When Will It All Go Wrong For The Tories/ Johnson?

[Yew]

Quite, I wonder how many of the people who are against asylum seekers would do the jobs they do?, very few I would guess so it's hardly people coming over here and stealing their jobs.

Exactly, immigrants and asylum seekers have been a convenient scapegoat for the Tories to cover up the ruinous effects of Margret Thatchers idealogical campaign against British industry. Perhaps once we've "taken back control" or whatever irrelevant Farragian nonsense was spouted out during the Brexit vote, people will see that actually we need to take back the means of production.

 

[class ep-09]

So more taxpayer money to be wasted on another committee due to Labour's campaign to try and get rid of Boris over daring to eat cake on his birthday?

Meanwhile in the real world, the man on the Clapham omnibus couldn't give two hoots about what might have happened 2 years ago.

Well Labour did love to waste money on setting up committees when it came to dealing with problems.

I do not know about you but I do not want to be governed by a petty criminal ,liar who misled The Queen and lied to the Parliament, and if that cost me some extra taxes - I am more than happy to pay for it .

 

[edwin_m]

I do not know about you but I do not want to be governed by a petty criminal ,liar who misled The Queen and lied to the Parliament, and if that cost me some extra taxes - I am more than happy to pay for it .

The cost of an enquiry is no more than a drop in the ocean compared with the financial cost to all of us (except for a small elite) of Johnson's mistakes.

 

[Yew]

The Navy is picking up just about every single boat, though, so it's hard to think how and where they'll get into the country.

And how much is that costing us?

 

[class ep-09]

The cost of an enquiry is no more than a drop in the ocean compared with the financial cost to all of us (except for a small elite) of Johnson's mistakes.

Agree .

 

[AlterEgo]

And how much is that costing us?

I’ve no idea, but I’m open to hearing solutions. There are too many closed minds on the Channel crossings issue I think.

 

[jfollows]

I do not know about you but I do not want to be governed by a petty criminal ,liar who misled The Queen and lied to the Parliament, and if that cost me some extra taxes - I am more than happy to pay for it .

Yes, but that was pretty much well known before the last election, and he still won by a large amount.

What was telling yesterday (I didn't follow it during the day because I was out and about in London on a lovely day) was that the whips have lost control of the party. There was real danger that enough backbenchers would have voted against the delaying amendment or at least abstained to kill it. Eventually the whips twigged. But I think that's pretty significant in hastening his end.

After his last apology one wise backbencher apparently advised Boris to refer himself to the committee, but he was ignored. I thought then and I think now that was the best path he could have taken, but he doesn't do this sort of thing. He prefers to replace one lie with an even bigger one and try and bluff his way through.

EDIT Today's Times reports that "at least" six parliamentary private secretaries were prepared to resign from government if the amendment hadn't been pulled, which wouldn't have looked good at all.

And the comments by Steve Baker about Boris apologising simply to get off the hook ring true to me: (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...n-parties-inquiry-after-tory-revolt-gfqml8d0j)

Baker said he had accepted Johnson’s apology on Tuesday but “that spirit of earnest willingness to forgive lasted about 90 seconds of the 1922 Committee meeting” later that day, which he condemned as an “orgy of adulation” and “a great festival of bombast”.

He added: “The prime minister’s apology lasted only as long as it took to get out of the headmaster’s study. That is not good enough.

“The prime minister should now be long gone. The prime minister should just know that the gig is up.”

This should all mean that in due course Boris will be sacked from his job for lying, which will be the third time this has happened to him (The Times, The Shadow Cabinet previously).

Does anyone here know of anyone who has been sacked for lying even once? And, if so, did the person sacked go on to a better job?

 

[DarloRich]

I thought then and I think now that was the best path he could have taken, but he doesn't do this sort of thing.

The best path would have been a fulsome apology on day one without any lies or bluster. Kill the story at birth. Instead the lies have made this situation much worse than it needed to have been. A day one apology is a slight fall in the required standard of behaviour and something that can be brushed of as Boris being Boris.

