Hi LSO, good article again, though if anything you’re being far too optimistic, this is New Labour after all!
However, I do want to pick up on one thing, which is using the word apathy to describe the voters who are driven by what is on offer by our political system to not voting. Apathy implies not caring, passive acceptance of whatever the result is. I do not think this actually describes what is happening.
It suits the political elite to push this word to describe voters, as it implies their consent by default to the results of the election. I do not see this. It isn’t that people do not care what happens anymore, or that they cannot be bothered to go out and vote. Rather, they are actively *choosing* not to vote. What is on offer is so universally bad that there is no “least worst option”. None of the major parties in any way represents them.
Some argue in favour of voting for minor parties, but even if a representative minor party exists, our FPTP electoral system is deliberately designed to ensure that breaking through into the electable mainstream is virtually impossible without the collapse of the one incumbents to make room.
Furthermore, a key part of our democratic process is not just voting for the winner, but accepting and being bound by the result even if you lose - “loser’s consent”. You accept the choice on offer and agree to be bound by the will of the majority, whatever that turns out to be. I suggest that morally, participating in the process implies that you are accepting the choice on offer and giving that loser’s consent.
What I think is happening is something far more profound. In the absence of any meaningful choice, of any chance of being represented, we are seeing the rise of despair. In that instance, not voting is the only meaningful way to signal that you refuse to grant that losers consent; to accept the moral legitimacy of the outcome (whoever “wins”); that you want real, fundamental change in the entire political system and not just a tweaked set of identikit policies from the same tired set of parties. *Choosing* not to vote for any of the available parties is the only way we have left, within our democratic system, to say that we want a genuinely fresh choice.
I note that the article you link to with respect to voter apathy and disinterest does not actually use either of these words to describe how voters are feeling and acting- it uses the word despair, and calls for a genuinely new offer. Please don’t use the word apathy, it’s the word which will be used by our elites to legitimise themselves, and I think people, in not voting are now moving towards a position of withdrawing their consent in the validity of our broken and unrepresentative system.
Another point worth making is that many people just 'check out' of the system as a whole. They don't 'believe' in the civic state, which involves shared responsibilities and benefits, and will just get on with their own lives. Or as cynically, they will assume it won't make any difference, they're all the same, the system is rigged - so why bother?
Yes. I think that’s right. I see people dropping litter on London streets and think, you know you live here right? You’re just actively making your own environment worse. Sometimes I think it’s deliberate. Though not really in a conspiracy way. Maybe this is a tangent but it’s the same as the way kids aren’t taught about basic economics and definitely not stock buying etc at school. There’s a sense, (I felt it growing up and I think it’s even worse now), that ‘this stuff is not for the likes of you.’
A great synopsis on what life will be like under Labour. Great piece.
I personally think they are two sides of the same coin and that Starmer is being brought in to further a phase of an already determined agenda. A phase that will further normalise ‘trans’, more ‘mental illness’ and giving up more to ‘save the planet’.
I agree Julie. Though I don’t believe that there’s some puppet master. Just a machine or system at work which pushes in that direction. So many careers at this point are reliant on this stuff that it becomes self fulfilling, and grows like a disease. Thanks for you comment.
Hard to pick a favourite bit when it's all so brilliant, but my prize this week goes to:
"If underprivileged working class white boys were given half the help and attention afforded the ‘trans community’. Then Gateshead would have its own space programme by now."
Thanks for the enjoyable read. It’s a very similar situation here in Australia, especially the southern state of Victoria where Labor has been in power for several terms. The state sanctioned theft from the productive to bribe the embittered and resentful is well advanced and in fact probably normalised now. People on the receiving end of this performative, do-nothing socialist bludgeoning are on their knees and many business owners looking to leave. A small light at the end of the tunnel is that they have pretty clearly now run out of other people’s money and are likely to be at the helm of a bankrupt state awaiting a shitstorm they cannot escape.
Hi Chicken Man, it’s so depressing that it always has to reach that point before anything changes. Bribing voters with other peoples cash seemed to work well as a strategy for staying in power-who knew?
You are right to be pessimistic. We are getting to the tipping point where the shirkers and takers outnumber the contributors, and Starmer wants to seal the deal by giving votes to children. London and Wales are classic examples of socialist run fiefdoms guaranteed a permanent majority by the worthless. Nobody profits from it, but envy combined with stupidity, or just childish innocence, will perpetuate it, until eventually the contributors have all gone, and the revolution starts.
Watching an ex-DPP, who must surely know that the war on drugs, people smuggling or other lucrative criminal enterprises can never be won, spout on about "smashing the criminal gangs" is risible. You can't ever win by arresting the crooks, because for every one you arrest, there are several waiting to take over, usually even worse than the last. You kill demand, by persuading Macron that 6 months of landing all these people back in France will utterly destroy the financial model, as well as clear the camps in Calais. As for net zero, the vast majority of our temperature measuring devices are so poor that they could be as much as 5 degrees Celsius out, so we have no idea of what temperatures are actually doing.
Agreed Jeremy. Except for your description of ‘the majority of the worthless.’ If I thought people were worthless I wouldn’t bother. We need to show people that have worth, agency and a future. At the moment we are simply writing them off. Good to hear from you.
I think we might get some benefit from his DPP experience actually. I expect Sir Kier knows a bit more about how to put the wrong 'uns away than the shouty people across from him in the Commons.
Like Savile? The sub postmasters prosecuted by the DPP on his watch? The fact he thinks anyone can "smash the criminal gangs" shows he hasn't the first idea about organised crime. As a human rights lawyer, he is personally responsible for several criminals not being deported.
I expect that most people who spent five years as Director of Public Persecutions made many mistakes. With any luck, he would have learned from them. Smashing the gangs will take cooperation with the French — something that the current lot have not been terribly good at.
PS. I am sure you know that Starmer had little to do with the Saville case.
He should have taken more time on it then. He is forever boasting in the Commons about the thousands of rapists "he" prosecuted.
It doesn't matter how much cooperation the French give. You can't stop organised crime unless you destroy the demand for whatever it is that they are selling. How often do we hear of an undercover drug operation that lasts years, and barely disrupts the supply for a day? Every arrest of a people smuggler will see their replacement installed in less than a day.
"the thousands of rapists he prosecuted"........He was presumably not referring to the pakistani rapists in various British towns that he failed to prosecute????
Didn't he also prosecute on behalf of illegal immigrants to secure better benefits for them?
Yes, it is a very difficult language to learn, but Hungarians are very patient and encouraging and don't give you a hard time if they see you're making an effort. Also, many Hungarians speak English or German and are very accommodating. In Budapest especially, many foreigners barely speak Hungarian, as the city is so international, and they can get by in English. However, there are many language schools and opportunities to learn the language (in case you ever seriously consider Hungary!)
For some time now I have been under the impression that the Tories are determined to lose the election. If their objective had been to ensure that hardly anyone would vote for them then they could not have done a better job. Sunak's apparent ineptitude in making his election announcement in the pouring rain and his gaffes and his totally lacklustre performance since just reinforce my view. This leads me to ask why this is, bearing in mind that politicians usually value being in power above everything else. The only explanation I can come up with is that Sunak and many (maybe all) of the Tory MPs know that some major crisis is imminent and they want to be as far away from it as possible. To keep this short I will avoid any speculation on what that crisis might be and will just say that if I am right then the incoming Labour government might have so much on its hands in dealing with this crisis that everything else will be pushed into the background.
