I am retired and, along with my husband, consider ourselves to be very comfortably off. The state pension we receive is a full one, extremely generous, neither of us has a private or work related pension. We had a business and purchased the property from which it was run. Upon retirement, aged 66 in my case and having worked full time for most of my 40 years of employment, we sold the building we owned, having transferred the business to the manager a few years before. We received a decent amount of money for the property, it was not a huge amount.
We appreciate just how lucky we are. We have friends, however, and relatives who, as portrayed in your article, assume they are 'struggling' and the Labour Government is an anathema to them. We are bemused and frustrated at this attitude but, sadly, having read your article, it seems a widespread attitude. We are happy to pay more, particularly if it means something similar to Sure Start can once again be introduced. Investment in the young is vital for a healthy and happy country.
Good piece Hannah. One question is just on your comment about Labour being ‘neutered by fear’ in their election campaigning. I think that’s correct, but I also don’t see how any party (but Labour in particular) could win a majority whilst being honest about likely tax rises in their manifesto. The last politician to be so honest about a challenging policy area was Theresa May on elderly care - and that got labelled the ‘dementia tax’ and attacked from all angles.
Takes you to some quite dark places on the efficacy of our current form of democracy to solve our big problems.
One of my Financial adviser clients told me about 25 years ago, that every one of his clients reckoned they would be happy / have enough if they had twice as much as they had already. Given that every client THEN had over a million and that the same whine came from those with 1, 5 or 10 million +, we realised they would never be happy or content. As the song says, Too much is never enough
Your comments on food spending interest me greatly. Most of proper food that is without pernicious additives is price completely out of range for a few reasons. Shopping if near the home may be only at an 'express' shop with is filled with no real food, only the 'make do' that you must take.
Should you need real items you wait 45 minutes for the bus to arrive (if you're lucky) and the way home has a wait of at least an hour, making the milk, meat now riddled with???
Perhaps our MPs should be stripped of their affluence for them to experience what the man in the street has to endure. Then they may apply real thinking to the budget. Why are they afraid to tax those whose margins will never make any difference? Why do they only tax those who have had virtually everything stripped away? Why do they allow tax haven behaviour?
One example of the latest insanity: any asylum seekers must have "permission" from Home Office to take a taxi to the hospital!! Ambulances don't appear - is this code for 'people must die'? (Disclaimer: if the drive is not considered worthwhile the taxi driver has actually refused to accept my fare!)
Yes, I am angry that these protected, privileged people simply refuse to use their brains and actually think.
I don’t think people were fed up about helping the poor in general terms. The feedback I get is being fed up helping people who decide to have more than three children when they already need vast help from everyone else to get even have one. A lot of middling and well off people decide to limit the number of children they have for affordability reasons and can see little reason why their taxes should free others from that.
In terms of the mansion tax, why should a high earner paying two million for a small house in London suburbs and with a million pound mortgage have to pay tax when a person living in a mortgage free eight or more bedroom mansion in Lancashire pays nothing simply because values are lower? It’s not a privilege having to pay vast sums to live in a tiny place.
I understand people being unhappy about paying for other people's decisions. But that's the wrong framing, instead it's about making sure children don't grow up hungry. Every pound spent reducincg child poverty saves the state many more in future spending.
Additionally the government has decided to tax homes based on value. That's entierly reasonable, as a Londoner I don't think it's particularly sensible to.get out the violin for people who own a £2 million home, no matter where it is in the country.
I would also add that in the background we have debt/GDP at 95 per cent and a very large government deficit. The demands on government spending are going to intensify, estimates being by around eight per cent of GDP (ageing population, defence spending, climate change, health spending, infrastructure costs). Surely that should be addressed, but instead Reeves spends as much as she can get away with(ish) backloads revenue, ludicrously says she can increase already elevated targets for ‘efficiency savings’ by three billion and brings tax levels up to the highest they have been since the 1940s without addressing debt/GDP at all.
Of course we aren’t allowed to mention Brexit slamming us by six per cent of GDP, reducing the tax take and making things unaffordable. No, no we still have to pretend nothing has changed.
To your first point, it doesn’t save money in the long wrong. The IFS recently published on this. Besides, surely at some point there is some balance whereby people who decide they can’t afford children have to pay for someone else’s?
I’m not pushing out the violin, I’m simply pointing out that relatively speaking people in London are being double hit by the far higher cost of living in the Capital.
Oh and allow me to add. Prime central London prices have, in real terms, fallen by around forty five per cent since 2014. So if you bought a property then for five million you have lost half your money and not only that you are being asked to pay additional tax on top.