 

[baz962]

That's what Boris hopes is the case.

The reality? I'm not so sure. Other people didn't get to eat cake with their friends on their birthday because of Boris' laws. Other people who broke the rules got treated far more harshly than Boris. I'm not convinced people forget or forgive that easily. Certainly my Brexity friends in the North East haven't.

You have two groups Boris has to placate: those who supported the restrictions and think Boris to be a granny killer, and those who hated the restrictions but grudgingly complied, and now feel like a mug for doing so.



Boris is not stupid. He likes to pretend he is when he gets caught out.

He knew what the rules were. He just didn't think they should apply to him because he's special. This is not new, he's always been like this.



A Prime Minister admitting to breaking a law he himself enacted is pretty substantive. And for all the wibble, in accepting the fine he's accepted the fact he broke the law.



I can't, but the Tories will only defenestrate him when there's a suitable time to do so.

At the moment the Tories are imposing the highest taxes on people since WWII, there's a huge cost of living crisis, and Brexit is a disaster. They're going to leave him in post until everything calms down, so that a year out from the next election they can throw him under the bus and blame him for everything. That's what the Tories do to each other; they even did it to their beloved Thatcher.

It's also really worth noting that Partygate happily distracts attention from the fact that the Tories are charging people the highest taxes since WWII.

Some of us remember that under Labour , the top rate of income tax was around 83% and the basic rate was 33%.
Margaret Thatcher favoured indirect taxation and cut the top rate to 60% and basic rate to 30%. In successive budgets , under herself and John Major , it was cut several more times.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I’ve no idea, but I’m open to hearing solutions. There are too many closed minds on the Channel crossings issue I think.

The solution is to cut the issue out at source. Most asylum seekers to the UK come from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Eritrea; 70% or so are Syrian.

This has been the case for donkey's years.

We need to sort Syria out, once and for all. Not just for the UK; Turkey hosts almost 4m Syrian refugees. If we don't, everything else is just fiddling with the Titanic's deckchairs.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Apr 2022 ==

Some of us remember that under Labour , the top rate of income tax was around 83% and the basic rate was 33%.

The Tories are now charging the highest taxes as a proportion of GDP since the Second World War. They are charging significantly more- by about 3% of GDP- than even the Labour governments of the 1970s.

Sure, income tax might be lower, but VAT is 20%, insurance tax is 12.5%, NI is 15%, etc etc.

A recent report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies is interesting: ifs.org.uk/publications/15996

 

[baz962]

The solution is to cut the issue out at source. Most asylum seekers to the UK come from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Eritrea; 70% or so are Syrian.

This has been the case for donkey's years.

We need to sort Syria out, once and for all. Not just for the UK; Turkey hosts almost 4m Syrian refugees. If we don't, everything else is just fiddling with the Titanic's deckchairs.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Apr 2022 ==



The Tories are now charging the highest taxes as a proportion of GDP since the Second World War. They are charging significantly more- by about 3% of GDP- than even the Labour governments of the 1970s.

Sure, income tax might be lower, but VAT is 20%, insurance tax is 12.5%, NI is 15%, etc etc.

A recent report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies is interesting: ifs.org.uk/publications/1599

Well NI is 13.25 not 15%. Hard to work out what all those taxes work out in monetary terms , I would have to go through everything in the house and find receipts and work out vat etc . But a quick working out of my income and before the Tories cut those taxes and based on last year's P60 I would have paid an extra twenty thousand pounds out. Add the partners wage and wow . No thanks.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Hard to work out what all those taxes work out in monetary terms , I would have to go through everything in the house and find receipts and work out vat etc

That's the point, it's all hidden indirect taxation, it's hard to calculate it all. And because it's hard to calculate, it's easy to raise.

Insurance Premium Tax is a great example. It is now 20% for some types of insurance (travel in particular) and 12.5% for things like car insurance. When Labour left power in 2010 it was 5%. But when your car insurance goes up to cover a 150% tax rise, it's the insurers who get the flack, not the government. Sneaky.