Hi Bill, it might seem like it, but I just genuinely think they ran out of road. And ideas. And a sense of what they stand for. Weirdly being in government I guess is like peacetime, you get used to all the good stuff, get flabby, lose your edge. Opposition is like being at war, you have to fight every day to get heard, I think it toughens you up, makes you hungry. I just think the Tories have utterly lost it, and they were useless to begin with in 2010. (This is not a demand for war!!)
I think Bill may have a point - the Tories had a short window in which to call the election while the economic news was ok. We assume it will get worse, maybe not a crash, but a slow slide of rising inflation and energy costs, higher borrowing costs, lower tax receipts etc.
Absolutely. And no one (especially Labour themselves) is going to blame Labour for an economic downturn in the next year or two. Expect to hear ‘it’s not our fault, it’s the terrible economy left to us by the Tories’ for the next couple of years’. And TBH they won’t be wrong.
Hi Bill, l think you maybe right about the Conservatives trying to lose, because we are in such a mess, whoever takes over will not be able to solve the mess. And it will get worse, then the Conservatives will shout “it’s not our fault”, you voted the other mob into power.
The problem with the NHS is: there is no rational limit to the amount of money you will spend on your health. By handing healthcare to the state, as well there being no rational limit, there is no practical limit to the amount of other people’s money you can vote to be spent on your health. It will break the country.
BTW, thanks LSO. I had some bad news at the weekend and this article is the first time I have laughed since.
So far, we've managed to keep NHS spending lower than almost every other country's so your prediction of no rational limit to the costs and it will break the country are hypothetical at best.
Since 1948 the NHS budget has grown, on average, 3.6% in real terms every year, without fail for 76 years. GDP has grown at 1.5% per year in the same period. In the last decade alone, the NHS has increased from 30% to 40% of total government spending. It is the single largest line item in the budget. 2010/11 to 2015/16 medicine costs alone jumped 50%. They then doubled in the next 5 years, ignoring COVID. Total spending was 12.4% of GDP in 2021; the growth is inexorable. Go and look at the ONS or Kings Fund websites, then try and maintain people are not, totally rationally, voting to spend other people’s money on their health, with no limit. Adam Smith observed there is a great deal of ruin in a nation, so it will not happen tomorrow but the fundamental misalignment of incentives in the NHS will be the ruin of the UK, unless we find a better model. It is a matter of time.
Welfare aggregates Pensions, Working Age Benefits and the other transfer payments government makes. The NHS is bigger than either Pensions or Benefits, if disaggregated, and on track to overtake them aggregated within a decade. If the triple lock goes, this will be sooner.
I'm not an expert on this by a long way — but my quick google says that Welfare is the biggest expenditure. I also found that every other country spends much more on health than us so maybe copying their systems might make our spending go up rather than down?
I'll agree that NHS spending could do with some tidying but I think the principle of government-run healthcare is sound — as long as the government in charge is inclined to make it work.
Not sure every other country spends ‘much’ more on health than us as % of GDP Ragged.I really looked into for the piece I did in the NHS and it seemed maybe 1-2% more. I got a lot of my figures from the Kings Fund that Dan mentions above..But not enough to justify the differences in outcome.
I just don’t think a government run healthcare system is the solution. It should lay out a landscape certainly, and make sure there is provision for everyone, but the government is notoriously terrible at running stuff. And it has not saved the NHS from corruption, mismanagement, rent seeking and some terrible results. I know sometimes it be amazing, but for the money we spend, and the esteem it (used to be) held in, it should be amazing every time.
Perhaps I was off with my numbers. I said other countries spend "much more". It's merely "more". Still, my point stands that there is no reason to believe that:
> "there is no practical limit to the amount of other people’s money you can vote to be spent on your health. It will break the country."
I mean sure: there is no written limit in our constitution. But there is also no reason to believe that those fears will be realised. They have not so far in 75 years of the NHS. I think it is simply mischief-making to suggest that they will.
Surely we can have a sensible discussion about the best way to run a healthcare system without making stuff up abut the current one.
It is human nature that people don't value what they don't directly pay for (hence missed appointments and time wasters in GP surgeries) and there is no incentive for many people to take responsibility for their own health if the consequences of not doing so are removed.
Apart from the basic psychology of a 'free' service, the NHS is simply too big to function properly - isn't it the largest employer in Europe? In nature, which left to itself creates harmonious balance, nothing gets oversized because if it did it would become chaotic and collapse. We are watching this law of nature play out with the NHS in slow-motion.
In other European countries there is a socialised insurance model and this seems to work much better - there are not millions on waiting lists in Switzerland or Germany. That is a special feature of our truly terrible system of healthcare.
The Tories are doing most of those things incrementally already. This is the boiling frog analogy again - with the electorate being the frog. If Labour whack the heat up to max, will the frog jump out ?
Reads like an S-level essay using the title "We're all doomed". Which is not to say I didn't agree with every word of it, just every good story needs a way out. We all need to face up to the fact that the majority of our elected politicians are actively evil: Cameron, Johnson, Osborne, Sunak et al - corrupt as hell; May; Grieve; Starmer and his crew the very embodiment of demonic gargoyles. They've all got to go: the Augean stables must be cleared out and a fresh start made
They do seem to be in retreat in Europe Andrew. But I worry about the rearguard action. We saw during Brexit that they don’t like not getting their way.
Been waiting for this. A tad gloomy being an understatement, I've been hoping 'something will turn up.' like an assassin, or an IED or my old mate, the Durham whistleblower.
I keep an eye on the comments pages. There was a swell of 'vote Reform' I assessed as around 25% in the centre right MSM but Farage and the lousy local election results put paid to that. It seems everyone expects a Labour win but knows nobody who thinks it a good idea. I have noticed a minor rebellion of 'f*** this, I'm voting Tory' from those realising a Starmer gov't will be far more sinister than the Corbyn offerings of 2017-19. The voter is confused and apathetic, there's nobody to vote for. Just now I'd vote for Galloway WYSIWYG. Perhaps a bit of Shariah Law would get the drugs and knives off the streets and end this Pride and gender nonsense. Take a trip to UAE or Saudi. Misbehave and it hurts. They're not communists.
Keeping Starmer out by any means defines sunlit uplands for me. I even considered voting Labour - on the grounds I never get the MP I want and thus condemn the candidate to ignominous defeat.
REALLY good writing LSO. Open question to everyone, would LSO get more exposure if this was on YouTube and read carefully, and slowly? Or does that mean he'd lose his/her (its?!) secret identity, and maybe job at Mildrew Marxist Council? He/she doesn't have to show his/her face, use an AI voice perhaps.
Hi LSO, another thought provoking, indifference puncturing post.
Some thoughts from my chair...
NHS - I'd struggle to think of anyone that thinks the NHS is delivering, but that's more emotive (as the care/wellbeing of one, a loved one, inevitably is), rather than actual. Spending below the European average per head, the 2nd lowest in the G7 isn't about being broke, poor value, it's abiut a lack of believe, priority. Having the highest adoption of cheaper generic drugs, and one of the lowest costs of administration's hardly shows an inefficient provision, whilst the higher mortality rates does show a lack of direction and investment. We need to acknowledge as a society, what the NHS DOES deliver so cheaply, and that spending money on the NHS in a long term structured way is not a cost, but an investment, that will save money AND lives.
