So what happens if Labour win?

Matthewfalle

Celebration!

tangled_metal

That taint also comes from people who know nothing about it but still jump on any bandwagon criticising it. Take a look at HSE myth busters.

They all start off by X telling member of general pubic they can't do something because elf and safety won't allow it. Something really daft. The member of the public contacts HSE about it and they put the thing straight. Often it's the company policy not to offer a service and rather than saying that they use the excuse H&S won't allow it. For example...

http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/myth-busting/2014/case290-schoolchildren-told-wear-long-sleeves-and-hats-protect-from-sun.htm

joncomelately

Matthewfalle wrote:

Celebration!

I can only assume this is because you're a fan of handcart-based journeys?

ben@31

Stevo 666 wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

You're still missing the point that we need a healthy and profitable private sector to pay for all the public services and jobs. Manufacturing was roundly screwed in the 70s.

There's no-one who'd be happy to pay more to the NHS out of my taxes and I already pay more than most.

Don't worry, it will all fall out of the magic leftie money tree. Apparently.

Have you read any of the comments above ?!

lesfirth

ben@31 wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

..... cheap marijuana to dream stuff up.....

A lot of private pensions were fukked by Gordon B

Is anything I wrote a lie?

If anything Gordon Brown should have stopped bankers from being such reckless gamblers. All of a sudden the bankers want their losses to become nationalised / socialised !

Well.In 1970 my wage was £17.50 a week ( before tax, Ni ,pension contribution ,and union subs which were not optional) and my mortgage was £22 per month
Outside the SE how does that compare?
Yes the tuition fee system was much better but those who went to Uni ( not me) did propper degrees. Not those who could not get a job when they had done A levels.
Some people have done very well with final salary pensions but the majority never had one.Superannuation schemes were the exception then and some who thought they had one ,actually found they failed to deliver decades later.
Full time jobs were easy to find but employment protection was none existent.
The NHS will never have enough finance. It did not then. So no change.
Yes the tax system has its flaws.
British rail was under funded by government after government and cost the public a fortune. It was knackered when it was privatised and is still catching up.
National assets like British Steel I presume . Again after decades of government interference and union self destruction this was a public liability not an asset. In those decades the rest of the world left us behind.
The banking failure should have seen many behind bars. Agreed.

You might have guessed I dont vote labour. I do not like all of what the tories have done but on balance I trust them to do a better job of balancing the books. Yes we could go back to the seventies, tax rates were so high loads of people went to live abroad. Was it 93 or 97 percent tax rate? and any government did little that the Unions did not like. They had lots of public ownership in the USSR back then and they did not have an immigration problem.They had to lock everyone in. We had Red Robbo destroying British Leyland land and we had the three day week.
My best memory of the seventies is Mungo Jerry," In the summertime.....have a drink,have drive and go out and see what you can find" . Great times.

Stevo_666

ben@31 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

You're still missing the point that we need a healthy and profitable private sector to pay for all the public services and jobs. Manufacturing was roundly screwed in the 70s.

There's no-one who'd be happy to pay more to the NHS out of my taxes and I already pay more than most.

Don't worry, it will all fall out of the magic leftie money tree. Apparently.

Have you read any of the comments above ?!

Yes. The problem is you don't appear to understand economics or the need for the private sector to finance all these things you want paying for.

MRS was trying to tell you and I am as well.

ben@31

meanredspider wrote:

You're still missing the point that we need a healthy and profitable private sector to pay for all the public services and jobs. Manufacturing was roundly screwed in the 70s.

There's no-one who'd be more happy to pay more to the NHS out of my taxes and I already pay more than most.

The private sector seems to want to avoid paying its fair share. Especially when it "banks" in the Cayman Islands. What did Amazon and Starbucks tax avoidance schemes finance ?

Since the 1970s how many years of a Tory government have we had?
What's happened to our manufacturing industry during all their years in office? Where has our manufacturing gone ? You can't blame anyone else for the decline during all those Tory years.
Manufacturing was screwed when the tories closed down coal mines and steel works, decimating entire communities. The miners didn't go on strike for fun, they went on strike for a right to work.