We don't have IPT here. When I moved here my car insurance dropped by £10 a month, purely because of the tax.

The fact is that the current taxation level, at 36% of GDP, is the highest since WWII. In the high tax 1970s it reached about 33% of GDP. 3% of GDP is a *lot* of money, too.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Apr 2022 ==

Well NI is 13.25 not 15%

For employees you're right. I misquoted; employers' NI is 15%. Which, of course, employers pass on in the form of higher prices.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The Tories are now charging the highest taxes as a proportion of GDP since the Second World War. They are charging significantly more- by about 3% of GDP- than even the Labour governments of the 1970s.

Sure, income tax might be lower, but VAT is 20%, insurance tax is 12.5%, NI is 15%, etc etc.

A recent report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies is interesting: ifs.org.uk/publications/15996

I'm not sure how meaningful comparisons with the 1970s or the 1940s are because society has changed since then, and we now generally expect more things to be provided by the Government than we did 40-50 years ago, and massively many more things than we did in the 1940s, and it's inevitable that that will be reflected in how much tax we pay. I think you raise a good point about indirect taxes though. Income tax is a lot fairer, and it would be better to raise more that way rather than by hidden indirect taxes. That would probably require a serious conversation in the country about how much tax we are willing to pay and what level of services we want.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Income tax is a lot fairer, and it would be better to raise more that way rather than by hidden indirect taxes.

Agreed. I think this tendency to use other taxes because of the Tory view that income tax has to stay low is negative. Income tax is a very powerful tool because you can "fiddle about" with it to target who it hits quite easily, given that you've got allowances, bands and percentages to play with. And to me, "hiding" taxes is bad, they should be up-front. And if you pay someone a salary in the UK it gets paid, so companies like Starbucks can't hide from it by offshoring things. (Not that there aren't ways round it, of course).

Even NI is a hidden tax. There's no reason that it should be separate other than that it lets them say "income tax is 20%" when it's actually 35%, and it's regressively banded, too, which is a bad thing.

I would agree that conversation should be had, but I don't think the electorate is mature enough for it in some ways, hence the hidden taxation. I certainly think it could viably be had at a local level if Westminster would stop capping Councils - we could then have referenda on packages of service vs. Council Tax costs of them, e.g. "would you rather weekly bins but it'll cost you this much, fortnightly will cost you this much, monthly this much" etc. Much easier at a Council Tax level as most services that pays for are visible and direct, and not abstract like e.g. defence.

 

[Howardh]

I note Johnson is in India today making trade deals, and that as a result more visas will be given to Indians to come here. When we were in the EU this "free movement" was a two way thing - as EU's were allowed to live and work in the UK, many of us could live and work in the EU so there was balance. However I'm not so sure as many of us will wish to live and work in India? So is that "balance" tilted away from us?

 

[Tetchytyke]

I'm not sure how meaningful comparisons with the 1970s or the 1940s are because society has changed since then, and we now generally expect more things to be provided by the Government than we did 40-50 years ago

I completely agree, even the 1970s are now ancient history. But whenever tax gets mentioned you always get someone saying tax in the 70s was higher. The point is it wasn't.

I'm not sure people do expect more from the government. When you think what the government ran in the 70s compared to now, the difference is huge; back then, even the national airline was state-owned.

The problem is what people expect is now more expensive. Take health care, people (understandably) want the best drugs for, say, cancer. A single dose of some cancer drugs can cost well north of £1M. These didn't exist in the 70s, so it wasn't an argument then.

I would agree that conversation should be had, but I don't think the electorate is mature enough for it in some ways, hence the hidden taxation.

Partly that, and partly that government likes hidden taxation because the blame goes elsewhere.

Income tax is definitely more transparent and more fair.

 

[edwin_m]

Insurance Premium Tax is a great example. It is now 20% for some types of insurance (travel in particular) and 12.5% for things like car insurance. When Labour left power in 2010 it was 5%. But when your car insurance goes up to cover a 150% tax rise, it's the insurers who get the flack, not the government. Sneaky.

