Reform UK discussion

[Horizon22]

Do Reform have any published policies on social services, bins, potholes etc ?

Not particularly. They want to make cuts on things they consider “woke” but will find the majority of spending in councils is now on statutory items like adult social care & housing which they cannot avoid spending.

There was a quote from Tice about people complaining that “tax is going up but my services are getting worse and people don’t know why” which is somewhat true but again related to statutory costs, which the majority of people simply do not see in their daily lives. A cursory check could have shown this to be true, but they do love a good sound bite.

What I think will also be interesting is whether a relatively loose group of 50 - likely individually-minded - activists in a county who have only been involved in the party a year or so that have all suddenly been elected and will probably have somewhat divergent views on how to run things will be able to agree policy / select cabinet members etc. or whether we see internal splitting in the coming months / years much like happened to UKIP.

 

[dangie]

It appears that Stafford has been infiltrated by Reformists. I shall venture down to the mammoth River Sow which runs through Stafford and has direct links to the English Channel (or so you would believe) to ensure the barricades have been put up to stop this access route being used as frequently as it is now

With the increasing flooding of the Sow & Penk you'll soon be able to access the English Channel

 

[Harpo]

What I think will also be interesting is whether a relatively loose group of 50 - likely individually-minded - activists in a county who have only been involved in the party a year or so that have all suddenly been elected and will probably have somewhat divergent views on how to run things will be able to agree policy / select cabinet members etc. or whether we see internal splitting in the coming months / years much like happened to UKIP.

Before becoming cohesive, they will need to become competent. Both could take a while.

 

[Omnidekkalover]

Probably get bus service roulette since providing good public transport and encouraging people about of cars to make traffic better sounds a bit woke for the numpties at reform

 

[Horizon22]

Before becoming cohesive, they will need to become competent. Both could take a while.

If ever!

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The Torys blew themselves up before the last GE and let Labour in big time with a majority that allows them to push things through but they are behaving like some animal caught in the headlights not knowing which way to turn except Reeves. She is mind trapped by her past and obsessing over fiscal rules and as a result shes ended up winding up the people there supposed to be helping so its no wonder people are turning to Reform. This is a protest vote but if Starmer rest on his laurels and sees it as a Tory problem he risks giving Reform more opportunity to fill the void and they will be rewarded with even more seats come next years local elections.

 

[The Ham]

Probably get bus service roulette since providing good public transport and encouraging people about of cars to make traffic better sounds a bit woke for the numpties at reform

Of course everyone knows that buses get in the way of cars (please don't try and work out how many cars those bus passengers would need to be driving if the bus didn't exist)

 

[RailWonderer]

Not particularly. They want to make cuts on things they consider “woke” but will find the majority of spending in councils is now on statutory items like adult social care & housing which they cannot avoid spending.

There was a quote from Tice about people complaining that “tax is going up but my services are getting worse and people don’t know why” which is somewhat true but again related to statutory costs, which the majority of people simply do not see in their daily lives. A cursory check could have shown this to be true, but they do love a good sound bite.

£5m per day on hotels and private rentals for illegal immigrants, a disgusting abuse and middle finger to hard working taxpayers who have less rights than people who aren’t British and have paid no tax here.

Access Restricted

These unaccompanied asylum-seeking children cost local councils £286 million last year, a rise of almost 20 per cent from the £240 million bill in the previous year and more than three times the £78 million cost ten years ago.

Under Labour now, and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66855830.amp

In March the BBC learned around 400 hotels were being used, costing nearly £7m a day.
The Home Office's Annual Accounts, published on Tuesday, promised to "take action to address the unacceptable costs of housing migrants in hotels which is costing the taxpayer around £8m a day"

Under the Tories in 2023.

The UK is heading for the dumps and our civil service deep state no politician dares touch wants this to continue, a lot of people benefit from the UKs floodgates being kept open, or they wouldn’t be for this long. All these are Home Office figures. Do I think Farage will be better? Hardly, but even marginally better is enough for him to have my vote. In a century of Labour - Conservative stranglehold, making history by breaking that is the only way to scream. It’s the only civilised way to express anger and fury at what the UK has been allowed to become.

