UK Politics Thread

Yea really weird. £150,000 p/y and is concerned about energy prices. Some people really are living in a weird universe.

If energy prices become an issue for her at any point she will just be able to burn poor people as they will be dropping dead everywhere.

Riiiiight.

🙄

Good to see we're still demonising people on benefits in 2024.

I think the thing these stories tell you is that there is something fundamentally broken with the economy (I would say our economy, but really it seems to be the case amongst most of the world). I'm more likely to believe that the disabled woman on benefits is struggling than the woman in tech earning £150,000 a year, but when you break down the numbers that we have to hand, neither should be struggling.

Taking the lady on benefits, she has £2,700ish a month. £1,200 is going on her rent, so she has £1,500 left for other bills, food and savings. It certainly isn't a huge amount, but you would think someone should be able to live alright on that.

For the lady in tech, the expenses we are told she has leave her with about £3200 per month (assuming I can believe the take home calculator that said she would be taking home £7600). With 2 kids, her bills, clothing and food costs are going to be quite a bit higher than the lady on benefits, so their lives aren't likely to be massively that different.

Not to say we should feel sorry for the poor lady on £150000, nor that we should hate on the lazy disabled woman, but shows there is something broken at the moment that these two people could even contemplate having similar worries.

Yeah they aren't really worries, they are first world problems.

I was reading that the UK's consumer debt is one of world's highest at around 90% of GDP. Within Europe the Scandinavian countries actually rank the highest due in part to their excessive house prices. While in Germany is one of the lowest due to a history of home ownership, but also a cultural preference of saving and owning rather than financing.

There's something economically and culturally wrong with the UK. A desire for the very best of services, while tax increases or even talk of them is a form of "Gotcha" by even the BBC.

Problem from that being benefits are still seen as a "handout" taken from "Your pocket" rather than viewed as a need to improve the quality of life of someone, for the good of society. I attribute this to the tories being in power for so long, combined with pensioners rose tinted view of an era gone by.

That and capitalism has reached a point where society accepts that mortgages with payments over 50% of a persons a salary is the norm, along with financing everything from your car, TV, phone to weekly groceries.

The fact remains they also don't get given a fair bit of that money, housing benefit is paid directly to the mortgage lender/landlord/council and benefits are still means tested so it's not as if that's just regular income. I swear some people forget that it really doesn't take much to go from doing really well to struggling when life takes a sharp turn.

The article says 'the father is also helping with costs.' She's earning more than my wife and I combined, and we're also paying two lots of nursery fees and a mortgage. My heart does not bleed for her.

I know this is turning into a Yasmin pile-on: but there’s so much to unpick.

I detect the evil hands of the Mail and Torygraph at work…
Yasmin, why the fuck are you worried about Capital Gains Tax?!!!

You haven’t become a partner in the business yet, so it doesn’t matter. Presumably you’re going to be a partner in the firm for a decent length of time, let’s say 20 years, that’s 4 or 5 governments (or 149 Liz Trusses).

Why are you worrying about one of the lowest taxes, that only 4% of people pay and that won’t actually matter for 20 years?

That she earns about double our household income takes the edge off my sympathy a little but childcare is a complete ball ache I’ll give her that. Even up here where cost of living isn’t that extravagant there was a point where my wage paid the nursery fees (five days, full time, term-time only) and my wife paid all our other bills including mortgage.

I’ve lost track in general but it does feel like everything is a) more expensive b) worse than it used to be and c) every waking moment is monetised now.

My Mum's partner finally got diagnosed with dementia and got put in a care home, a new one that's advertised as the lowest priced one in the area. It's apparently okay but nothing special, it's £1250 a week. Someone is making a lot of bank out of old people but it's not the staff.

Follow the money. Always

It all depends on how the questions are posed.

It's common in polling that if you do this.
Do you want to pay higher taxes?
So you want better public services?

You'll pretty unanimously get no, yes.

If you go pick one:
A: Higher taxes to fund better services
B: Same taxes and same services.

Most people go for A, when it's set out starkly.

Basically all budget coverage is framed in terms of taxes and your wallet. The journalists will have framed it that way. None of the people involved will have linked their thoughts together.