Stevo_666

ben@31 wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

You're still missing the point that we need a healthy and profitable private sector to pay for all the public services and jobs. Manufacturing was roundly screwed in the 70s.

There's no-one who'd be more happy to pay more to the NHS out of my taxes and I already pay more than most.

The private sector seems to want to avoid paying its fair share. Especially when it "banks" in the Cayman Islands. What did Amazon and Starbucks tax avoidance schemes finance ?

Since the 1970s how many years of a Tory government have we had?
What's happened to our manufacturing industry during all their years in office? Where has our manufacturing gone ? You can't blame anyone else for the decline during all those Tory years.
Manufacturing was screwed when the tories closed down coal mines and steel works, decimating entire communities. The miners didn't go on strike for fun, they went on strike for a right to work.

Define a fair share.

Also please comment on this which shows the tax contribution by a major part of the private sector going up over time:
https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/tax/total-tax-contribution-100-group.html

Rather than look at one sector you need to look at the whole economy. Which has grown significantly. Who cares if we make our money from selling widgets, service or something else? It is all income. We happen to be good at services and that is a large part of our economy as a result. If it was worth nothing, why are certain EU countries so keen to attract UK financial services and media sector business to the continent?

meanredspider

ben@31 wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

You're still missing the point that we need a healthy and profitable private sector to pay for all the public services and jobs. Manufacturing was roundly screwed in the 70s.

There's no-one who'd be more happy to pay more to the NHS out of my taxes and I already pay more than most.

The private sector seems to want to avoid paying its fair share. Especially when it "banks" in the Cayman Islands. What did Amazon and Starbucks tax avoidance schemes finance ?

Since the 1970s how many years of a Tory government have we had?
What's happened to our manufacturing industry during all their years in office? Where has our manufacturing gone ? You can't blame anyone else for the decline during all those Tory years.
Manufacturing was screwed when the tories closed down coal mines and steel works, decimating entire communities. The miners didn't go on strike for fun, they went on strike for a right to work.

You see (I've showed you the chart) manufacturing was screwed in the 70s which left rather a mess to sort out. As I said, I worked in it in the 80s including the steel industry. There's a problem with a right to work when no-one needs your coal or steel at the price you're producing it at. If we still made cars (rather than just assemble them) we might have needed some steel and some coal to make that steel.

rjsterry

Coal and steel is a rather limited view of manufacturing. I think we did this a while back on the Brexit thread. IIRC aerospace and things like specialist plant were significant.

meanredspider

rjsterry wrote:

Coal and steel is a rather limited view of manufacturing. I think we did this a while back on the Brexit thread. IIRC aerospace and things like specialist plant were significant.

I agree. We used to do all sorts of things. But I worked in several places where someone shouted at me "that's my job and when it's done only I'm doing it". I also went around Dagenham and there was a guy reading a paper an hour into the shift. We asked what he was doing and were told he'd finished for the shift - 7 hours of reading the paper. Labour relations were a total and utter mess.

andcp

ben@31 wrote:

Manufacturing was screwed when the tories closed down coal mines and steel works, decimating entire communities. The miners didn't go on strike for fun, they went on strike for a right to work.

Quick fact check:
Wilson 1965-1970 closed 212 mines
Thatcher 1979-1990 closed 154 mines

The coal mining industry was losing millions and millions of pounds and us tax payers were heavily subsidising them. The NUM was also effectively running a "closed shop''; at one point the NUM management wanted to go on strike as a pay rise offer of 5.5% was deemed not enough, this in the year after they had received a pay rise in excess of 9%. The miners went on strike because they had influence on the Labour Party (and could blackmail them), were greedy and protectionist.
Many steelworks didn't close but did lose a lot of jobs and invested in better machinery which improved efficiency - if they hadn't they definitely would have closed. The steel industry is now profitable.

I worked in the steel industry in the 70's and 80's. Manufacturing wasn't screwed only by the Tories, it was also screwed by the trade unions and militant idiots.

Stevo_666

Andcp wrote:

it was also screwed by the trade unions and militant idiots.