 

[Yew]

£5m per day on hotels and private rentals for illegal immigrants, a disgusting abuse and middle finger to hard working taxpayers who have less rights than people who aren’t British and have paid no tax here.

Access Restricted

How much tax have British children paid?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 May 2025 ==

The UK is heading for the s***ers and our civil service deep state no politician dares touch wants this to continue, a lot of people benefit from the UKs floodgates being kept open, or they wouldn’t be for this long.

What exactly are these "floodgates" you talk about, how would you suggest practically closing them.


Who exactly benefits from these people being kept in hotels, are there any records of donations to political parties?


What exactly do you mean by the "deep state"?

In a century of Labour - Conservative stranglehold, making history by breaking that is the only way to scream. It’s the only civilised way to express anger and fury at what the UK has been allowed to become.

I would suggest that if you don't like the establishment, and what the financial sector has done to our country, voting for a former investment banker is an odd way to express that?

 

[317 forever]

One curiosity is that in some areas Reform have gone virtually nowhere: one seat in Oxfordshire and three in Buckinghamshire. In some counties the vote seems to have gone to the Liberal-Democrats, in others it may have been stay at home.. No doubt people will be doing some careful assessment of the social make-up of those districts that went to Reform.

One other thought. A win by six votes is all very welcome to Reform, but with the background to the by-election and all the pre-election hype, it really is not as impressive as Farage claims.

I think the areas with minimal Reform representation are those like Oxfordshire/Cambridgeshire which largely voted Remain, or places like Shropshire/Wiltshire which has plenty of LibDem MPs, so existing Tory/Labour opposition.

I noticed how in recent Tory by-elections there was a greater anti-incumbent swing where the MP had stood down in disgrace. So, had a similar by-election to Runcorn happened in other circumstances, Labour might have hung on.

 

[GusB]

£5m per day on hotels and private rentals for illegal immigrants, a disgusting abuse and middle finger to hard working taxpayers who have less rights than people who aren’t British and have paid no tax here.

It's not the fault of asylum seekers that there's a housing shortage. Where do you suggest they live? I agree that spending money on hotels isn't ideal, nor is putting people up in private rentals. These are children, for crying out loud. Do we not have a duty of care?

What's your solution? I could hazard a guess, but I'd like to hear your own answer.

The UK is heading for the s***ers and our civil service deep state no politician dares touch wants this to continue, a lot of people benefit from the UKs floodgates being kept open, or they wouldn’t be for this long. All these are Home Office figures. Do I think Farage will be better? Hardly, but even marginally better is enough for him to have my vote. In a century of Labour - Conservative stranglehold, making history by breaking that is the only way to scream. It’s the only civilised way to express anger and fury at what the UK has been allowed to become.

Okay, let's get rid of the civil service. Now what? Who processes your driving licence and issues your passport? Who administers the NHS so that you can get treatment when you need it? I too would be interested to know what you mean by "deep state".

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's not the fault of asylum seekers that there's a housing shortage. Where do you suggest they live? I agree that spending money on hotels isn't ideal, nor is putting people up in private rentals. These are children, for crying out loud.

They are mostly not children. They are mostly young men coming over who will later bring their families if successful. This is actually quite handy in a way.

For those arriving with children it does seem reasonable to give basic but decent family accommodation. But young men arriving alone could be accommodated in barracks style accommodation. If I was claiming asylum due to genuine fear of persecution or worse, any safe basic accommodation would be acceptable to me.

I had no significant issue with that boat to be honest. It seemed ideal in principle.

However this distracts from the real issue which is that we should be processing applications much quicker, and ideally offer (and prefer) applications made before travel to the UK.

 

[The Ham]

£5m per day on hotels and private rentals for illegal immigrants, a disgusting abuse and middle finger to hard working taxpayers who have less rights than people who aren’t British and have paid no tax here.

Access Restricted

Under Labour now, and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66855830.amp


Under the Tories in 2023.