We don't have IPT here. When I moved here my car insurance dropped by £10 a month, purely because of the tax.

The reason or excuse for imposing IPT many years ago was at least partly because not having it created a loophole. At least one travel company was offering holidays at really low prices on condition that you also bought their insurance that was really expensive. The customer paid a bit less in total than for a similar holiday elsewhere, but the government only got VAT on a much smaller amount. IPT was then imposed at the same rate as VAT and I believe has tracked that rate ever since.

For employees you're right. I misquoted; employers' NI is 15%. Which, of course, employers pass on in the form of higher prices.

Or lower wages.

 

[John Luxton]

I think things must be pretty bad if Steve "Brexit hard man" Baker is calling you out. That seems like something worse than the usual malcontents having a dig.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Apr 2022 ==


The issue is that I think the lies are starting to unravel a bit. MP's are seeing the polls and reading what is coming into their inbox and mail bag from some pretty pi$$ed off constituents and starting to get twitchy. Funny I haven't heard from my MP yet.........................

Steve Baker was one of the few wise anti-lockdown voices in the whole house of Commons during the pandemic he has plenty of scores to settle!

 

[Trog]

Its not as there has been anything happening lately to increase government expenditure and decrease their taxation revenue. It is just those dastardly Conservatives putting up taxes for the sake of it. If only Labour were in power as they would no doubt be cutting taxes and increasing social security etc. etc.

 

[yorksrob]

terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure

Sounds like all of history, rather than just the last days to me.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Apr 2022 ==

Actually on economic policy he's very much in the Heath/Wilson/Callaghan mould from the 1970s, a concensus that was smashed by Thatcher. Brexit and the divisive culture war stuff means he looks a lot more right wing than he is.

That's a fair point. Many of a right of centre view are against the free market ideology from the 80's onwards.

 

[Gloster]

Actually on economic policy he's very much in the Heath/Wilson/Callaghan mould from the 1970s, a concensus that was smashed by Thatcher. Brexit and the divisive culture war stuff means he looks a lot more right wing than he is.

I don’t think Johnson has any particular economic policy: his only policy is, ‘Me in No. 10’. However, he is quite willing to spend taxpayers’ money on things that will be popular with the taxpayers without a thought for the long-term (or even short-term) consequences, which may put him at odds with the Chancellor he appointed. However, that is not a coherent economic policy in the 1970s style - much too much detail in that -, but just political opportunism.

 

[birchesgreen]

Its not as there has been anything happening lately to increase government expenditure and decrease their taxation revenue. It is just those dastardly Conservatives putting up taxes for the sake of it. If only Labour were in power as they would no doubt be cutting taxes and increasing social security etc. etc.

Maybe they wouldn't have handed over billions to their mates for dubious purposes though?

 

[Bayum]

So more taxpayer money to be wasted on another committee due to Labour's campaign to try and get rid of Boris over daring to eat cake on his birthday?

Meanwhile in the real world, the man on the Clapham omnibus couldn't give two hoots about what might have happened 2 years ago.

Well Labour did love to waste money on setting up committees when it came to dealing with problems.

If it was that simple then we wouldn’t be here now would we?
You know for a fact that it is more than eating cake at this point.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Apr 2022 ==

Yes, but that was pretty much well known before the last election, and he still won by a large amount.

What was telling yesterday (I didn't follow it during the day because I was out and about in London on a lovely day) was that the whips have lost control of the party. There was real danger that enough backbenchers would have voted against the delaying amendment or at least abstained to kill it. Eventually the whips twigged. But I think that's pretty significant in hastening his end.

After his last apology one wise backbencher apparently advised Boris to refer himself to the committee, but he was ignored. I thought then and I think now that was the best path he could have taken, but he doesn't do this sort of thing. He prefers to replace one lie with an even bigger one and try and bluff his way through.