I am retired and, along with my husband, consider ourselves to be very comfortably off. The state pension we receive is a full one, extremely generous, neither of us has a private or work related pension. We had a business and purchased the property from which it was run. Upon retirement, aged 66 in my case and having worked full time for most of my 40 years of employment, we sold the building we owned, having transferred the business to the manager a few years before. We received a decent amount of money for the property, it was not a huge amount.
We appreciate just how lucky we are. We have friends, however, and relatives who, as portrayed in your article, assume they are 'struggling' and the Labour Government is an anathema to them. We are bemused and frustrated at this attitude but, sadly, having read your article, it seems a widespread attitude. We are happy to pay more, particularly if it means something similar to Sure Start can once again be introduced. Investment in the young is vital for a healthy and happy country.
Good piece Hannah. One question is just on your comment about Labour being ‘neutered by fear’ in their election campaigning. I think that’s correct, but I also don’t see how any party (but Labour in particular) could win a majority whilst being honest about likely tax rises in their manifesto. The last politician to be so honest about a challenging policy area was Theresa May on elderly care - and that got labelled the ‘dementia tax’ and attacked from all angles.
Takes you to some quite dark places on the efficacy of our current form of democracy to solve our big problems.
One of my Financial adviser clients told me about 25 years ago, that every one of his clients reckoned they would be happy / have enough if they had twice as much as they had already. Given that every client THEN had over a million and that the same whine came from those with 1, 5 or 10 million +, we realised they would never be happy or content. As the song says, Too much is never enough
Your comments on food spending interest me greatly. Most of proper food that is without pernicious additives is price completely out of range for a few reasons. Shopping if near the home may be only at an 'express' shop with is filled with no real food, only the 'make do' that you must take.
Should you need real items you wait 45 minutes for the bus to arrive (if you're lucky) and the way home has a wait of at least an hour, making the milk, meat now riddled with???
Perhaps our MPs should be stripped of their affluence for them to experience what the man in the street has to endure. Then they may apply real thinking to the budget. Why are they afraid to tax those whose margins will never make any difference? Why do they only tax those who have had virtually everything stripped away? Why do they allow tax haven behaviour?
One example of the latest insanity: any asylum seekers must have "permission" from Home Office to take a taxi to the hospital!! Ambulances don't appear - is this code for 'people must die'? (Disclaimer: if the drive is not considered worthwhile the taxi driver has actually refused to accept my fare!)
Yes, I am angry that these protected, privileged people simply refuse to use their brains and actually think.
I don’t think people were fed up about helping the poor in general terms. The feedback I get is being fed up helping people who decide to have more than three children when they already need vast help from everyone else to get even have one. A lot of middling and well off people decide to limit the number of children they have for affordability reasons and can see little reason why their taxes should free others from that.
In terms of the mansion tax, why should a high earner paying two million for a small house in London suburbs and with a million pound mortgage have to pay tax when a person living in a mortgage free eight or more bedroom mansion in Lancashire pays nothing simply because values are lower? It’s not a privilege having to pay vast sums to live in a tiny place.
I understand people being unhappy about paying for other people's decisions. But that's the wrong framing, instead it's about making sure children don't grow up hungry. Every pound spent reducincg child poverty saves the state many more in future spending.
Additionally the government has decided to tax homes based on value. That's entierly reasonable, as a Londoner I don't think it's particularly sensible to.get out the violin for people who own a £2 million home, no matter where it is in the country.
I would also add that in the background we have debt/GDP at 95 per cent and a very large government deficit. The demands on government spending are going to intensify, estimates being by around eight per cent of GDP (ageing population, defence spending, climate change, health spending, infrastructure costs). Surely that should be addressed, but instead Reeves spends as much as she can get away with(ish) backloads revenue, ludicrously says she can increase already elevated targets for ‘efficiency savings’ by three billion and brings tax levels up to the highest they have been since the 1940s without addressing debt/GDP at all.
Of course we aren’t allowed to mention Brexit slamming us by six per cent of GDP, reducing the tax take and making things unaffordable. No, no we still have to pretend nothing has changed.
To your first point, it doesn’t save money in the long wrong. The IFS recently published on this. Besides, surely at some point there is some balance whereby people who decide they can’t afford children have to pay for someone else’s?
I’m not pushing out the violin, I’m simply pointing out that relatively speaking people in London are being double hit by the far higher cost of living in the Capital.
Oh and allow me to add. Prime central London prices have, in real terms, fallen by around forty five per cent since 2014. So if you bought a property then for five million you have lost half your money and not only that you are being asked to pay additional tax on top.