The UK is heading for the s***ers and our civil service deep state no politician dares touch wants this to continue, a lot of people benefit from the UKs floodgates being kept open, or they wouldn’t be for this long. All these are Home Office figures. Do I think Farage will be better? Hardly, but even marginally better is enough for him to have my vote. In a century of Labour - Conservative stranglehold, making history by breaking that is the only way to scream. It’s the only civilised way to express anger and fury at what the UK has been allowed to become.

Let's cut our Civil Servants, especially those who make decisions about immigrants.

 

[AlterEgo]

£5m per day on hotels and private rentals for illegal immigrants, a disgusting abuse and middle finger to hard working taxpayers who have less rights than people who aren’t British and have paid no tax here.

That £5m per day is because the state isn't processing people's claims properly because the system is totally buggered. Reform has no proper proposals to make this any better, but if they were in power they would certainly make the aesthetic more amenable to "hard working taxpayers" by putting them in old Army camps or jails. Wouldn't solve the problem, but the British public like to understand someone else is suffering a little more than they are. This is why the UK imposes artificial social costs on all sorts of minorities which do not address any sort of issue but the violence meted out to vulnerable people by the state does make some people feel a bit better.

The UK is heading for the s***ers and our civil service deep state no politician dares touch wants this to continue, a lot of people benefit from the UKs floodgates being kept open, or they wouldn’t be for this long. All these are Home Office figures. Do I think Farage will be better? Hardly, but even marginally better is enough for him to have my vote. In a century of Labour - Conservative stranglehold, making history by breaking that is the only way to scream. It’s the only civilised way to express anger and fury at what the UK has been allowed to become.

Voting for Reform - a hard right party - is your absolute right which society should support, but it is not civilised because the party's aims are to attack (mostly vulnerable) minorities which presumably are the reason Britain is in the doldrums. We apply the same principles as a society in much the same way that sitting at home and voluntarily defecating in your clothes is your right to be uncivilised.

Reform voters are mostly angry. So am I, at the state of the country. We are seeing declining standards of living and a total evisceration of our politics by populism. But, I voted for parties which I feel would make society warmer and more cohesive and which would lead to a state which loved all its citizens and valued them properly. Yes, the asylum system needs serious reform, as does the refugee convention; you can't build social democracy without defining what your society is and who gets to come. But Reform is not the answer; it is the refuge of the unimaginative and those who struggle to articulate their anger.

 

[Tezza1978]

I've been more detailed on posts on other social sites (!) but in summary my view is that Frog Face and his merry bunch of deluded snake oil salesmen/saleswomen need to be confronted by Labour by deliverables - improving the NHS, giving more £ into people's pockets, helping and supporting marginalised communities, clamping down on people smugglers while still supporting genuine asylum seekers.

I do despair at Lincolnshire voting in Jenkins - she is by some margin one of the top 5 stupidest people I have ever seen in politics, probably only beaten by Liz Truss, 30p Lee Anderson and the looney tunes Marjorie Taylor Greene in the US.....

 

[Horizon22]

£5m per day on hotels and private rentals for illegal immigrants, a disgusting abuse and middle finger to hard working taxpayers who have less rights than people who aren’t British and have paid no tax here.

Mainly because there was a huge processing backlog under the Tories and hence these asylum seekers (not “illegal immigrants”) needed somewhere to be placed. What is an “abuse” - the costs are in black and white.

If they could be processed they could potentially get jobs and pay tax - generally young men aren’t much of a net cost to the state in normal circumstances.

Nobody is a fan for extra costs, but this is what happens when you bury your head in the sand and refuse to actually deal with the issue.

 

[RailWonderer]

Reform voters are mostly angry. So am I, at the state of the country. We are seeing declining standards of living and a total evisceration of our politics by populism. But, I voted for parties which I feel would make society warmer and more cohesive and which would lead to a state which loved all its citizens and valued them properly. Yes, the asylum system needs serious reform, as does the refugee convention; you can't build social democracy without defining what your society is and who gets to come. But Reform is not the answer; it is the refuge of the unimaginative and those who struggle to articulate their anger.