EDIT Today's Times reports that "at least" six parliamentary private secretaries were prepared to resign from government if the amendment hadn't been pulled, which wouldn't have looked good at all.

Do you have the quote? Hidden behind a paywall for me

 

[jfollows]

Do you have the quote? Hidden behind a paywall for me

I didn't post the original article because my words are what was said in it, but today there's a longer article which I'll quote here for you: (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...ia-then-a-u-turn-to-hold-off-revolt-xp3wjwlmp). It also mentions "half a dozen" PPSs who were prepared to resign and abstain on the amendment vote rather than vote for it.
The people tasked with running government operations in Number 10 are doing a pretty dismal job at the moment, they appear to be in a parallel universe, one in which Tory MPs aren't concerned about losing their seats, about appearing to cover up what's been going on, and are devoted in their total support for Boris Johnson and will unthinkingly do whatever he asks them to do.

Partygate: Frantic calls to Boris Johnson in India, then a U-turn to hold off revolt

There was no respite for the PM overseas, write Oliver Wright, Henry Zeffman, Chris Smyth and Steven Swinford

Saturday April 23 2022, 12.01am, The Times

As Boris Johnson arrived in the Indian city of Ahmedabad shortly after 8am on Thursday he was met by hundreds of people lining the streets, cheering, dancing and waving signs in his honour.

Every few yards along the road there were billboards depicting Johnson’s image in celebration of his first official visit to the country.

The reception showed that there is nothing like a bit of foreign travel to provide respite from domestic woes.

For Johnson the distraction lasted a matter of hours — the time it took for No 10 aides in London to realise that Tory MPs were moving one step closer to removing him.

The day before no one had really sensed much danger. As Johnson took off, Tory whips were preparing an amendment in parliament that had been carefully crafted to see off an attempt by Labour to ambush the prime minister over the Downing Street parties.

The opposition had demanded he be referred to a special Commons committee to determine whether he knowingly misled MPs when he said he had no knowledge of the lockdown-breaking gatherings.

The Tory whips knew that some of his backbenchers were extremely reluctant to vote against the Labour motion before next month’s local elections. So a plan was hatched to try to stymie the vote by tabling an amendment that would push a decision back until after the police investigation had been concluded.

Not wanting the plan to leak, the wording of it was kept a closely guarded secret until it was laid at the very end of Thursday’s parliamentary business.

It would prove to be a bad mistake. Even as Johnson was still in the air, Tory backbenchers were letting it be known that they would not be supporting the Downing Street wheeze.

Dozens could either not be contacted or made clear they had more pressing concerns than coming to the House of Commons to defend the prime minister, even though they were on a three-line whip. They included the potential leadership challenger Jeremy Hunt, who said he would not support moves to delay the inquiry.

Most worryingly, about half a dozen parliamentary private secretaries (PPS) — MPs on the first rung of the ministerial ladder — made clear that they also intended to abstain, even though that would mean resigning from the government.

“There were lots of us saying we would abstain, which would have meant we’d have to go,” one PPS said.

“Ministers too. No one was happy.”

It was clear to the new chief whip, Chris Heaton-Harris, that the vote was in the balance and he could not confidently tell the prime minister that he would win.

Even if he did win, the extent of the Tory rebellion would be substantial, akin to the disastrous attempt by Downing Street to save the career of the former environment minister Owen Paterson.

In phone calls between London and Ahmedabad, a decision was made that Johnson would announce a climbdown in a planned television interview.

But rather than be explicit that Tory MPs would have a free vote on the Labour motion, the prime minister minced the message, saying only that the “House of Commons can do whatever it wants to do”.

An aide said: “We basically then had to work out how else we could announce it.”

So minutes before the debate was due to start, Heaton-Harris passed a note to Mark Spencer, the leader of the House, who was at the dispatch box answering business questions.

It told him to expect a question from Jacob Young — a new fresh-faced 2019 MP — about the whipping arrangements for the forthcoming debate and how to reply.