As for Labour granting contracts for race, I find that no less pernicious than granting contracts for class/Oxbridge graduates/family members, which erstwhile seems societally acceptable.
And as for Labour "bribing the poor with the rich's cash"....well that'll make a refreshing change from the rich lording it large on the back of the profit, cash generating graft ensured by the hard working 'poor' living subsistence lives.
As for the money for all of Labours aspirations? Well, leaving the Amazon type corporates aside, when a businessman who owns 7 McDonald's franchisees in the Northwest declared a £2million profit, but pays himself only £18,000 salary but a £1million dividend, to his Guernsey company, it is quite obvious how wide spread tax avoidance is. How widespread the abuse of Government, I mean taxpayer funded infrastructure is. Just cracking down on the pervasiveness, the acceptability of such, would cover even the most irresponsible and excessive Labour funding requirements. But then that would mean stopping the redistribution of poor tax payers, to rich offshorers than avoid such. A proposal even more outrageous than Labour.
Hi Damien. Great to hear from you. A quick reply. Sorry if I don’t cover all your points!
I think we do spend a little less share of GDP on healthcare than France and Germany. 11.7% vs about 13% I think. But not enough to account for the massive difference in service and outcomes. Don’t forget, the US spends far more as share of GDP than any of us. More cash does not guarantee a better system. Personally I think the NHS is well past its sell by date. I’m not that ideologically opposed to it, my complaint is that it simply doesn’t work. I wrote a long piece about the NHS where I dug into the figures properly. It’s on my page if you’re interested.
Awarding contracts by race is not the same as awarding contracts to family and friends. It’s racist. You are doing a bad thing, so I’m going to do a bad thing, is not an argument that wins me over. Sorry. Also. I think a little nepotism is perfectly natural. Ask Stephen Kinnock. The Millibands. And a whole swathe of Labour grandees. Hilary Benn. -just the ones who immediately spring to mind. Oh. Sue Grays son. Now standing as Labour MP.
A one million pound dividend would generate a tax bill of over £300k. Dividends are definitely not tax free! If in Guernsey that isn’t the case then that’s different because different laws apply. Some people seem to want tax harmonisation across countries. A move which would destroy competitiveness and hand a huge advantage to the US ( which is why they are so keen on it). Ireland is not a poor country any longer. Because in part it managed to attract int business with its competitive tax rates. We should follow their example. Not run in the other direction. Poor vs rich? I’ll take rich please.
There’s a balance to be had here. I’m not sure that Labour as socialists really believe in property rights. That lack of belief is likely to make us all much poorer. Sorry that’s so short but I wanted to reply before I head out in the rain. Cheers LSO
Spot on. All leftist ideology is at root a belief that the human condition can be perfected. How many times does this experiment have to be run before every sane human being recognises it doesn’t work and has resulted in mass penury and many time in mass murder? Probably never, which ironically proves the conservative view that man is a fallen creature.
An ideology that runs on envy of others is a cancer of the intellect. People respond to incentives, it is perfectly natural to want to keep as much of the fruit of your labours as possible. The leftist mindset is incapable of recognising or understanding this simple fact of human nature.
I wonder what you think about Attlee and his leftist ideology and all those council houses and the NHS and the education system. Did they result in mass penury and mass murder?
Well I think 1948 was very different from 2024 Ragged. They had racial segregation, government censorship and National Service for a start….oh hang on. Maybe you’re right. 🤣
My point was to observe that we have previously had leftie governments that implemented a lot of leftie policies that did not result in mass penury and mass murder. I see no reason why the next leftie government will either. I think this is a fiction made up by dishonest journalists at disreputable newspapers.
I personally was a beneficiary of council houses and grammar schools and the NHS has been very kind to me in recent years. I think leftie policies often result in a better society. More often than they result in mass penury and mass murder, anyway.
Come to think of it, Harold Wilson gave us the Open University too., And I have just submitted the final assignment for this year. Wish me luck!
I’ve always had a soft spot for Harold. Yes, council houses, grammar schools and the original vision for the NHS all good. I definitely think losing grammar schools has been a calamity. I genuinely can’t see the merit in it.
Council houses are shit. I know I’ve lived in a few. The NHS is a failed monolithic state bureaucracy that delivers sub optimal outcomes. Granted it delivers equality of outcome, which is the goal of socialists. It’s just incompatible with human freedom, so it just results in misery.
As for mass murder and penury, we have at least been spared the more blood and fire brands of collectivist movements that afflicted the continent. The last Labourite government just exported them abroad instead..
Starmer is a socialist. A one time member of the Trotskyist Pabloite sect. They are all socialists Red in tooth and claw.
Municipal dreams. Yes, it’s always a dream until reality intrudes as it always does.
Why would anyone want to be beholden to the state rather than having control of their own destiny? The dream (nightmare) of cradle to grave welfare’s m is just a fear of responsibility and taking control of one’s own life. Come back to nanny, all will be made good.
While I’m sure the NHS aims to provide quality healthcare to all, aims and mission system et Mrs issued by six figure salary state bureaucrats mean little without the end result.
The elephant in the room of course is our current level of uncontrolled mass immigration of fighting age ‘Asian’ males and nothing age women. What jobs are they going to do? Where are they going to live? How will they assimilate into what’s left of our culture? (They won’t). We have a choice - we can either have a welfare state, or we can have mass immigration. We can’t have both.
They weren't that good were they? By the 70s the UK was a disaster zone. The council houses thing got rolled back by Thatcher. The education system is something people DO flee when they can afford to. The NHS is falling apart and has been for years, nobody else thought it was a good idea and its performance since has demonstrated they were right.
The legacy of Attlee is that his ideas have all led to ruin and despair, and will eventually be rolled back but not before the UK is a poor country of no greater significance than any other of the many small poor countries around the world.
I am envious of noone. But one can only respond to incentives, keep as much of the fruit of their labours, when they are incentives and receiving fruits, not expected to be grateful for others fruit's offcasts gone off. Too many have no fruit whilst others ignorantly discard, spoil theirs. I'd love grapes, but I'm lucky to get prunes (as nutritious as they are!)
I'm not sure what you are trying to suggest...the US spends more you say but you are not sure it ensured better healthcare? Seems a bit contradictory that argument, not least that those that can access such, see.ingly receive world class healthcare. But unlike here too many can't. My point is WE DO get value for money, but yes, we MUST accept we have to pay for it. If we spent the per head of the US what could we do? The NHS is only past it's sell by date because those fortunate enough not to need it, see it as an expensive tax on their wellbeing. Those that need it, bemoan it yes, but exalt it for being pretty much the only thing that poverty doesn't exclude them from.
Awarding contracts by race is racist you suggest. But awarding them by class/education/family/friendship is okay? Not prejudice. It is. In that I agree two wrongs don't make a right...
The Ireland point....well I noticed butter, and orange juice (?) , product of Ireland ever more present in the UK. The competitiveness, positive tax environment you celebrate, is the same environment that makes low margin businesses (dairy for one), in the UK uncompetitive, because a 5% margin is lost when someone has a 15% tax but not necessarily efficiency advantage. That road is merely the exporting jobs, and their taxation and their companies taxation.
As for property rights, well I'm all for preserving such. I think the 170,000 households in temporary housing in London would feel the same, if they had such.
I don't really think that Conservatives as capitalists really believe in housing. Believe in supporting and protecting those that have them, can afford them. Chastise as scroungers those that don't have them or can't afford them.
