sits at around 434 people per km². Malta is significantly higher than both. If you include the micro states (Monaco and Vatican City), we are well down the list.

The current economic model of the State Pension and the NHS is essentially a state sanctioned Ponzi scheme. It relies entirely on a large base of working age taxpayers to fund the services and pensions of the retired generation at the top. If you stop having children, and you restrict immigration, the base of that pyramid shrinks. Who pays the tax to fund the pension? Who staffs the care homes?

You are correct that we cannot keep growing indefinitely, but a sudden demographic collapse is economically catastrophic (see Japan).

ok, I stand corrected. England is the 3rd most densely populated. I am not counting micro states. But the fact remains it is very densely populated.

I am not saying I have a solution to funding the pension or the welfare state. But in the long term an ever expanding population is not going to be the answer because at some point there will come a time where the population cannot be sustained.

 

[BarryZola]

If we take the average cost per prisoner place of roughly £51,724, and remove the food, you are left with over £50,000 unaccounted for. That money does not vanish into a black hole. It pays for the staff.

Prisons are 24 hour operations. To guard one door, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, requires you to employ more than five full time staff members once you factor in shifts, weekends, holidays and sickness.

So, your solution to the housing crisis is to forcibly evict the elderly from their homes and communities, homes they likely own or have secure tenancies in, and move them into state run camps on the outskirts of town?

Yes, to guard one door it takes 5 full-time members of staff. But they don't guard the cell of only one prisoner. You usually get a few guards (give or take) looking over a unit of 30+ locked up people or whatever. The wages of those people have to be split up between 30+ people. Yes, you have the other odd few staff who also look after the much bigger group as a whole like one nurse per 100s of people. The costs suddenly come right down.

And no, I'm not forcing any old people out of homes that they own. If they own them then the tax-payer isn't paying the rent for them. If you own your own home then obviously you would stay in it if it suits you.

 

[jon81uk]

From the article you've posted:

Yes the new per mile tax will be administrated as part of the VED payment, but that doesn't mean it was introduced by the tories in 2022 as you suggested.

 

[Quantum]

Double post, whip me.

There is a lot of noise and fury being thrown around here. Whilst it's not a silver / magical budget that can please everyone, let's actually look at the details and the history of what has been announced before we all descend into a frenzy of demanding the return of the party that crashed the economy in the first place.

You might want to check your history books, or at least the Autumn Statement 2022.

The decision to apply Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) to electric vehicles from April 2025 was announced by Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative Chancellor. This is a Tory policy, implemented on the Tory timeline. Bringing them back "in a heartbeat" would not change this policy, as they are the ones who wrote it into law.

Electric car drivers must pay tax from 2025

Motoring groups, including the AA, warned the move would reduce the incentive to switch to electric vehicles.

www.bbc.co.uk

As for the Expensive Car Supplement (ECS) exemption ending? Also a Conservative policy.

The Conservative government's policy aimed to end the VED exemption for electric vehicles, making them subject to the standard VED rates and the £40,000 ECS threshold, just like internal combustion engine cars. This was widely criticised for disproportionately affecting the EV market, as many mainstream electric cars cost over this amount.

The ECS threshold for zero emission cars only is increasing from £40,000 to £50,000, and will apply to vehicles registered from 1st April 2025 onwards, but will take effect from 1st April 2026. The lower £40,000 threshold will continue to apply to all petrol, diesel, and hybrid models. This change is designed to make a wider range of new electric vehicles more accessible and reduce the impact of the ECS on EV buyers.

It is also worth noting that VED pays for the maintenance of the road network (in theory). Electric vehicles are heavier than their fossil fuel counterparts, causing more wear and tear on the road surface. It is only fair that they contribute to the upkeep of the infrastructure they use.


You claim the UK population is growing. It is, but primarily due to net migration (which yesterday was to have fallen dramatically too). The birth rate among the UK born population has fallen to 1.49 children per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1.

If you want to secure the future of the State Pension (which you seem very concerned about regarding tax thresholds), you need a working age population to pay for it. You either import that labour, or you encourage people to have children. You cannot be against immigration and against supporting families to have children, unless you want the economy to collapse due to a demographic crisis.

Regarding your neighbours, anecdotal evidence is not data. The two child limit applied to the child element of Universal Credit and Tax Credits. Removing it is estimated to lift 250,000 children out of poverty immediately, and only cost £3 billion. 42% of people claiming Universal Credit are in work. They aren't "lazy scroungers". They are people on low incomes, often doing the essential jobs that keep society running.