“The prime minister has indicated that he is keen for the House to decide on the business later today,” Spencer told MPs.

“The vote on the unamended House business [the Labour motion] will be a free vote to all Conservative MPs and that will be the case this afternoon.”

It was a complete climbdown. Johnson would be referred to the privileges committee — and face a third lengthy investigation into his behaviour on top of the police inquiry and the internal Sue Gray report.

“All our MPs had to do was walk through the lobbies and take one thing off the table,” an ally of the prime minister said.

“They should have voted it down and taken the pain. It is really not in their interests for this whole thing just to drag on either.”

Johnson’s anger was directed at Tory MPs. “I think he’s got to a point where he’s saying f*** it, you do what you like. I’m OK with my position,” one cabinet minister said. “He will keep going. If the machine decapitates him it decapitates him. He’s just beyond angry and wants to get on with it.”

Some government aides put the blame firmly at the door of No 10’s new operation which, they claimed, had not anticipated the danger early enough.

“It’s another triumph of the new professional and grown-up operation in No 10,” one said. Another added: “It is amazing how we somehow always manage to mess these things up so badly.” One MP joked: “At least they did the U-turn just before the vote this time, rather than just after.”

The rebellion belied recent Downing Street spin that the war in Ukraine had altered MPs’ views about Johnson’s long-term future.

John Baron, the normally loyal Conservative MP for Basildon & Billericay who said he would have backed the Labour motion, told Times Radio that he had never bought the argument and that Johnson’s survival would depend on the extent of his own culpability for the parties scandal and whether he had misled the House

“I don’t buy it,” he said. “I’m an ex- soldier and you look back at the First World War, certainly the Second World War, the Suez Crisis, and even the first Gulf War — leaders were changed but the policy continued. I don’t think it’s a major consideration.”

Far more of a consideration, other Conservative MPs said, was the party’s performance in next month’s local elections, which one described as “the first real test” of how much the parties issue was “cutting through on the doorstep”.

One junior minister said: “It has got a lot worse [since Johnson was fined]. It feels like it did in May 2019. In the south it’s bad and in London it feels catastrophic. And you have to remember that most Tory seats are still in the south.”

A cabinet minister said that although London and other cities looked “bad” the hope in Conservative HQ was that it might be “less bad away from the epicentres”.

Another MP said there appeared to be a difference between red wall areas, where the scandal was not often raised on the doorstep, and Tory heartlands in the south, where there was “genuine fury”.

“It’s in our Lib Dem-facing seats that the real problem is,” they said.

What worries Johnson’s aides is that if the local elections are worse than expected many MPs will care less about the intricacies over exactly what Johnson’s role was in the parties, and more about the binary question of whether he is more of an asset or a liability come the next general election.

“MPs face two questions,” one grandee said. “Are we better off with Boris gone and who, if anyone, would do better? For that reason the bar for getting rid of him is quite high.”

Rishi Sunak’s recent implosion has changed the calculation for some. One MP previously critical of the prime minister said: “I was very angry about it earlier this year, in fact, sometimes I was knocking on doors and I felt like I was more angry about it than my constituents. But I’ve made my peace with it. We are not going to remove the PM — especially now Rishi is so damaged — and I don’t think we should.”

Another senior minister raised the danger of a post-No 10 Johnson: “If we do get rid of him there’s the danger he’d become the ‘prince over the water’ popping up saying, ‘What happened to the promise of 40 new hospitals?’”

Most agree, however, that Johnson’s position is still far from secure, and that the scandal has some way yet to run.

One former minister said the decision by the arch-Brexiteer Steve Baker to call on Thursday for Johnson to quitwas particularly emblematic.He was instrumental both in bringing about the demise of Theresa May and securing the crown for Johnson. “He is an influential guy and won’t have reached this decision lightly. History suggests that when you lose Steve Baker your days in office are numbered,” they said.

Asked about what was in store for Johnson now, one cabinet minister replied wryly: “There are still many possible outcomes.”