I’m a proponent of Hans Hermann Hoppes idea of natural order. You own the land which you pay taxes on and the more tax you pay the more land you are entitled to. Tax quantity = land owned and redistribute land that way.

You’d have private internment facilities and deportations carried out by a corporation without red tape and a level of government oversight anlthough the corporation would own the land (the coastline) they operate by paying taxes on it. So we have a land tax law that’s it. UK law would always supersede international law, as our national security and stability must be of priority.

https://cdn.mises.org/16_1_5.pdf

It’s 23 pages only and very interesting reading. I’ve tried to apply the theory to practice in the UKs situation at the moment, or a version of it to solve our problems.

Let us take one more step and assume that all property is owned privately and the entire globe is settled. Every piece of land, every house and building, every road, river, and lake, every forest and moun- tain, and all of the coastline is owned by private owners or firms. No
such thing as “public” property or “open frontier” exists. Let us take a look at the problem of migration under this scenario of a “natural order.”
First and foremost, in a natural order, there is no such thing as “freedom of migration.” People cannot move about as they please. Wherever a person moves, he moves on private property; and private ownership implies the owner’s right to include as well as to exclude others from his property. Essentially, a person can move only if he is invited by a recipient property owner, and this recipient-owner can revoke his invitation and expel his invitees whenever he deems their continued presence on his property undesirable (in violation of his visitation code).
There will be plenty of movement under this scenario because there are powerful reasons to open access to one’s property, but there are also reasons to restrict or close access. Those who are the most inclusive are the owners of roads, railway stations, harbors, and air- ports, for example. Interregional movement is their business. Accord- ingly, their admission standards can be expected to be low, typically requiring no more than the payment of a user fee. However, even they would not follow a completely non-discriminatory admission policy. For instance, they would exclude intoxicated or unruly peo- ple and eject all trespassers, beggars, and bums from their property, and they might videotape or otherwise monitor or screen their cus- tomers while on their property.

Declining living standards are party to do with a lack of productivity which is a difficult puzzle to solve, but the other half was detailed in an IEA (Institute of Economic Affairs) report where high energy bills and over regulation is making us internationally uncompetitive.

Graphic Content: How Red Tape is Fuelling the Cost of Living Crisis

New research from Matthew Lesh and the Institute of Economic Affairs shows how red tape has powered the cost-of-living crisis.

iea.org.uk

High energy bills are also reducible to a degree in over regulation

• Stagnaro (2015) highlights how poorly designed regulatory policies to promote green energy have pushed up electricity and decarbonisation costs; this is contrasted with the success of the UK’s privatisation and liberalisation in the 1990s that reduced costs and emissions. Between 1990 and 1999, electricity prices fell for consumers by 26% and between 1990 and 2010, energy-related greenhouse gas emissions fell by 12%.

Although there are other factors.

 

[Magdalia]

I think the areas with minimal Reform representation are those like Oxfordshire/Cambridgeshire which largely voted Remain

In the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoral election the Conservatives won and Reform were second. The Conservatives and Reform each have 10 seats on the new Cambridgeshire County Council.

Cambridgeshire has its own mini version of the north south divide, and it was reflected in the results from Thursday.

The Liberal Democrats dominate the south of the county. They now hold all of the county council seats in the South Cambridgeshire district, all except Soham North and Littleport in the East Cambridgeshire district, and came first in the mayoral elections in both.

Until Thursday I would have said that Labour were dominant in Cambridge City: they took most votes in the mayoral election in Cambridge, but, at council level, they are losing ground to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

Reform did best in Fenland, which is much more like Lincolnshire than Cambridge. In Fenland Reform took most votes in the mayoral election and 6 of 9 County Council seats, the Conservatives holding on to the other 3.

Huntingdonshire is messy. Reform won council seats in the fenny bits, Ramsey and Yaxley, but the Conservatives won the other seats in the north of the district. There was only about 400 votes between the Conservatives and Reform in the mayoral election in Huntingdonshire.