Which is what will likely happen to quite a few other sectors of the economy if the bunch of militant idiots currently standing for election get into power.

As I've said before:

Moonbiker

Good job all thoose coal mines closed imo country needs to switch over to green renewable energy.

Being a green lefty im disapointed the enviroment/sustainability hasn't really featured much at all in the election debate when really its the biggest issue long term.

In reality for all the rhoetoric Labour won't be much different from tories if they won as the real power is capital/big buisness not politicians, they are just tinkering round the edges of the system.


As for not making weatlhy 1% not paying taxes as they create the wealth that pays for the state would a few less of them really destroy the whole private sector tax base?

Look at the figures of income inequality:

The average FTSE chief executive earns 386 times more than a worker on the national living wage

So we need that for a strong private sector tax base.. :roll:

The ratio was 20 to 1 in 1950.

ddraver

Several of our neighbours appear to manage a lot of Ben's list and the sky doesn't appear to fall in...

Stevo_666

Moonbiker wrote:

As for not making weatlhy 1% not paying taxes as they create the wealth that pays for the state would a few less of them really destroy the whole private sector tax base?

Look at the figures of income inquality:

The average FTSE chief executive earns 386 times more than a worker on the national living wage

So we need that for a strong private sector tax base.. :roll:

The ratio was 20 to 1 in 1950.

On tax paid by the well off, its time for another round of leftie mythbusters:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/19/tax-burden-wealthy-has-trebled-since-1970s-telegraph-analysis/

So yes, if you drive some of them away as Labour did in the 70's, your tax revenues go down despite having the high tax rates that Labour wrongly think will increase tax revenues.

As for what 100 individuals get paid, not the biggest issue for the country: rather a matter for shareholders (the owners) of those companies.

cougie

Anyone wittering on about lefties and then quoting the Telegraph as evidence loses credibility in my eyes.

Ooh who runs the Telegraph? The Barclay brothers. Worth 6.5 Billion.

slowmart

It does seem that the editorial standards have slipped under their ownership.

Moonbiker

So the tax burden has trebled since the 70's but they are still here. Sounds like Labour wasn't taxing them enough in 70's then, and as they haven't all fled abroad with the current higher tax burden after all, even though this is what people are always scaremongering that they will do...

Since their incomes have skyrocketed while average incomes have stagnated they can easily afford to pay more of the tax burden & still be increasingly alot better off than everyone else.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... e-stagnate

EDIT: Actually it just highlights the huge increases in ineqaulity, that the tax rate as % of income for top earners is currently lower than the 70's, but they pay more tax total amount beacause they are increasing rich compared to the rest.

The term, tax burden is abit misleading...

slowmart

FFS I can't tell if we have another Momentum member or a Trump supporter. Shall we restart the fossil fuel industry and pay 10 times more for coal that than we buy it for from abroad and let's leave out the environmental argument. Everything evolves and we have to adapt- its called life, it can be harsh, challenging and unfair which I suppose is the difference between people who have their hand out for more social support or those that crack on and not let events define them and of course those in between doing their best.

The effect on the Steel and mining industries would have been the same regardless of Government. Labour or Tory.

bendertherobot

If labour win we won't have the possibility of macron sparking out Boris. Vote tory.

surrey_commuter

Pross wrote:

fat daddy wrote:

bendertherobot wrote:

It's confusing mind. The let's make Britain great again don't seem to like the thought of a system that existed when it was....

out of interest when was it great ????

Back in the Victorian era - world leaders in manufacturing, engineering, fighting wars. All of this was achieved with social equality too, there were no rich people getting richer from exploiting the work of the poor and no-one was struggling to feed or house themselves. Everyone had a right to free education and healthcare too. (Some of this may not be true).

I would say the closest we've had to a golden era would have been the late 50s to late 60s but it would be a stretch to say there was less poverty.

Our golden age was between the Battle of Trafalgar and the death of Victoria

slowmart

ahhhhh the "golden age" narrative.


