A wealth tax is one of the few ways Starmer can lose the next election, the old saying “only Nixon could go to China” really does apply to some things.
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Maybe, but that doesn’t change my point.
It just means that enough people may have been fooled into thinking a wealth tax will harm their chances of a better life and country, whereas in reality the danger is in protecting the status quo and treating tax as though it’s a great evil.
Sadly, people generally vote as though they’re going to be a multi-millionaire by next year. Whereas we’re all significantly closer to being on the streets than we are to getting anywhere near that kind of wealth.
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Hasn’t he already lost the next one, if they don’t get rid of him before it?
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But you can’t tax an unrealised asset. Do you propose people selling their homes to pay tax? Rental income is already taxed as is capital gains (even more so residential property)
Now with pensions coming into estates from 2027 then there will be huge amounts brought into IHT territory (and in the case of pensions, the thinking is these may be taxed on IHT and on income so a double taxation and has the potential that more is paid in tax on a pension than contributions made!).
If anything we need less taxes to encourage spending not saving which in turn increases tax revenue.
Trying to bring house prices down or increase in wages would help housing mobility too which stamp duty is paid on so another increase in HMRC coffers.
Christ I should be chancellor but you wouldn’t get me to do it for the salary paid (although maybe public service pension. Again a massive drain! Big companies don’t offer DB pensions anymore as it was too expensive but it’s ok for the public purse as it’s not their money)
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Nope, only Reform are thick enough to believe that, in reality having Reform guarantees us a Labour government next time round, there simply aren’t enough right leaning voters for 2 serious contenders in a FPTP system so they will just take votes away from each other and gift Labour seats.
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Or the Lib Dems who did well out of a split Tory vote last time out
The LibDems know how to play the game, they put their resources in places they knew the split vote would help them, by doing that they took seats of the Conservatives and not off Labour (or worse from there point of view they didn’t gift seats to the Conservatives or Reform).
So, when Labour go into the next election as the most unpopular government in living memory, the Illiberal Undemocrats will take votes off them from the ‘liberal left’, Reform will take votes off them on the traditional left / red wall, the nationalists in Scotland, and the Conservatives will take some of their traditional heartland seats back.
That’s certainly isn’t a path to victory for the Conservatives, without winning Reform voters back, but it’s a loss for Labour too.
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Most Unpopular?
Do you remember Truss? Or Johnson?
The SDP has never won a Parliamentary or Devolved seat
I assume you mean SNP, but as much as it pains me, a Left(ish) Westminster means support for the SNP drops.
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People have very short memories around these things.
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The poorest spend their money. A spending focus affects the poorest disproportionately.
The richest, who would be affected by a wealth tax, basically don’t spend it. They just buy more of the stuff that poorer people struggle to afford more and more as the years go by, such as houses. That’s a net negative for the people who have the least.
Wealth taxation stops the pooling and endless accumulation of wealth, which after a point, just becomes the power of patronage and consolidating one’s position.
People who own a house aren’t automatically in that bracket, though they’re in a much better position than those who can’t “afford” one (via humongous loan).
Look at Roman Abrhamovic (sp?). Turns out the flight of the rich is a silly lie — wealth is in assets and the assets don’t move, and someone else buys them from you…
The wealth is in those assets.
And if you’re asking me if I’m saying that the unfathomably rich people might have to sell some of their stuff to pay for that accumulation, you’re absolutely right. Really easy concept, and they wouldn’t even notice.
We need to stop talking about this as though everyone is a normal person who is simply fortunate to have worked hard, got a house, and has some spare cash in a stocks and shares ISA.
These people have money that can’t be earned, and they’re lying to you when they pretend you too could be as self-made as them.
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These people is exactly what needs to be thought about when people say ‘tax the rich’ or ‘wealth tax’. We’re not talking about people earning 100k a year. Not even those earning 500k annually. We’re talking about people with 7/8/9 figure earnings and/or those who are sat on enormous wealth via assets, often leveraging those via loan.
We should all be aspiring to do great things and earn loads, but as I said above:
We just don’t vote like it. And I mean that across the board. Look at America right now. You have millions of people that take advantage of various welfare schemes, voting to ‘get rid of the waste’. When the ‘waste’ according to those they’re voting in are the exact kind of welfare schemes they are on.
Ok, enough of that now please.
It’s not hard people.
Sorry
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Statement coming out of my employer’s HR department - The message from HR is WFH is no longer permitted.
no justification, reasoning or explanation - this is on the back of messages yesterday that sickness rates are up in the last 12 months
well you can bet they’ll be going up further now WFH isn’t an option when employees are too sick to come into the office but well enough to WFH…
this is not a popular decision in reaction to a problem they created by failing to write a clear WFH policy.
whenever asked the HR Director simply said “there is no WFH policy” and so was left to managers discretion - which meant some teams and departments got a different experience than others.
while in my team it is “if needed/convenient to be home” (say to deal with a tradesman at home, or when the car is in for a service or MOT) other teams are known to have a 1 day WFH a week
this confusion and upset about the discrepancy has boiled under the surface for 18months or so…and now HR have finally addressed it by adopting a Handbrake house approach and said “no”
Our Police Staff Union had voted for strike action over it.
Sounds like my place. We’re at least lucky that we’ll never be full time in the office because we don’t have space (we were only 2-3 days in the office pre-pandemic). If they did demand minimum office time, the worst part would be that we’ve hired a lot of people knowing they don’t live in a commutable distance to an office on the based on the understanding that they’ll be working from home.
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Which is great but…
Our company works on a 80% in the office rate, rest of the time you are away either WFH, visiting customers, leave, etc.
Bring that in and we haven’t the desks to cope with the number!!
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