General Chat

George Osborne's 2012 Budget offered tax cuts for the nation's wealthiest along side the notorious 'granny tax' plus ten billion pounds of benefit spending cuts.

Mrs May may or may not plough a different furrow.

I think it's atrocious that a person can work full time, yet still need tax credits to survive! Why aren't employers (including local/county councils) forced to pay a 'proper' wage? I know there's the 'living' wage - but that's just a re-naming of the
'basic' wage. and it's not a living wage, it's a 'survival' wage.

Houses are too expensive, rents are too high. builders are buying up land and 'sitting' on it as prices rise, as are supermarkets (Tesco's in particular).
If they haven't built on the land they purchased to build on within 2 years, they should be forced to sell it to someone who WILL build, at the price they paid..
That would stop the 3 biggest building firms from playing their game, and ensure adequate, reasonably priced, housing.

The whole benefits system is a mess but too much of a political hot potato to radically reform.
The reduction in the benefits cap is a start, though. It encourages the low paid or unemployed to have more kids than they can afford.
A cap of £23.000 in London and £20,000 elsewhere is said to equate roughly to the after-tax income of the average worker. Why would anyone go to the trouble of working when they can pick up the same money for no effort?

(Although the black economy is thriving). Housing benefit and public housing is often a scam in many cases with tenants sub-letting and multiple-occupying.

My daughter works for the NHS and her gross income is nowhere near £20,000.
I have two nieces, one of whom is married and has four kids, soon to be five, who has never worked. The other is unmarried with three kids and has only occasionally worked part time.
My brother-in-law has been off "sick" for years but still manages to work in a charity shop, run a car and have a couple of holidays, albeit in the UK, each year.
In the meantime I worked until 66 and paid into a pension which is now paying a reasonable income but on which I am taxed.
Who is the mug in that scenario?

That's right Dec, the pension problem is nothing to do with Brexit per se.

Its probably more to do with trying to cut the Benefit bill. Despite general opinion, the OAP is the greatest load on that system.

"The triple lock was introduced by the coalition in 2010 and was a guarantee to increase the state pension every year by the higher of inflation, average earnings or a minimum of 2.5%."

So if inflation & average earnings increased by less than 2.5%, why should the pension increase by more? Current low income penioners can still claim housing benefit to help with rent/council tax. If penions should seriously lag behind in the future, there's always the opportunity to re-visit the payments. Lets not forget that the Baby-Boomers are & will be working their way through the system for probably another 10+ years.

Although there are few creases to iron out or be explained more thoroughly, the universal pension coming into effect this financial year will give new, qualifying, pensioners £155pw at the current week.

Although I don't yet qualify for a state OAP, I've worked enough credit-years and have been quoted for the full rate for when I do 'retire'.

I see that now the government are proposing to cut the rate of annual increase of the state pension. Nothing at all to do with Brexit of course.
Possibly not so much of a problem for people who have an occupational pension as well, or for couples who own their property & both get a full pension but what about the people who live alone in rented properties & have only the State pension to live on.

It was stated that it is in order to give more help to the younger people who struggle financially, but they have the possibility of earning more money. An 80 year old doesn't & they are likely to have higher utility bills due to being less mobile.
:-0 :-0 :-0 :-0

'More than half of Brits lie to hide their lack of knowledge concerning current affairs.

Some are so embarrassed at being flummoxed by foreign policy; stumped by the Syrian conflict or the US Presidential election that they tell fibs to hide their shame'. (Today's Times.)

ummm.....pretty much every day no doubt...

It does make you wonder how many times we've been lied to, for the sake of lining a few pockets, doesn't it?

Wow, where do we go from here?!! I've always rather wondered why we had a referendum after joining the Common Market and not before! Now it would seem I might have just found out!

sitting back waiting for the remoaners to pick that article to pieces......

Very interesting items in there though thanks Maggie..

...and here's an interesting slant on how this all began....

https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/vernon-coleman-was-britain-taken-into-the-eu-illegally/

Call me Dave resigned because it was his version of throwing his toys out of the pram when the masses didn't do as they'd been told to do !
Agreed a lot of high earners pay a lot of the tax but there's also a lot that have very good accountants who legally make sure they don't pay as much tax corporate or personal.
Surely no one thought they'd leave Europe within hours, but if they did then shame on the Government as obviously these people weren't informed fully of the negative side from the Government point of view !!
As for the majority didn't vote to leave....the majority of those that bothered to vote did...if you didn't vote hard luck.

You also have to remember that the nations wealthiest already pay huge amounts of tax. the top 1% of earners pay 30% of taxes collected.The best-paid 3,000 contribute, on average, £2.6 million in tax per year. To listen to the hype, you’d be forgiven for thinking the richest pay not a penny in tax. The truth is that the UK income tax system is reliant upon a very small number of highly mobile rich people.

The majority of the population didn't vote to leave the EU either. I think Ken is absolutely correct too. I have heard many people who did vote out regretting the decision because they did not understand what was involved. They though we would just walk away closing our borders the next day.

Now that we are where we are, parliament is duty bound to get the best deal and have the say, indeed the final say, on the terms.

David Cameron allowed a series of setbacks to overtake his easy-going leadership. His most damaging feature was that he headed a party of toffs who were on the side of their few friends & financial backers while being coldly indifferent to the rest.

Tax cuts for the nation's wealthiest plus benefits spending cuts fuelled the perception of a leader who did not know or seem to care how the 'other half' survived. A fatal weakness as it eventually evolved.

Mrs May may be better - or she may not!

How does it prove that Caroline? When Cameron didn't get the result he wanted he resigned.

It seems to me that the electorate were hoodwinked into thinking that leaving the EU was easy and could be done in a couple of months. Anyone who tried to point out the complications was labelled a scaremonger.

The current government seems determined to carry out the so called will of the people (about 25% of the population) while trying to get the best deal it can from the EU. It needs to do that within the law no matter what the gutter press says.

Rollo...I get the legal point....BUT...if nothing else this just proves Government don't really want to know or care what the public thinks or wants....they asked everyone to vote...they said what they'd do with the results....when they didn't get the result they thought they'd get they had no choice but to follow the law.......and no I'm not naive enough to think Governments ever actually care what the general public wants...this was an exercise in being seen to be doing what needed to be done, spending public money to get the outcome you wanted but being so out of touch with the general mood you didn't "win".
The only good point from all this....the fact the UK has been a civilized country for so long there are laws in place back to the 1600's and then some to draw upon...how many countries can say that.

'Not alone would many UK residents like to leave the EU, they would love to detach the country from the entire world. Island mentality.'

There's one thing that concerns me. Would MPs want to know her detailed negotiating position? Anyone who has been involved in negotiating a contract starts off high (or low) and ends up in the middle.

If she said 'I want the UK to have this' knowing full well that she really means 'that', doesn't it lay her open to castigation if she comes back with something approaching 'that'?

Democracy is the least worst form of government. (Churchill?)