The southern end of Huntingdonshire includes St Neots, Huntingdon and St Ives. It has almost everything, except any green councillors, including 2 independents on the county council. There were some very closely contested results, most notably Huntingdon North and Hartford, which the Conservatives won with a majority of 4 over Reform, and the Liberal Democrats only 12 more votes adrift in third place.

Finally Peterborough was only voting for the mayor. The Conservative victor is ex Peterborough MP and polled particularly well here, though on a low turnout.

 

[The Ham]

I’m a proponent of Hans Hermann Hoppes idea of natural order. You own the land which you pay taxes on and the more tax you pay the more land you are entitled to. Tax quantity = land owned and redistribute land that way.

You’d have private internment facilities and deportations carried out by a corporation without red tape and a level of government oversight anlthough the corporation would own the land (the coastline) they operate by paying taxes on it. So we have a land tax law that’s it. UK law would always supersede international law, as our national security and stability must be of priority.

https://cdn.mises.org/16_1_5.pdf

It’s 23 pages only and very interesting reading. I’ve tried to apply the theory to practice in the UKs situation at the moment, or a version of it to solve our problems.

A great idea, I'd rather like a long strip of land which totally encircles a town. Anyone wishing to leave the town would have to pay me a lot of money whilst goods leaving would be free to do so, however any goods entering the town would have to pay me but anyone wishing to enter the town would be free to do so.

Declining living standards are party to do with a lack of productivity which is a difficult puzzle to solve, but the other half was detailed in an IEA (Institute of Economic Affairs) report where high energy bills and over regulation is making us internationally uncompetitive.

Graphic Content: How Red Tape is Fuelling the Cost of Living Crisis

New research from Matthew Lesh and the Institute of Economic Affairs shows how red tape has powered the cost-of-living crisis.

iea.org.uk

High energy bills are also reducible to a degree in over regulation

Although there are other factors.

Maybe we just need to totally deregulate house building. We don't need times about insulation, fire retention or anything like that.

Likewise, deregulate childcare, as that would significantly reduce costs. Better still, make the children work, as that would have more people earning (and therefore spending).

 

[brad465]

Declining living standards are party to do with a lack of productivity which is a difficult puzzle to solve, but the other half was detailed in an IEA (Institute of Economic Affairs) report where high energy bills and over regulation is making us internationally uncompetitive.

Graphic Content: How Red Tape is Fuelling the Cost of Living Crisis

New research from Matthew Lesh and the Institute of Economic Affairs shows how red tape has powered the cost-of-living crisis.

iea.org.uk

High energy bills are also reducible to a degree in over regulation

Although there are other factors.

The IEA is a very shady "think tank" with no disclosure over who funds it. Any such think tank should be not be taken seriously, while any media outlet citing any think tank that does not disclose its financial interests, regardless of what those interests are, is doing a disgrace to the industry (so probably almost all of them).

I should add the IEA were singing high praise of Liz Truss during her short stint, that tells you everything you need to know about how sensible they are (not).

 

[neilmc]

Well at least we have a good long time to see what Reform actually achieve once they are given power, well ahead of the next general election. I think it will be disastrous where they have large majorities since they have almost no political experience or idea about how councils are actually run and it will be an absolute nightmare for the poor council officers who have to actually work with these people. I suspect also that few of them will have the life skills needed to head up cabinet posts and these councils will struggle with almost any area of statutory responsibility. We have already seen threats to "get the auditors in" as though councils weren't actually audited already on a thorough and regular basis plus threats to get rid of officers working on projects the far right disapprove of so there will be chaos once these councillors, egged on by Farage and Tice and co, try to implement this.

As a Lib Dem councillor I have been encouraged by the quiet gains we are making in areas such as Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire with their electorates being of above average intelligence but I feel for people in other shire counties and places such as Doncaster who didn't vote for the far-right extremists but have to live with the consequences.

 

[DerekC]

I’m a proponent of Hans Hermann Hoppes idea of natural order.