Salary sacrifice for pensions were always a generous anomaly where employees saved on National Insurance contributions, in addition to Income Tax relief. Removing the NI relief component simply brings it in line with other forms of income. You still get the Income Tax relief (20% or 40%), which is the primary benefit. It's a technical correction to a loophole, not a raid on your pot.

Freezing tax thresholds is putting income tax up. It is known as fiscal drag. As wages rise with inflation, more of your money falls into tax bands, or moves into the higher rate. It generates billions for the Treasury without ever having to announce a rate rise. It is the oldest trick in the book.

As for the "ballooning welfare budget", I will repeat myself until I am blue in the beak... The State Pension is the single largest component of the welfare budget. It costs over £130 billion a year. You cannot complain about the welfare budget "ballooning" whilst simultaneously defending the triple lock, which is the mechanism causing the ballooning.

Rateable Values are reassessed periodically by the Valuation Office Agency to reflect changes in the property market. This happens regardless of who is in government or what the budget says. If the rental value of commercial property has gone up, the tax goes up.

The introduction of permanently lower multipliers for retail, hospitality, and leisure is a direct intervention to mitigate this. Without the lower multiplier, businesses would be facing the new Rateable Values at the old, higher tax rate.

Is it enough? Probably not for many, but blaming the budget for property values increasing is aiming at the wrong target.

Ultimately, this isn't a budget designed to win popularity contests. It's a budget designed to stop the rot. We have spent 14 years indulging in the fantasy that we can have Scandinavian level public services with American level taxation. The infrastructure is crumbling, the NHS is on its knees, and our prisons are full.

We also need to address the elephant in the room, or rather, the 52% of the room that voted to make us all collectively poorer. The fiscal constraints Rachel Reeves is operating under are not just the result of 14 years of Conservative austerity. They are the direct consequence of the long, slow puncture that is Brexit.

The OBR has repeatedly stated that our economy is 4% smaller than it would have been had we remained in the EU. In real terms, that 4% represents roughly £100 billion a year in lost output and £40 billion in lost tax revenue. That £40 billion alone would have filled the "black hole" twice over without needing to touch Employer's NI or freeze tax thresholds. We are currently paying the price for erecting trade barriers with our closest, largest and richest trading partners, while simultaneously ending freedom of movement for the skilled labour our economy desperately needs to grow.

You cannot vote to make the country poorer and then complain when the government has less money to spend. This budget is simply the bill for that particular act of economic self harm finally coming due.

Fixing all of this requires money. It requires boring, structural, long term decisions that don't fit neatly into a tabloid headline or a rage bait forum post. It might not be the budget we wanted, but after the chaotic fiscal experiments of recent years, it is almost certainly the budget we needed.

I'm well aware of how valuations work it's literally my job. The government absolutely has the power to change how properties are valued, they chose not to. Once again Labour is absolutely battering Retail, Hospitality and Leisure. Business rates needs proper reform not cheap gimmicks

 

[Benzin]

I'm well aware of how valuations work it's literally my job. The government absolutely has the power to change how properties are valued, they chose not to. Once again Labour is absolutely battering Retail, Hospitality and Leisure. Business rates needs proper reform not cheap gimmicks

It'll be because most of the MPs across all parties will have fingers in the landlord pie and won't want to lose out on those sweet business rates.

 

[Smiley]

Bit of a damp squib, that budget. Really disappointed to see the tax thresholds frozen for longer - doesn't seem to make sense for someone earning minimum wage to be paying tax IMHO. Better to raise it to £20k and add a couple of pence on the tax rate (and increase the 40% threshold a little).

Seemed like a wasted opportunity not to introduce pay-per-mile for ALL cars via a black box as you could then have peak/off peak charges to reduce congestion (and emissions).

As for the cash ISA reduction, currently you can easily move from a stocks-shares ISA to a cash ISA easily, e.g. as your risk profile changes as you get older. How will that happen now?? Will £8k/year be "locked" in a shares ISA, as only £12k can be transferred??? Seems very messy.

Personally, it's the first Labour budget I can remember where I haven't had my pocket picked - and I'm quite confused about how I feel about that....