From Hansard: (https://hansard.parliament.uk/commo...52A-49EF-B23D-7EC749F32E9D/BusinessOfTheHouse)
Business of the House, 21 April 2022, 10:31am to 11:30am

Jacob Young
(Redcar) (Con)

Following what the Prime Minister said on arrival in India, can the Leader of the House give an update on what the whipping arrangements for Conservative MPs will be this afternoon?
Mark Spencer

My hon. Friend will see the Chief Whip in his place. The Prime Minister has indicated that he is keen for the House to decide on the business later today. The vote on the unamended House business will be a free vote to all Conservative MPs and that will be the case this afternoon.

 

[nw1]

Sounds like all of history, rather than just the last days to me.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Apr 2022 ==



That's a fair point. Many of a right of centre view are against the free market ideology from the 80's onwards.

I guess we'll see how sympathetic Johnson is to people who are struggling in the coming months or whether he'll just say "Life is tough, it's the after effects of a pandemic, not our fault, put up or shut up".

I generally agree with @edwin_m that Brexit, and the hardline anti-immigrant stuff, marks this government out for me as being unambiguously right-wing, even though they are not as "Thatcherite" as Thatcher. I will also admit that Thatcher was also deeply socially conservative (Section 28, for example, I would consider a far-right policy).

Also, away from the subject of immigration, things like the Elections Bill and Policing Bill do mark this government out for me as having authoritarian tendencies.

Socially deeply conservative and right-wing, but economically less so, would sum them up for me.

 

[Yew]

Some of us remember that under Labour , the top rate of income tax was around 83% and the basic rate was 33%.
Margaret Thatcher favoured indirect taxation and cut the top rate to 60% and basic rate to 30%. In successive budgets , under herself and John Major , it was cut several more times.

And how much did a house or rent cost?

 

[MattRat]

Its not as there has been anything happening lately to increase government expenditure and decrease their taxation revenue. It is just those dastardly Conservatives putting up taxes for the sake of it. If only Labour were in power as they would no doubt be cutting taxes and increasing social security etc. etc.

Labour would be doing exactly the same, just under the banner of 'taxing the rich' (who avoid tax anyway so it wouldn't actually affect them).

But it wouldn't be so bad anyway if that tax was actually spent in a meaningful way. I often feel like our politicians are burning money with how little gets done with so much cash being thrown about (looking at you, HS2).

 

[Yew]

Its not as there has been anything happening lately to increase government expenditure and decrease their taxation revenue. It is just those dastardly Conservatives putting up taxes for the sake of it. If only Labour were in power as they would no doubt be cutting taxes and increasing social security etc. etc.

Remind me, who's manifesto at the last election was fully costed?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Apr 2022 ==

But it wouldn't be so bad anyway if that tax was actually spent in a meaningful way. I often feel like our politicians are burning money with how little gets done with so much cash being thrown about (looking at you, HS2).

There is this new thing called investment, they pay back more than their costs over the long term; we could be enjoying their fruits if it wasn't for the systemic underinvestment since Thatcher.

 

[baz962]

And how much did a house or rent cost?

Irrelevant. Last year would of cost me an extra £25000. I wouldn't of afforded it last year. Unfortunately I don't know what the rent was back then and I'm pretty sure neither of my parents were in the top tax bracket.

 

[Yew]

Irrelevant. Last year would of cost me an extra £25000. I wouldn't of afforded it last year. Unfortunately I don't know what the rent was back then and I'm pretty sure neither of my parents were in the top tax bracket.

How have you calculated that, I'm not certain we can use todays tax brackets.

Given that a Margret thatcher did not remove taxes, but instead transferred them to being "indirect", and that tax revenues as a percentage of GDP have remained roughly static. I don't believe this comparison is fair, you might have paid more income tax, but would have paid a lot less in VAT, fuel duty, alcohol duties etc.

And that's all before we consider macroeconomic effects. I imagine that if we had kept taxes at point of earning, rather than point of sale, then we would have a much stronger tourist industry, and our exports would be more competitive.