I thought I would read up a bit about this gentleman, having never heard of him. Here's a quote from his book "Democracy: The God that Failed", about the kinds of community that will exist in his world:

"In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, . . . naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They – the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism – will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order."

That seems fairly clear.

 

[neilmc]

I would also say that despite posturing when it comes to full council meetings, in our local authority Lib Dems, Independents, Labour and Tories can work quite well for the common good on council committees and be polite or even friendly with individual members of the opposition, but I doubt whether Reform councillors will have the maturity or the strength of character to stand up to the baying of their party leaders.

 

[telstarbox]

That's good to hear. Is it correct that the Reform insurgents will still be bound by the Public Sector Equality Duty, National Planning Policy Framework and other national level policies?

 

[GusB]

I thought I would read up a bit about this gentleman, having never heard of him. Here's a quote from his book "Democracy: The God that Failed", about the kinds of community that will exist in his world:


That seems fairly clear.

I'd never heard of Hans Hermann Hoppe and I wish I hadn't, to be honest. He seems like a thoroughly despicable individual and, in my humble opinion, anyone who believes his rubbish should be laughed out of the room. That's not really what I wanted to say, but forum rules and all...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 May 2025 ==

You’d have private internment facilities and deportations carried out by a corporation without red tape and a level of government oversight anlthough the corporation would own the land (the coastline) they operate by paying taxes on it. So we have a land tax law that’s it. UK law would always supersede international law, as our national security and stability must be of priority.

If internment facililties were operated by a private corporation without red tape there would be no deportations because it wouldn't be in the interests of that corporation to deport anyone! There'd be far more money to be made by keeping those individuals incarcertated. At the same time you keep banging on about the amount of money it costs to keep them in hotels and B&Bs! The corporation needs to be paid - who pays for it?

I really don't think you've thought this through.

 

[AlterEgo]

I’m a proponent of Hans Hermann Hoppes idea of natural order. You own the land which you pay taxes on and the more tax you pay the more land you are entitled to. Tax quantity = land owned and redistribute land that way.

You’d have private internment facilities and deportations carried out by a corporation without red tape and a level of government oversight anlthough the corporation would own the land (the coastline) they operate by paying taxes on it. So we have a land tax law that’s it. UK law would always supersede international law, as our national security and stability must be of priority.

https://cdn.mises.org/16_1_5.pdf

It’s 23 pages only and very interesting reading. I’ve tried to apply the theory to practice in the UKs situation at the moment, or a version of it to solve our problems.

That is one of the most bizarre and naive political theories I have ever read, to put it politely.

Really quite astonishing that the author - or you - could ever think people (and especially angry people) might simply coalesce into an almost stateless existence with arbitrage for misdeeds or disagreement carried out by corporations like insurance companies.

To place any weight at all on an anarcho-capitalist in delivering the “state’s” goals by simply privatising all aspects of life is laughable. It is a total non starter.

Don’t waste my time or any more of your own; this is the sort of pseudo-intellectual obscura the far right like to get into precisely because they enjoy trying to explain the [confusing] obscura to people they think might be articulate or intelligent, giving them a self-soothing over their own - often justified - insecurities that they’re not as bright as they’d like to be and are confused by the world.

Arguments for a totally atomised and privatised existence - especially by people who do not stand to personally benefit from that arrangement - betray a misanthropy towards socially comfortable people with healthy networks and an investment in their own future. Just as with fascism, the catharsis of expressing such ideas dehumanises the supposed beneficiaries of those ideas and dehumanises oneself.

No thank you. You can build a better and more accepting society than that, if only you might feel that you, too, deserve and need acceptance.

 

[The Ham]

£5m per day on hotels and private rentals for illegal immigrants, a disgusting abuse and middle finger to hard working taxpayers who have less rights than people who aren’t British and have paid no tax here.

Access Restricted

Under Labour now, and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66855830.amp


Under the Tories in 2023.