The Cambridge English dictionary meaning " a period of time, sometimes imaginary, when everyone was happy, or when a particular art, business, etc. was very successful

kajjal

To help Stevo out with the magic money tree :-

https://twitter.com/tristandross/status ... 5697029120

This is how socialism for the wealthy works

ben@31

rjsterry

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Pross wrote:

fat daddy wrote:

bendertherobot wrote:

It's confusing mind. The let's make Britain great again don't seem to like the thought of a system that existed when it was....

out of interest when was it great ????

Back in the Victorian era - world leaders in manufacturing, engineering, fighting wars. All of this was achieved with social equality too, there were no rich people getting richer from exploiting the work of the poor and no-one was struggling to feed or house themselves. Everyone had a right to free education and healthcare too. (Some of this may not be true).

I would say the closest we've had to a golden era would have been the late 50s to late 60s but it would be a stretch to say there was less poverty.

Our golden age was between the Battle of Trafalgar and the death of Victoria

Apart from the cholera, typhoid, TB, slavery, workhouses... On the military side there's the Siege of Khartoum, the Anglo-Afghan Wars or the Boer Wars. The Crimean War is famous for a disastrous cavalry charge and most British casualties dying from disease.

We were pretty good at the engineering and manufacturing, though.

ben@31

rjsterry wrote:

Back in the Victorian era -

We were pretty good at the engineering and manufacturing, though.

At the expensive of 14 year old kids working 12 hours a day for the equivalent of 75p a week and losing limbs in the mill machinery. And if you survived you went back to slum housing.

Just so the mill owner could get even richer.

meanredspider

@ben@31 - let's just take one of those "apples" on your money tree: vat on private school fees. Do you have the details of how that's broken down to reach the £1.6bn?

I can tell you that there will be several outcomes to this policy:
1. A lot of parents who are just about affording to pay for kids in private schools will no longer be able to.
2. The outcome of this will be less kids in private schools leading to
3. More kids in the state sector
4. Less people employed in the private sector
5. Schools that currently give able-but-less-well-off kids bursaries will no longer feel the moral need to do so.
6. The more affluent and foreign parents will send their kids to schools in other countries.

Now, personally, despite having had a private secondary education myself, I'm not a fan of private education. My wife works in a state school and my kids were educated in a state school. I believe in it.

But, as a fund-raising measure, I think the policy is fraught with risks and ultimately will make private education the reserve of the extremely well-off whilst not raising anything like the amount of money I'm guessing is in that £1.6bn number and destroying employment for people whilst pressurising the state sector.

The same goes for many of those other "apples". When I was wee, I used to think that I could connect the dynamo on my bike to an electric motor and I'd get endless power. The idea that these policies will raise that money is the economic equivalent.

Stevo_666

cougie wrote:

Anyone wittering on about lefties and then quoting the Telegraph as evidence loses credibility in my eyes.

Ooh who runs the Telegraph? The Barclay brothers. Worth 6.5 Billion.

Don't really care. The point is still valid, unless you have some evidence to the contrary.

Stevo_666

Moonbiker wrote:

So the tax burden has trebled since the 70's but they are still here. Sounds like Labour wasn't taxing them enough in 70's then, and as they haven't all fled abroad with the current higher tax burden after all, even though this is what people are always scaremongering that they will do...

Since their incomes have skyrocketed while average incomes have stagnated they can easily afford to pay more of the tax burden & still be increasingly alot better off than everyone else.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... e-stagnate

EDIT: Actually it just highlights the huge increases in ineqaulity, that the tax rate as % of income for top earners is currently lower than the 70's, but they pay more tax total amount beacause they are increasing rich compared to the rest.

The term, tax burden is abit misleading...

Err, they do pay more if their incomes go up.

Trouble is, just jacking up rates often does not work. HMRCs own study on Labours introduction of the 50% rate showed it raised sweet FA. I've posted the link before and can do so again if you want. Bottom line is, the left wing strategy totally ignores the human reaction.

But let me put it more simply with this little parable of the ten men in a bar. There is a fair bit of truth in it - I know as I do tax for a living. Which is why the UK had to go crawling to the IMF for a loan in the 1970s when the top rate of tax was 98% on investment income and 83% on earned income.

http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/howtaxes.asp