As ever, much respect LSO, for.making me rethink what I think, think anew and think afresh.
Lots of very specific points there Damien. And I don’t want to get too bogged down in the detail. But I’ll just say. I dont think the NHS represents value for money. £182bn and 7.5 m on the waiting list. Not a great return. I understand it is well
Loved as an institution but nothing is being done to improve it, except spending more money. Which clearly isn’t working.
I think businesses and families always favour their own networks. That’s just human nature. The role of government I guess is to stop that turning into cartels and mafiosa. But trying to stamp out nepotism is pointless. Making sure that people at the bottom have more opportunity and are not shut out of good schools good jobs because of race/class. Well there I can wholeheartedly agree. But awarding jobs etc on the basis of race, whatever race, is to me simple racism. And I’m against racism, even the supposedly ’nice’ kind.
I’m going to park the tax thing if you don’t mind. I’m just saying that I believe in competition, because I believe that it drives down costs for the consumer as it drives up quality.
I don’t think this Conservative government is really ‘capitalist’. It’s crony capitalist at best. And I think you and I would genuinely agree on a lot of the problems and unfairness that brings.
I’d suggest that we’d both want a much better deal for working people, and especially young people starting out. The Conservatives certainly aren’t offering one, but I’d suggest the left/Labour are likely just to make things worse. Because that’s what seems to have happened in Scotland and in Wales.
As ever, I think most decent people agree broadly on the destination, it’s just a matter of the best way, if there is a way, of getting there. I’m more Adam Smith than John Smith I think.🤔
I agree with you on the racism. I do think there is a lot more we could do on the nepotism thing though. Maybe also the thing where an Egyptian gives the Tories £10m and they give him a seat in the House of Lords.
I think Labour deserve a chance. They can't be worse than the criminals in there at the moment.
Quickly on the racism thing, great, and didn't think otherwise of you. But prejudice is even more cancerous. And you concern at promoting racism as a focus/grant profit centre belies your seeming indifference to the societal structures, societal dogma that poor/hard working people are scroungers, and don't also want to be in a position to preserve their property rights, the fruits of their labour. As for destination, no we are not agreed. Those that have the comfort are in that they choose theirs. Those less comfortable, when not having their destination choose from them, little have the luxury. They don't get get to ponder Robert Frost's road not taken.
Hey Damien. I don’t think it’s fair that you ascribe ‘indifference’ to me. Or suggest I might consider those people even obliquely as ‘scroungers’. I have never said that. Because I do not believe that. And I take pains to disagree with anyone who says that the ‘working class’ are worthless. That to me is an extremely elite view. As far as the destination thing. Maybe we don’t agree. But ultimately I don’t think it necessarily follows that one man is poor only because another is rich. I think we will disagree on this. I want people from whatever background to have the opportunity to choose their own path in life, and not to be suffer the bigotry of low expectations for example.
The narrative shouts indifference and as admirable as advocating people choose their own path is, it does ignore/dismiss that some people don't have that choice, that opportunity. Prejudice, racism, bigotry, I've been the victim of them all. As someone, albeit 30 years ago, that was homeless, I've felt their very heavy boot - a boot perpetually ingrained on my brain. Nobody gave me a path, much of societies 'support' structures ' put fences in my way, whilst society cheered on making the 'lazy' pay. Yes I paid. And the price of feeling abandoned, vilified and marginalised, is a price I'll keep paying until I die. I never made a rich person poorer. Many rich people have impoverished my life.
I do think you missed my point on tax - because the salary is standard tax rate, the dividend is at 8%, so a 'tax' bill of £80,000, but with the dividend paid offshore to the ultimate 'owner' a Guernsey registered company, zero tax.
OK Damien. Not sure about the specifics here. But I dont understand 8% on dividends. That’s only on the basic rate. I have a small company and I pay over 30% I think. As I say, I can’t speak to Guernsey. It’s a different set of rules, just like I can’t really argue if it was registered in Ireland or Puerto Rico. Sorry if I missed it again…!
If your salary is basic tax, your dividends are at 8% if paid to you / via your UK company. If your pay the dividend to registered shareholders in a tax low/zero/friendly durisdiction, (yourself) it's zero. That's precisely my point, forgetting the ultimate company Guernsey registration, if you paid yourself on a £2million profit co, it wouldn't be unreasonable to pay yourself £300,000. Taxable at 40%. That's my point, it's not just multinationals, it's small businesses, it's cancerous.
Ok. My last tax point. A £1m dividend in the uk is taxed at 39%. Personally I think that, like all taxes, levied on rich and poor is waaaaaay too high. Ultimately if our government can’t do everything it wants to do by spending (ball park) 25-30% of gdp, it’s simply doing too much, and/or got all its priorities wrong. Our state is too big and the opportunity costs of that bigness is adversely affecting all of our lives. But no, I don’t think the cuts should start at ‘the bottom’ with social security/benefits as Sunak suggests. That’s simply playing to his base, and to me is just another, albeit different type, of divisive identity politics. I think I could cut the size of the state by 10% before even looking at social provision.
It is not correct that receiving a salary taxed at basic rate means your dividends are also automatically taxed at basic rate too. Once your combined income exceeds the basic rate band, the excess dividends will be taxed at 33.75%, then if you exceed the higher rate band the dividends above that will be taxed at 39.35%.
However, dividends paid by one limited company to another limited company are (usually) tax free for the recipient company, and that is very likely how the tax avoidance will have been structured in this particular case.
This arrangement should have been caught by the transfer of assets abroad legislation, which would tax the receipt of the dividend by the Guernsey company on the owner. This legislation has been around for over a century. If this was the recent tax case that the judge said escaped the law by using a corporate transferor, that was a failure of the system.
When you expect the mobile wealthy to pay an unfair amount of tax, which is then wasted on failed vanity projects, unnecessary PPE and bounce back loans to organised crime, tax avoidance is inevitable. In Russia one of the few sensible things Putin did was to reduce tax rates and simplify the system, which massively increased the tax take.
Every Labour policy is idiocy, from the self harming attack on private schools that will cost some children their education, and the Treasury far more than the paltry receipts, to the lunacy of Miliband's decarbonisation of the grid in just 6 years. You start to realise just what a torrid time we are likely to be in for.
Has government ever achieved any thing? Has anything ever gotten better? Any promises fulfilled? Waiting lists ever reduced? Immigration reduced? Tax burden ever reduced?
Hi LSO, good article again, though if anything you’re being far too optimistic, this is New Labour after all!
However, I do want to pick up on one thing, which is using the word apathy to describe the voters who are driven by what is on offer by our political system to not voting. Apathy implies not caring, passive acceptance of whatever the result is. I do not think this actually describes what is happening.
It suits the political elite to push this word to describe voters, as it implies their consent by default to the results of the election. I do not see this. It isn’t that people do not care what happens anymore, or that they cannot be bothered to go out and vote. Rather, they are actively *choosing* not to vote. What is on offer is so universally bad that there is no “least worst option”. None of the major parties in any way represents them.
Some argue in favour of voting for minor parties, but even if a representative minor party exists, our FPTP electoral system is deliberately designed to ensure that breaking through into the electable mainstream is virtually impossible without the collapse of the one incumbents to make room.
Furthermore, a key part of our democratic process is not just voting for the winner, but accepting and being bound by the result even if you lose - “loser’s consent”. You accept the choice on offer and agree to be bound by the will of the majority, whatever that turns out to be. I suggest that morally, participating in the process implies that you are accepting the choice on offer and giving that loser’s consent.