The UK is heading for the s***ers and our civil service deep state no politician dares touch wants this to continue, a lot of people benefit from the UKs floodgates being kept open, or they wouldn’t be for this long. All these are Home Office figures. Do I think Farage will be better? Hardly, but even marginally better is enough for him to have my vote. In a century of Labour - Conservative stranglehold, making history by breaking that is the only way to scream. It’s the only civilised way to express anger and fury at what the UK has been allowed to become.

At £5 million a day that works out at £50 per tax payer over the course of a year.

Many would quickly say, well it's rather like my £50 a year back.

However the average spend by the government per tax payer is around £32,000 (yes thirty two thousand pounds), given that quite a few people don't even earn that much money and then quite a few now don't earn that much after the tax free allowance, it's clear that there's a lot of other taxes from a lot of other places which pay for that cost, so chances are an individual wouldn't be getting back anything like £50 - unless they did pay £32,000 in taxes (which wouldn't be just income tax and NI, but VAT, VED, council tax, etc.).

However even if they were out would reduce their tax by 0.15%, so such a small amount that it would be statically irrelevant!

Also that £32,000 per tax payer figure highlights just who would benefit from taxes resulting in land ownership - and it's not individuals. However, as all land would have to be owned - who's in charge of registering the ownership and policing this if not a government agency?

Would we really trust a private company (presumably with little to no regulation - read oversight) not to make administrative errors so they ended up with more land?

To reduce the hotel costs for asylum seekers a good thing to do is to employ civil servants so that they spend as little time as possible living in the UK before their case is decided.

Actually, some would argue that really the best thing to do is to increase the foreign aid budget so those who are fleeing war can live locally to where they are from and then return home in due course, rather than coming here.

Also, without some immigration, we'd find ourselves with a rapidly shrinking working age population, we've already seen the ratio of working aged people to each person over 65 fall from 3.6 to 2.4, with it likely to fall further so by 2050 it's expected to be 2.0 and by 2100 it'll be 1.7.

Finally, anyone want to hazard a guess at what had had a larger impact on the need for housing between 1980 and 2022; 1) falling household sizes or 2) increasing population size?

(some who have read my posts in the past may know the answer)

 

[317 forever]

In the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoral election the Conservatives won and Reform were second. The Conservatives and Reform each have 10 seats on the new Cambridgeshire County Council.

Cambridgeshire has its own mini version of the north south divide, and it was reflected in the results from Thursday.

The Liberal Democrats dominate the south of the county. They now hold all of the county council seats in the South Cambridgeshire district, all except Soham North and Littleport in the East Cambridgeshire district, and came first in the mayoral elections in both.

Until Thursday I would have said that Labour were dominant in Cambridge City: they took most votes in the mayoral election in Cambridge, but, at council level, they are losing ground to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

Reform did best in Fenland, which is much more like Lincolnshire than Cambridge. In Fenland Reform took most votes in the mayoral election and 6 of 9 County Council seats, the Conservatives holding on to the other 3.

Huntingdonshire is messy. Reform won council seats in the fenny bits, Ramsey and Yaxley, but the Conservatives won the other seats in the north of the district. There was only about 400 votes between the Conservatives and Reform in the mayoral election in Huntingdonshire.

The southern end of Huntingdonshire includes St Neots, Huntingdon and St Ives. It has almost everything, except any green councillors, including 2 independents on the county council. There were some very closely contested results, most notably Huntingdon North and Hartford, which the Conservatives won with a majority of 4 over Reform, and the Liberal Democrats only 12 more votes adrift in third place.

Finally Peterborough was only voting for the mayor. The Conservative victor is ex Peterborough MP and polled particularly well here, though on a low turnout.

Interesting to see the Cambs votes in more detail, thanks.

 

[Magdalia]

I’m a proponent of Hans Hermann Hoppes idea of natural order. You own the land which you pay taxes on and the more tax you pay the more land you are entitled to. Tax quantity = land owned and redistribute land that way.

You’d have private internment facilities and deportations carried out by a corporation without red tape and a level of government oversight anlthough the corporation would own the land (the coastline) they operate by paying taxes on it. So we have a land tax law that’s it. UK law would always supersede international law, as our national security and stability must be of priority.

