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Comments by "" (@lonevoice) on "PoliticsJOE" channel.

UK is fifth richest country in the world yet the UK's poorest 20% are poorer than the poorest 20% in Poland. That tells us something about the inefficient wealth distribution that currently plagues the UK. The tax focus needs to be on wealth and not income.
343
The Tory objective has always been for a privatised NHS. In order to get there they have to degrade the service to such an extent that the public view it as not fit for purpose. They could have resolved this before the GE but clearly they still hope that they will still get a chance to take it down.
36
When is the CPS going to start convicting people responsible for the most awful events in the UK? They are quite justifiably happy to convict rioters recently but I still don't understand why they seem to be reluctant to convict people with responsibility who appear to have been responsible for some of the most awful events. Grenfell is a case in point but there have been others. The UK and US were epicentres of the global financial crash. The US jailed one junior banker but Iceland convicted 25, Spain 10 but the UK convicted zero bankers. Why was that? I could ask the same about dark money flooding into the country and the corruption relating to it. Shouldn't there have been convictions over covid and the unnecessary deaths and fraud relating to it? I could go on. There are many others but we deserve better.
30
The NHS certainly needs to become more productive but that will require investment. At present we do not spend anywhere near enough on the NHS. France and Germany have well over twice the bed capacity per person than the UK and their spend on healthcare per person is much higher than the UK. The US is more than double that of the UK.
27
@edwardbrady5843 Quite right! 5th in 2022 but now pushed into 6th place by India. France will be next to overtake the UK.
26
I agree with you. I am 71 years old and am very disappointedly how self centred the avid Daily Mail reading older generation is and how politically disengaged the younger generation is, although with more channels like this, it might change. Property is certainly a problem. Through the 1940s up until the late 1970s house building in the UK was over 300k each year. Now it regularly struggles to reach half that figure. Currently net migration into the UK is about 500k and the government is keen to increase this. Johnson when PM has already invited nearly 3 million to come to the UK from Hong Kong. Take medics as an example of the problem faced. We could increase the number of places in medical school but when Jeremy Hunt was Health Secretary he said that training a new doctor cost £200k and it was cheaper to bring them in from abroad. The result is that training is minimised and the excess was brought in from abroad. Personally I do not believe the government's assertion. Bringing in a qualified doctor from abroad probably results in a wife and possibly children coming in as well. That requires another house, schooling, extra medical services etc etc. More recently the Head of the NHS said that they were going to open up more spaces in Medical School but this was squashed by the Treasury as they said it cost £150k per student. How the cost went down by £50k in just a few years I don't know! This is a problem across all professions with bare minimum graduate training places being available and agencies existing to bring in the extra needed by business and industry from abroad. There is certainly a failure by government to build enough houses to meet their immigration wants. In my view, and until they get their act together and resolve this, all property letting, apart from temporary and holiday lets, should be regulated and be on social housing terms. This would probably result in a massive sell off by buy-to-let landlords and help to bring down house prices. If that happened then houses may once again become a home for families rather than an investment opportunity.
24
I got irritated by Sunak's misleading language that many people won't pick up on. He said "since 2010 the UK has experienced the third highest growth in the G7 and this year the fastest growth". Many people will interpret this as him saying that over the whole period 2010 to 2022 the UK's growth has been the third highest in the G7, but that is not what he is saying. He said that since 2010 the UK has experienced high growth at some point. He didn't clarify when or how brief that point was.
16
Great speech by Reeves but still a pity that Labour is scared to mention the only sensible solution which is the recommendations of the Wealth Tax Commission.
13
@Nickle314 Since covid it has been reported that there has been a 20% increase in the number of billionaires in the UK. The problem with the affluent is that they already spend as much as they want to and are regularly left with a surplus which they invest in assets such as shares and property etc. If they then get more then the extra goes straight into asset prices rather than the real economy of jobs, business etc.
11
There is no CGT on primary residence. The problem with the wealthy is that they are unable to spend enough. They always have a surplus of personal income over personal expenditure which they then invest. They invest by buying assets such as shares, property etc but with the UK's growing wealth inequality, there is a growing competitive demand for assets which is pushing up prices. However, not only is it pushing up asset prices but there is an increasing flow of money out of the active economy of business, jobs, services etc into asset purchases. This is economically damaging and will continue to get worse until it is tackled.
9
It really highlights how delusional and insane we have become as a society.
9
Morgan only says that he personally didn't hack a phone or ask anyone else to hack a phone. What is missing is notable, i.e. he didn't deny that he knew that phone hacking was going on.
8
Don't the Chinese have ships going through the Red Sea? If so why aren't they involved in stopping the Houthis?
8
The recommendations of the Wealth Tax Commission was the sensible choice but there is little sense being utilised in these insane times.
6
I agree. In my opinion this guy shouldn't be allowed anywhere near politics and shouldn't be given any media attention. He really shows just what a sick sick society we live in today. He spouts crap, provides no basis or evidence for his vitriol and his story about McDonalds is so unlikely its laughable.
6
@freko106 The LSE issued a report by the Wealth Tax Commission which showed that a one-off 1% tax of couple’s net assets over £1 million could raise £260bn spread over 5 years. That wouldn’t even be noticed as they tend to earn far more than that on their assets.
6
It was good to watch this. This type of debate has been seriously missing for quite some time. Kier Starmer did a good job in his first PMQs and hopefully it may even help to cut down on the amount of misleading crap that we are regularly fed.
6
@cosmosnomad That's correct. The rate of tax that the wealthy pay is generally far below that of others. That's because they can manipulate how they are paid, i.e. by switching income to capital gains etc. We saw this with Rishi Sunak when he disclosed his Tax Return details. His rate of tax was around 22% on total income of £2.2m and that is not untypical. Reeves only made a feeble attempt to align CGT rates with income tax. She increased the lower rate of CGT from10% to 18%, i.e, just 2% below the basic rate of tax. For high earners she increased the CGT rate from 20% to 24%, i.e. 21% and well below the top rate of income tax. She didn't explain why the discrepancy.