What I think is happening is something far more profound. In the absence of any meaningful choice, of any chance of being represented, we are seeing the rise of despair. In that instance, not voting is the only meaningful way to signal that you refuse to grant that losers consent; to accept the moral legitimacy of the outcome (whoever “wins”); that you want real, fundamental change in the entire political system and not just a tweaked set of identikit policies from the same tired set of parties. *Choosing* not to vote for any of the available parties is the only way we have left, within our democratic system, to say that we want a genuinely fresh choice.
I note that the article you link to with respect to voter apathy and disinterest does not actually use either of these words to describe how voters are feeling and acting- it uses the word despair, and calls for a genuinely new offer. Please don’t use the word apathy, it’s the word which will be used by our elites to legitimise themselves, and I think people, in not voting are now moving towards a position of withdrawing their consent in the validity of our broken and unrepresentative system.
A brilliant point well made. Thanks P. I will take this on board. I think sadly you are 100% correct.
Another point worth making is that many people just 'check out' of the system as a whole. They don't 'believe' in the civic state, which involves shared responsibilities and benefits, and will just get on with their own lives. Or as cynically, they will assume it won't make any difference, they're all the same, the system is rigged - so why bother?
Yes. I think that’s right. I see people dropping litter on London streets and think, you know you live here right? You’re just actively making your own environment worse. Sometimes I think it’s deliberate. Though not really in a conspiracy way. Maybe this is a tangent but it’s the same as the way kids aren’t taught about basic economics and definitely not stock buying etc at school. There’s a sense, (I felt it growing up and I think it’s even worse now), that ‘this stuff is not for the likes of you.’
A great synopsis on what life will be like under Labour. Great piece.
I personally think they are two sides of the same coin and that Starmer is being brought in to further a phase of an already determined agenda. A phase that will further normalise ‘trans’, more ‘mental illness’ and giving up more to ‘save the planet’.
I agree Julie. Though I don’t believe that there’s some puppet master. Just a machine or system at work which pushes in that direction. So many careers at this point are reliant on this stuff that it becomes self fulfilling, and grows like a disease. Thanks for you comment.
Hard to pick a favourite bit when it's all so brilliant, but my prize this week goes to:
"If underprivileged working class white boys were given half the help and attention afforded the ‘trans community’. Then Gateshead would have its own space programme by now."
Ha ha thanks Bettina. It’s funny cos it’s true……..
Thanks for the enjoyable read. It’s a very similar situation here in Australia, especially the southern state of Victoria where Labor has been in power for several terms. The state sanctioned theft from the productive to bribe the embittered and resentful is well advanced and in fact probably normalised now. People on the receiving end of this performative, do-nothing socialist bludgeoning are on their knees and many business owners looking to leave. A small light at the end of the tunnel is that they have pretty clearly now run out of other people’s money and are likely to be at the helm of a bankrupt state awaiting a shitstorm they cannot escape.
Hi Chicken Man, it’s so depressing that it always has to reach that point before anything changes. Bribing voters with other peoples cash seemed to work well as a strategy for staying in power-who knew?
You are right to be pessimistic. We are getting to the tipping point where the shirkers and takers outnumber the contributors, and Starmer wants to seal the deal by giving votes to children. London and Wales are classic examples of socialist run fiefdoms guaranteed a permanent majority by the worthless. Nobody profits from it, but envy combined with stupidity, or just childish innocence, will perpetuate it, until eventually the contributors have all gone, and the revolution starts.
Watching an ex-DPP, who must surely know that the war on drugs, people smuggling or other lucrative criminal enterprises can never be won, spout on about "smashing the criminal gangs" is risible. You can't ever win by arresting the crooks, because for every one you arrest, there are several waiting to take over, usually even worse than the last. You kill demand, by persuading Macron that 6 months of landing all these people back in France will utterly destroy the financial model, as well as clear the camps in Calais. As for net zero, the vast majority of our temperature measuring devices are so poor that they could be as much as 5 degrees Celsius out, so we have no idea of what temperatures are actually doing.
Agreed Jeremy. Except for your description of ‘the majority of the worthless.’ If I thought people were worthless I wouldn’t bother. We need to show people that have worth, agency and a future. At the moment we are simply writing them off. Good to hear from you.
We should start with schooling, teach all children from when they start school they should contribute to our way of life.
I think we might get some benefit from his DPP experience actually. I expect Sir Kier knows a bit more about how to put the wrong 'uns away than the shouty people across from him in the Commons.
Like Savile? The sub postmasters prosecuted by the DPP on his watch? The fact he thinks anyone can "smash the criminal gangs" shows he hasn't the first idea about organised crime. As a human rights lawyer, he is personally responsible for several criminals not being deported.
I expect that most people who spent five years as Director of Public Persecutions made many mistakes. With any luck, he would have learned from them. Smashing the gangs will take cooperation with the French — something that the current lot have not been terribly good at.
PS. I am sure you know that Starmer had little to do with the Saville case.
He should have taken more time on it then. He is forever boasting in the Commons about the thousands of rapists "he" prosecuted.
It doesn't matter how much cooperation the French give. You can't stop organised crime unless you destroy the demand for whatever it is that they are selling. How often do we hear of an undercover drug operation that lasts years, and barely disrupts the supply for a day? Every arrest of a people smuggler will see their replacement installed in less than a day.
"the thousands of rapists he prosecuted"........He was presumably not referring to the pakistani rapists in various British towns that he failed to prosecute????
Didn't he also prosecute on behalf of illegal immigrants to secure better benefits for them?
Genuine question: where is a good country to flee to, I'm struggling to identify suitable candidates.
Maybe Argentina?
Hungary is a great place to live
Yes, Budapest is lovely. And nearer than Buenos Aires
This is a good idea, but learning Hungarian looks tricky.
Yes, it is a very difficult language to learn, but Hungarians are very patient and encouraging and don't give you a hard time if they see you're making an effort. Also, many Hungarians speak English or German and are very accommodating. In Budapest especially, many foreigners barely speak Hungarian, as the city is so international, and they can get by in English. However, there are many language schools and opportunities to learn the language (in case you ever seriously consider Hungary!)
Greece
The moon! First dibs 👍
For some time now I have been under the impression that the Tories are determined to lose the election. If their objective had been to ensure that hardly anyone would vote for them then they could not have done a better job. Sunak's apparent ineptitude in making his election announcement in the pouring rain and his gaffes and his totally lacklustre performance since just reinforce my view. This leads me to ask why this is, bearing in mind that politicians usually value being in power above everything else. The only explanation I can come up with is that Sunak and many (maybe all) of the Tory MPs know that some major crisis is imminent and they want to be as far away from it as possible. To keep this short I will avoid any speculation on what that crisis might be and will just say that if I am right then the incoming Labour government might have so much on its hands in dealing with this crisis that everything else will be pushed into the background.
Hi Bill, it might seem like it, but I just genuinely think they ran out of road. And ideas. And a sense of what they stand for. Weirdly being in government I guess is like peacetime, you get used to all the good stuff, get flabby, lose your edge. Opposition is like being at war, you have to fight every day to get heard, I think it toughens you up, makes you hungry. I just think the Tories have utterly lost it, and they were useless to begin with in 2010. (This is not a demand for war!!)