I have not wasted my time reading this, I can make do with your summary.

Economically, the main impact of land taxes would be much higher tax bills for owner occupiers and farmers. Ongoing ownership of housing land and farmland are absurdly under taxed in the current tax system but it is very difficult for anyone to do much about it, as the fuss about inheritance tax has demonstrated.

In the UK, more than half of the foreshore is owned by the Crown Estate, handing back powers to the owners of the coastline would mean going back to a very powerful monarch.

This is a railway forum. The railways are an excellent example of how, over 200 years, government oversight and regulation has improved their operation far more effectively than giving freedom to market forces. The recent history of the water industry is a great example of what happens when private profit is poorly regulated. A more extreme example is Grenfell Tower, where the inquiry showed that a deliberate policy to reduce building regulation was a direct contributor to the fire.

Be careful what you wish for.

The IEA is a very shady "think tank" with no disclosure over who funds it. Any such think tank should be not be taken seriously, while any media outlet citing any think tank that does not disclose its financial interests, regardless of what those interests are, is doing a disgrace to the industry (so probably almost all of them).

I should add the IEA were singing high praise of Liz Truss during her short stint, that tells you everything you need to know about how sensible they are (not).

Radio 4 have only just finished a series Invisible Hands, narrated by David Dimbleby. I thought that there was an over obsession with personalities, as a contrived way of telling the story, but it did set out how the Institute for Economic Affairs has had a deep influence on public policy, especially in the Thatcher/Reagan era. For those interested, it is worth a listen, and I think is available as a podcast.

 

[RailWonderer]

The IEA is a very shady "think tank" with no disclosure over who funds it. Any such think tank should be not be taken seriously, while any media outlet citing any think tank that does not disclose its financial interests, regardless of what those interests are, is doing a disgrace to the industry (so probably almost all of them).

I should add the IEA were singing high praise of Liz Truss during her short stint, that tells you everything you need to know about how sensible they are (not).

Liz Truss had an expansionary policy that was too much too soon but she wasn’t wrong - the pound crashed with the £70bn black hole headlines and we need a strong pound because we have the worlds largest BoP deficit and are a net importer (and the few goods and services we export are fairly price inelastic).

That is one of the most bizarre and naive political theories I have ever read, to put it politely.

Really quite astonishing that the author - or you - could ever think people (and especially angry people) might simply coalesce into an almost stateless existence with arbitrage for misdeeds or disagreement carried out by corporations like insurance companies.

To place any weight at all on an anarcho-capitalist in delivering the “state’s” goals by simply privatising all aspects of life is laughable. It is a total non starter.

Don’t waste my time or any more of your own; this is the sort of pseudo-intellectual obscura the far right like to get into precisely because they enjoy trying to explain the [confusing] obscura to people they think might be articulate or intelligent, giving them a self-soothing over their own - often justified - insecurities that they’re not as bright as they’d like to be and are confused by the world.

Arguments for a totally atomised and privatised existence - especially by people who do not stand to personally benefit from that arrangement - betray a misanthropy towards socially comfortable people with healthy networks and an investment in their own future. Just as with fascism, the catharsis of expressing such ideas dehumanises the supposed beneficiaries of those ideas and dehumanises oneself.

No thank you. You can build a better and more accepting society than that, if only you might feel that you, too, deserve and need acceptance.

I don’t agree with everything he says and I’m not a proponent of creating a natural order fundamentalist state because look what happened when Marx’s writings were put into practice almost verbatim.

Also, without some immigration, we'd find ourselves with a rapidly shrinking working age population, we've already seen the ratio of working aged people to each person over 65 fall from 3.6 to 2.4, with it likely to fall further so by 2050 it's expected to be 2.0 and by 2100 it'll be 1.7.

A shrinking population and rising GDP per capita would do wonders for the UK to alleviate the housing crisis, traffic, infrastructure stress and congestion. A shrinking population isn’t a bad thing as long as that population is working age and productive.