 

[Leigh]

I can’t believe I’ve just read a discussion advocating for the reintroduction of workhouses on here. It’s so saddening this is where we’ve got to as a society.

 

[Poisson]

I think people on benefits for solely unemployment should be provided jobs. We also have many major infrastructure projects that are needed. That can go hand in hand. I'm not sure interring people is a way to do anything though.

 

[rob666]

I can’t believe I’ve just read a discussion advocating for the reintroduction of workhouses on here. It’s so saddening this is where we’ve got to as a society.

You are ok with the death at sixty and soylent green though?

 

[BarryZola]

I can’t believe I’ve just read a discussion advocating for the reintroduction of workhouses on here. It’s so saddening this is where we’ve got to as a society.

That's one of my more moderate policies.

 

[Leigh]

As for the cash ISA reduction, currently you can easily move from a stocks-shares ISA to a cash ISA easily, e.g. as your risk profile changes as you get older. How will that happen now?? Will £8k/year be "locked" in a shares ISA, as only £12k can be transferred??? Seems very messy.

I guess it’ll be covered in the end of year reporting ISA providers perform to HMRC. If you go over, you get an angry letter.

What would be interesting though is if the new policy prevents you from holding money in an S&S ISA “in cash” - my Trading212 S&S ISA lets me do this, albeit if I want the interest on it I have to agree to allowing it to be held in slightly-more-than-zero-risk accounts (but critically I don’t have to actually invest it myself).

 

[Smiley]

I guess it’ll be covered in the end of year reporting ISA providers perform to HMRC. If you go over, you get an angry letter.

What would be interesting though is if the new policy prevents you from holding money in an S&S ISA “in cash” - my Trading212 S&S ISA lets me do this, albeit if I want the interest on it I have to agree to allowing it to be held in slightly-more-than-zero-risk accounts (but critically I don’t have to actually invest it myself).

Indeed - or whack it in bonds. Much better return than paying 40%+ tax on your £8k cash ISA. More tinkering at the edges from Rachel. Still not figured out who penalising those using an ISA or pension salary-sacrifice is targeting.... People who are being prudent and responsible with their finances I guess.....

 

[Quantum]

May council elections are going to be absolutely brutal for Labour.

 

[Osaka12]

This country is being lead straight down the river of socialism. The AI investment will wipe out the service sector in probably 10/20 years so more dependance on the government. In the budget the cash grab of working and middle class working people seems to only have been done to incentivise welfare dependent families to breed which breeds more voters sympathetic to labour. It's like they are setting up for 20 years time and we'll all be on a universal income, employed by the government and assigned a task to help our AI pals run the economy.

 

[rob666]

This country is being lead straight down the river of socialism. The AI investment will wipe out the service sector in probably 10/20 years so more dependance on the government. In the budget the cash grab of working and middle class working people seems to only have been done to incentivise welfare dependent families to breed which breeds more voters sympathetic to labour. It's like they are setting up for 20 years time and we'll all be on a universal income, employed by the government and assigned a task to help our AI pals run the economy.

I though we were about to elect Farage...as all the papers seem to be saying...big swing right not left...have you not been reading?

Give me decent socialism over Farage...every last time.

 

[BarryZola]

This country is being lead straight down the river of socialism. The AI investment will wipe out the service sector in probably 10/20 years so more dependance on the government. In the budget the cash grab of working and middle class working people seems to only have been done to incentivise welfare dependent families to breed which breeds more voters sympathetic to labour. It's like they are setting up for 20 years time and we'll all be on a universal income, employed by the government and assigned a task to help our AI pals run the economy.

I'll be turning up on a boat to the first decent country to fully roll out a UBI that you can live on comfortably. I suspect half of the world will too, which will then make it unaffordable.

 

[rob666]

My very rich (and very decent bloke) pensioner punter had a fun chat with me about the budget...he thought he had got off very easily indeed... we then discussed the end of civilisation economically, the failure to pay for brexit and covid, and his six figure cheque to the taxman this year..

Capitalism, great, isn't it.

 

[Osaka12]

I though we were about to elect Farage...as all the papers seem to be saying...big swing right not left...have you not been reading?

Give me decent socialism over Farage...every last time.

Haha, I don't fancy a farage government let's be clear but neither do I like this path of control, socialism and erosion of freedoms. I am at heart a centrist, where do the centrists go? The conservatives have 4 years to re invent and fill that void.