I think Bill may have a point - the Tories had a short window in which to call the election while the economic news was ok. We assume it will get worse, maybe not a crash, but a slow slide of rising inflation and energy costs, higher borrowing costs, lower tax receipts etc.
Absolutely. And no one (especially Labour themselves) is going to blame Labour for an economic downturn in the next year or two. Expect to hear ‘it’s not our fault, it’s the terrible economy left to us by the Tories’ for the next couple of years’. And TBH they won’t be wrong.
Hi Bill, l think you maybe right about the Conservatives trying to lose, because we are in such a mess, whoever takes over will not be able to solve the mess. And it will get worse, then the Conservatives will shout “it’s not our fault”, you voted the other mob into power.
The problem with the NHS is: there is no rational limit to the amount of money you will spend on your health. By handing healthcare to the state, as well there being no rational limit, there is no practical limit to the amount of other people’s money you can vote to be spent on your health. It will break the country.
BTW, thanks LSO. I had some bad news at the weekend and this article is the first time I have laughed since.
Thanks Dan. Sorry to hear that. ( The bad news bit, not the laughed bit. )
So far, we've managed to keep NHS spending lower than almost every other country's so your prediction of no rational limit to the costs and it will break the country are hypothetical at best.
Since 1948 the NHS budget has grown, on average, 3.6% in real terms every year, without fail for 76 years. GDP has grown at 1.5% per year in the same period. In the last decade alone, the NHS has increased from 30% to 40% of total government spending. It is the single largest line item in the budget. 2010/11 to 2015/16 medicine costs alone jumped 50%. They then doubled in the next 5 years, ignoring COVID. Total spending was 12.4% of GDP in 2021; the growth is inexorable. Go and look at the ONS or Kings Fund websites, then try and maintain people are not, totally rationally, voting to spend other people’s money on their health, with no limit. Adam Smith observed there is a great deal of ruin in a nation, so it will not happen tomorrow but the fundamental misalignment of incentives in the NHS will be the ruin of the UK, unless we find a better model. It is a matter of time.
Welfare aggregates Pensions, Working Age Benefits and the other transfer payments government makes. The NHS is bigger than either Pensions or Benefits, if disaggregated, and on track to overtake them aggregated within a decade. If the triple lock goes, this will be sooner.
I'm not an expert on this by a long way — but my quick google says that Welfare is the biggest expenditure. I also found that every other country spends much more on health than us so maybe copying their systems might make our spending go up rather than down?
I'll agree that NHS spending could do with some tidying but I think the principle of government-run healthcare is sound — as long as the government in charge is inclined to make it work.
Not sure every other country spends ‘much’ more on health than us as % of GDP Ragged.I really looked into for the piece I did in the NHS and it seemed maybe 1-2% more. I got a lot of my figures from the Kings Fund that Dan mentions above..But not enough to justify the differences in outcome.
I just don’t think a government run healthcare system is the solution. It should lay out a landscape certainly, and make sure there is provision for everyone, but the government is notoriously terrible at running stuff. And it has not saved the NHS from corruption, mismanagement, rent seeking and some terrible results. I know sometimes it be amazing, but for the money we spend, and the esteem it (used to be) held in, it should be amazing every time.
Perhaps I was off with my numbers. I said other countries spend "much more". It's merely "more". Still, my point stands that there is no reason to believe that:
> "there is no practical limit to the amount of other people’s money you can vote to be spent on your health. It will break the country."
I mean sure: there is no written limit in our constitution. But there is also no reason to believe that those fears will be realised. They have not so far in 75 years of the NHS. I think it is simply mischief-making to suggest that they will.
Surely we can have a sensible discussion about the best way to run a healthcare system without making stuff up abut the current one.
It is human nature that people don't value what they don't directly pay for (hence missed appointments and time wasters in GP surgeries) and there is no incentive for many people to take responsibility for their own health if the consequences of not doing so are removed.
Apart from the basic psychology of a 'free' service, the NHS is simply too big to function properly - isn't it the largest employer in Europe? In nature, which left to itself creates harmonious balance, nothing gets oversized because if it did it would become chaotic and collapse. We are watching this law of nature play out with the NHS in slow-motion.
In other European countries there is a socialised insurance model and this seems to work much better - there are not millions on waiting lists in Switzerland or Germany. That is a special feature of our truly terrible system of healthcare.
The Tories are doing most of those things incrementally already. This is the boiling frog analogy again - with the electorate being the frog. If Labour whack the heat up to max, will the frog jump out ?
It doesn’t seem likely Dave.
These are excellent points, wittily made. Thank you for this.
Thanks for reading it Jason.
Reads like an S-level essay using the title "We're all doomed". Which is not to say I didn't agree with every word of it, just every good story needs a way out. We all need to face up to the fact that the majority of our elected politicians are actively evil: Cameron, Johnson, Osborne, Sunak et al - corrupt as hell; May; Grieve; Starmer and his crew the very embodiment of demonic gargoyles. They've all got to go: the Augean stables must be cleared out and a fresh start made
They do seem to be in retreat in Europe Andrew. But I worry about the rearguard action. We saw during Brexit that they don’t like not getting their way.
Been waiting for this. A tad gloomy being an understatement, I've been hoping 'something will turn up.' like an assassin, or an IED or my old mate, the Durham whistleblower.
I keep an eye on the comments pages. There was a swell of 'vote Reform' I assessed as around 25% in the centre right MSM but Farage and the lousy local election results put paid to that. It seems everyone expects a Labour win but knows nobody who thinks it a good idea. I have noticed a minor rebellion of 'f*** this, I'm voting Tory' from those realising a Starmer gov't will be far more sinister than the Corbyn offerings of 2017-19. The voter is confused and apathetic, there's nobody to vote for. Just now I'd vote for Galloway WYSIWYG. Perhaps a bit of Shariah Law would get the drugs and knives off the streets and end this Pride and gender nonsense. Take a trip to UAE or Saudi. Misbehave and it hurts. They're not communists.
Ha! And you’re saying my take is ‘a tad gloomy’!
Keeping Starmer out by any means defines sunlit uplands for me. I even considered voting Labour - on the grounds I never get the MP I want and thus condemn the candidate to ignominous defeat.
REALLY good writing LSO. Open question to everyone, would LSO get more exposure if this was on YouTube and read carefully, and slowly? Or does that mean he'd lose his/her (its?!) secret identity, and maybe job at Mildrew Marxist Council? He/she doesn't have to show his/her face, use an AI voice perhaps.
Hi LSO, another thought provoking, indifference puncturing post.
Some thoughts from my chair...
NHS - I'd struggle to think of anyone that thinks the NHS is delivering, but that's more emotive (as the care/wellbeing of one, a loved one, inevitably is), rather than actual. Spending below the European average per head, the 2nd lowest in the G7 isn't about being broke, poor value, it's abiut a lack of believe, priority. Having the highest adoption of cheaper generic drugs, and one of the lowest costs of administration's hardly shows an inefficient provision, whilst the higher mortality rates does show a lack of direction and investment. We need to acknowledge as a society, what the NHS DOES deliver so cheaply, and that spending money on the NHS in a long term structured way is not a cost, but an investment, that will save money AND lives.
As for Labour granting contracts for race, I find that no less pernicious than granting contracts for class/Oxbridge graduates/family members, which erstwhile seems societally acceptable.
And as for Labour "bribing the poor with the rich's cash"....well that'll make a refreshing change from the rich lording it large on the back of the profit, cash generating graft ensured by the hard working 'poor' living subsistence lives.
As for the money for all of Labours aspirations? Well, leaving the Amazon type corporates aside, when a businessman who owns 7 McDonald's franchisees in the Northwest declared a £2million profit, but pays himself only £18,000 salary but a £1million dividend, to his Guernsey company, it is quite obvious how wide spread tax avoidance is. How widespread the abuse of Government, I mean taxpayer funded infrastructure is. Just cracking down on the pervasiveness, the acceptability of such, would cover even the most irresponsible and excessive Labour funding requirements. But then that would mean stopping the redistribution of poor tax payers, to rich offshorers than avoid such. A proposal even more outrageous than Labour.
Hi Damien. Great to hear from you. A quick reply. Sorry if I don’t cover all your points!
I think we do spend a little less share of GDP on healthcare than France and Germany. 11.7% vs about 13% I think. But not enough to account for the massive difference in service and outcomes. Don’t forget, the US spends far more as share of GDP than any of us. More cash does not guarantee a better system. Personally I think the NHS is well past its sell by date. I’m not that ideologically opposed to it, my complaint is that it simply doesn’t work. I wrote a long piece about the NHS where I dug into the figures properly. It’s on my page if you’re interested.
Awarding contracts by race is not the same as awarding contracts to family and friends. It’s racist. You are doing a bad thing, so I’m going to do a bad thing, is not an argument that wins me over. Sorry. Also. I think a little nepotism is perfectly natural. Ask Stephen Kinnock. The Millibands. And a whole swathe of Labour grandees. Hilary Benn. -just the ones who immediately spring to mind. Oh. Sue Grays son. Now standing as Labour MP.
A one million pound dividend would generate a tax bill of over £300k. Dividends are definitely not tax free! If in Guernsey that isn’t the case then that’s different because different laws apply. Some people seem to want tax harmonisation across countries. A move which would destroy competitiveness and hand a huge advantage to the US ( which is why they are so keen on it). Ireland is not a poor country any longer. Because in part it managed to attract int business with its competitive tax rates. We should follow their example. Not run in the other direction. Poor vs rich? I’ll take rich please.
There’s a balance to be had here. I’m not sure that Labour as socialists really believe in property rights. That lack of belief is likely to make us all much poorer. Sorry that’s so short but I wanted to reply before I head out in the rain. Cheers LSO
Spot on. All leftist ideology is at root a belief that the human condition can be perfected. How many times does this experiment have to be run before every sane human being recognises it doesn’t work and has resulted in mass penury and many time in mass murder? Probably never, which ironically proves the conservative view that man is a fallen creature.
An ideology that runs on envy of others is a cancer of the intellect. People respond to incentives, it is perfectly natural to want to keep as much of the fruit of your labours as possible. The leftist mindset is incapable of recognising or understanding this simple fact of human nature.
I wonder what you think about Attlee and his leftist ideology and all those council houses and the NHS and the education system. Did they result in mass penury and mass murder?
Well I think 1948 was very different from 2024 Ragged. They had racial segregation, government censorship and National Service for a start….oh hang on. Maybe you’re right. 🤣
Very different. Agreed.
My point was to observe that we have previously had leftie governments that implemented a lot of leftie policies that did not result in mass penury and mass murder. I see no reason why the next leftie government will either. I think this is a fiction made up by dishonest journalists at disreputable newspapers.
I personally was a beneficiary of council houses and grammar schools and the NHS has been very kind to me in recent years. I think leftie policies often result in a better society. More often than they result in mass penury and mass murder, anyway.
Come to think of it, Harold Wilson gave us the Open University too., And I have just submitted the final assignment for this year. Wish me luck!
Thanks Harold! Thanks Clement!
I’ve always had a soft spot for Harold. Yes, council houses, grammar schools and the original vision for the NHS all good. I definitely think losing grammar schools has been a calamity. I genuinely can’t see the merit in it.
Council houses are shit. I know I’ve lived in a few. The NHS is a failed monolithic state bureaucracy that delivers sub optimal outcomes. Granted it delivers equality of outcome, which is the goal of socialists. It’s just incompatible with human freedom, so it just results in misery.
As for mass murder and penury, we have at least been spared the more blood and fire brands of collectivist movements that afflicted the continent. The last Labourite government just exported them abroad instead..
Name me a country under a socialist system that works? Where its people aren’t desperate to risk their lives escaping? I’ll wait.
You are trying to suggest that Starmer's government will be socialist just like Venezuela but
1) Starmer is not socialist.
2) The next labour government will not be socialist
3) Attlee was socialist but the people of the UK were not desperate to risk their lives to escape at the time.
I don't understand why you think it's a useful argument. What does it have to do with anything?
Starmer is a socialist. A one time member of the Trotskyist Pabloite sect. They are all socialists Red in tooth and claw.
Municipal dreams. Yes, it’s always a dream until reality intrudes as it always does.
Why would anyone want to be beholden to the state rather than having control of their own destiny? The dream (nightmare) of cradle to grave welfare’s m is just a fear of responsibility and taking control of one’s own life. Come back to nanny, all will be made good.
While I’m sure the NHS aims to provide quality healthcare to all, aims and mission system et Mrs issued by six figure salary state bureaucrats mean little without the end result.
The elephant in the room of course is our current level of uncontrolled mass immigration of fighting age ‘Asian’ males and nothing age women. What jobs are they going to do? Where are they going to live? How will they assimilate into what’s left of our culture? (They won’t). We have a choice - we can either have a welfare state, or we can have mass immigration. We can’t have both.
They resulted in his ejection in 1951.
That's good though, right? Our democracy at work. And the next lot continued with his reforms because they were good reforms.
No mass penury or mass murder either.
They weren't that good were they? By the 70s the UK was a disaster zone. The council houses thing got rolled back by Thatcher. The education system is something people DO flee when they can afford to. The NHS is falling apart and has been for years, nobody else thought it was a good idea and its performance since has demonstrated they were right.
The legacy of Attlee is that his ideas have all led to ruin and despair, and will eventually be rolled back but not before the UK is a poor country of no greater significance than any other of the many small poor countries around the world.
I am envious of noone. But one can only respond to incentives, keep as much of the fruit of their labours, when they are incentives and receiving fruits, not expected to be grateful for others fruit's offcasts gone off. Too many have no fruit whilst others ignorantly discard, spoil theirs. I'd love grapes, but I'm lucky to get prunes (as nutritious as they are!)
Hi LSO,
I'm not sure what you are trying to suggest...the US spends more you say but you are not sure it ensured better healthcare? Seems a bit contradictory that argument, not least that those that can access such, see.ingly receive world class healthcare. But unlike here too many can't. My point is WE DO get value for money, but yes, we MUST accept we have to pay for it. If we spent the per head of the US what could we do? The NHS is only past it's sell by date because those fortunate enough not to need it, see it as an expensive tax on their wellbeing. Those that need it, bemoan it yes, but exalt it for being pretty much the only thing that poverty doesn't exclude them from.
Awarding contracts by race is racist you suggest. But awarding them by class/education/family/friendship is okay? Not prejudice. It is. In that I agree two wrongs don't make a right...
The Ireland point....well I noticed butter, and orange juice (?) , product of Ireland ever more present in the UK. The competitiveness, positive tax environment you celebrate, is the same environment that makes low margin businesses (dairy for one), in the UK uncompetitive, because a 5% margin is lost when someone has a 15% tax but not necessarily efficiency advantage. That road is merely the exporting jobs, and their taxation and their companies taxation.
As for property rights, well I'm all for preserving such. I think the 170,000 households in temporary housing in London would feel the same, if they had such.
I don't really think that Conservatives as capitalists really believe in housing. Believe in supporting and protecting those that have them, can afford them. Chastise as scroungers those that don't have them or can't afford them.
As ever, much respect LSO, for.making me rethink what I think, think anew and think afresh.
Lots of very specific points there Damien. And I don’t want to get too bogged down in the detail. But I’ll just say. I dont think the NHS represents value for money. £182bn and 7.5 m on the waiting list. Not a great return. I understand it is well
Loved as an institution but nothing is being done to improve it, except spending more money. Which clearly isn’t working.
I think businesses and families always favour their own networks. That’s just human nature. The role of government I guess is to stop that turning into cartels and mafiosa. But trying to stamp out nepotism is pointless. Making sure that people at the bottom have more opportunity and are not shut out of good schools good jobs because of race/class. Well there I can wholeheartedly agree. But awarding jobs etc on the basis of race, whatever race, is to me simple racism. And I’m against racism, even the supposedly ’nice’ kind.
I’m going to park the tax thing if you don’t mind. I’m just saying that I believe in competition, because I believe that it drives down costs for the consumer as it drives up quality.
I don’t think this Conservative government is really ‘capitalist’. It’s crony capitalist at best. And I think you and I would genuinely agree on a lot of the problems and unfairness that brings.
I’d suggest that we’d both want a much better deal for working people, and especially young people starting out. The Conservatives certainly aren’t offering one, but I’d suggest the left/Labour are likely just to make things worse. Because that’s what seems to have happened in Scotland and in Wales.
As ever, I think most decent people agree broadly on the destination, it’s just a matter of the best way, if there is a way, of getting there. I’m more Adam Smith than John Smith I think.🤔
I agree with you on the racism. I do think there is a lot more we could do on the nepotism thing though. Maybe also the thing where an Egyptian gives the Tories £10m and they give him a seat in the House of Lords.
I think Labour deserve a chance. They can't be worse than the criminals in there at the moment.
100% agree about the HOL thing and buying favours.
I guess we’ll find out Ragged. Please be correct!
Quickly on the racism thing, great, and didn't think otherwise of you. But prejudice is even more cancerous. And you concern at promoting racism as a focus/grant profit centre belies your seeming indifference to the societal structures, societal dogma that poor/hard working people are scroungers, and don't also want to be in a position to preserve their property rights, the fruits of their labour. As for destination, no we are not agreed. Those that have the comfort are in that they choose theirs. Those less comfortable, when not having their destination choose from them, little have the luxury. They don't get get to ponder Robert Frost's road not taken.
Hey Damien. I don’t think it’s fair that you ascribe ‘indifference’ to me. Or suggest I might consider those people even obliquely as ‘scroungers’. I have never said that. Because I do not believe that. And I take pains to disagree with anyone who says that the ‘working class’ are worthless. That to me is an extremely elite view. As far as the destination thing. Maybe we don’t agree. But ultimately I don’t think it necessarily follows that one man is poor only because another is rich. I think we will disagree on this. I want people from whatever background to have the opportunity to choose their own path in life, and not to be suffer the bigotry of low expectations for example.
The narrative shouts indifference and as admirable as advocating people choose their own path is, it does ignore/dismiss that some people don't have that choice, that opportunity. Prejudice, racism, bigotry, I've been the victim of them all. As someone, albeit 30 years ago, that was homeless, I've felt their very heavy boot - a boot perpetually ingrained on my brain. Nobody gave me a path, much of societies 'support' structures ' put fences in my way, whilst society cheered on making the 'lazy' pay. Yes I paid. And the price of feeling abandoned, vilified and marginalised, is a price I'll keep paying until I die. I never made a rich person poorer. Many rich people have impoverished my life.
Hi LSO, I took an worming in the rain, but thank you, as ever, for your decency in disagreement. I took will respond when whether/time/work permits.
I do think you missed my point on tax - because the salary is standard tax rate, the dividend is at 8%, so a 'tax' bill of £80,000, but with the dividend paid offshore to the ultimate 'owner' a Guernsey registered company, zero tax.
OK Damien. Not sure about the specifics here. But I dont understand 8% on dividends. That’s only on the basic rate. I have a small company and I pay over 30% I think. As I say, I can’t speak to Guernsey. It’s a different set of rules, just like I can’t really argue if it was registered in Ireland or Puerto Rico. Sorry if I missed it again…!
If your salary is basic tax, your dividends are at 8% if paid to you / via your UK company. If your pay the dividend to registered shareholders in a tax low/zero/friendly durisdiction, (yourself) it's zero. That's precisely my point, forgetting the ultimate company Guernsey registration, if you paid yourself on a £2million profit co, it wouldn't be unreasonable to pay yourself £300,000. Taxable at 40%. That's my point, it's not just multinationals, it's small businesses, it's cancerous.
Ok. My last tax point. A £1m dividend in the uk is taxed at 39%. Personally I think that, like all taxes, levied on rich and poor is waaaaaay too high. Ultimately if our government can’t do everything it wants to do by spending (ball park) 25-30% of gdp, it’s simply doing too much, and/or got all its priorities wrong. Our state is too big and the opportunity costs of that bigness is adversely affecting all of our lives. But no, I don’t think the cuts should start at ‘the bottom’ with social security/benefits as Sunak suggests. That’s simply playing to his base, and to me is just another, albeit different type, of divisive identity politics. I think I could cut the size of the state by 10% before even looking at social provision.
It is not correct that receiving a salary taxed at basic rate means your dividends are also automatically taxed at basic rate too. Once your combined income exceeds the basic rate band, the excess dividends will be taxed at 33.75%, then if you exceed the higher rate band the dividends above that will be taxed at 39.35%.
However, dividends paid by one limited company to another limited company are (usually) tax free for the recipient company, and that is very likely how the tax avoidance will have been structured in this particular case.
Thanks so much for the clarification Nick. Very helpful.
Well pay yourself less than £50 grand, and then pay the 'lost' wage as a dividend. Simples.
This arrangement should have been caught by the transfer of assets abroad legislation, which would tax the receipt of the dividend by the Guernsey company on the owner. This legislation has been around for over a century. If this was the recent tax case that the judge said escaped the law by using a corporate transferor, that was a failure of the system.
When you expect the mobile wealthy to pay an unfair amount of tax, which is then wasted on failed vanity projects, unnecessary PPE and bounce back loans to organised crime, tax avoidance is inevitable. In Russia one of the few sensible things Putin did was to reduce tax rates and simplify the system, which massively increased the tax take.
Every Labour policy is idiocy, from the self harming attack on private schools that will cost some children their education, and the Treasury far more than the paltry receipts, to the lunacy of Miliband's decarbonisation of the grid in just 6 years. You start to realise just what a torrid time we are likely to be in for.
I'd rather take a chance on your phropocised idiocy, rather than perpetuate the current lunacy.
You may be cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Has government ever achieved any thing? Has anything ever gotten better? Any promises fulfilled? Waiting lists ever reduced? Immigration reduced? Tax burden ever reduced?
Why do things only ever get worse?
Excellent read. However not voting for the only option to prevent this all from happening is a surrender. Cutting off noses comes to mind
Yep. Still not doing it Rick!!