5
I often wonder about the motivations that drives people into politics and influence. Are they really setting out to abuse and become corrupt or does that happen on their journey? It is certainly great to see Sanders remaining uncorrupted and very vocal about many of these issues. PoliticsJoe demonstrates what political journalism can be. It is at a level well above that that we have to put up with on mainstream media.
5
Farming is not a very profitable business and many farmers struggle. The value of land does not come from the activity of farming but from its use as an IHT tax shelter. It is the ultra rich who are driving this campaign with masses of misinformation. If they took their money and went away then land prices would drop and tenant farmers might then be able to buy the land that they use. One of the farmers on this video quoted an investment in farm equipment of £1 million. That gives the impression that it is part of what will be taxed under IHT but realistically, what farmer is likely to have £1 million spare to buy such equipment? The answer is none, or at least very few. Reality is that such equipment will be financed by bank loans. As such the net value for IHT will be £0.
5
Rayner needs to comment on these lies as they happen no at the end. It's pointless asking Johnson to retract his statements, but what she could have done is to restate that this fact exists and where and emphasise just how clueless Johnson is in getting it so wrong, yet again.
5
We need far more social housing. Thatcher's give-away must have wasted over £100bn at today's prices and we clearly need to recover most if not all of that stock. We probably need to make all property letting, apart from holiday and temporary lets, done on social housing terms. That may then see a flood of sales at reduced prices and government could use the opportunities afforded by modern monetary theory to snap them up at reduced prices.
5
@bigmol1633 or why Rayner (or Blackford) didn't challenge him on the winter warm payment discount being £140 per week, which Johnson repeated twice, so it wasn't a slip of the tongue, or us having the fastest growth in the G7. These are all immediately obvious ones and are opportunities to highlight Johnson's general incompetence and cluelessness.
4
@NetZeroNo UBI will become essential as increasing numbers are replaced by automation. The question is whether it happens before we descend into chaos or after. At present it is the poorly educated who are affected but once it starts to take its toll on the middle classes resistance will probably increase. The wealthy can only maintain their status quo by controlling the media but they are already starting to lose their grip.
3
Unbelievable! Why on earth does Amazon recruit senior people who don't appear to have a clue about what's going on?
2
The younger generation do not help themselves. For example, they accept being screwed with massive tertiary education loans but make no attempt to turn that around and say why aren't we creating healthcare loans for the elderly (say over 60) on a similar basis, i.e. a loan which is repayable upon death or is written off at that stage? Let's face it, NHS treatment costs massively increase with the age of the patient.
2
@Nickle314 The comparison was income wealth by GDP not asset wealth per capita.
2
@d1.004 I just want to see sensible government acting in the best interests of the public at large. This would be helped if we could get rid of leaders and have them replaced by a democratically elected collective, probably each independently elected by PR.
2
Quite agree. If people are so selfish that they see themselves in isolation from the community and want to turn their back on the UK then they should go and take any political rhetoric that they may have with them.
2
@dragonfly6908 They need to be better organised so that some checking can go on while Johnson is speaking and Rayner or Blackford can be informed of any lies. There is no excuse for one about the UK's highest growth in G7 though. Johnson has used this one multiple times, although sometimes he refers to the G7 and sometimes Europe.
2
@dragonfly6908 Generally I accept that but in the case of Johnson there is just too much evidence to suggest otherwise.
2
Agreed. It's probably about time that we started to identify who owns the assets in this country. If we ca'n't identify them properly or find that they are resident in a tax haven then we should tax the assets.
2
How is the capital expenditure expensing for corporation tax amounting to a supposed £11bn tax cut a genuine tax cut? It is a timing difference isn't it and the tax deduction is merely brought forward.
2
@tisFrancesfault 100pc of annual income? How is that? Most farmers struggle to earn a decent living and based on farming profits, agricultural land has little value and no IHT should arise. The only reason that agricultural land has value is that is a tax shelter against IHT for the wealthy. If the wealthy can be discouraged from owing land then tenant farmers might be able to buy the land that they use and other farmers might be able to acquire more land and expand their operation.
2
@aliwhitwell Really? Is that meant to be joke? I remember those times well. Interest rates were high but I made more money from house price inflation than I did from my job. Added to this we used to get MIRAS tax relief on mortgage interest. The ceased in 1983.
2
It's probably about time that we started to identify who owns the assets in this country. If we ca'n't identify them properly or find that they are resident in a tax haven then we should tax the assets.
2
There is far too much leakage from the real economy. Obscene pay for UK CEOs is one small example, a growing wealth inequality with its drain on the active economy into asset prices is another, the creaming off of income right across the economy to US corporates for monopoly platforms of all kinds is a large and rapidly growing one etc etc.
1
@WeRemainFaceless Wasn't that different? Wasn't he merely demonstrating a knowledge many years later of how it could be done?
1
@WeRemainFaceless When was that? I have only heard him say that he didn't phone hack himself or instruct others to do so.
1
If Badenock really wanted to do the right thing, she would stand down. Jenrick would do the same.
1
@irisaviation852 Sometimes a capital gain is taxed as income but that is usually as an anti avoidance measure. The most common one is on a person's home. This is usually exempt in whole or part from capital gains tax under the principal private residence exemption but that ceases to apply in certain circumstances. Most notably where a person's house is developed with the intention of making a gain. In that situation the development activity is treated as a trade and is subject to income tax. There are similar anti avoidance measures.
1
So having three precarious jobs and rent that can't be afforded is something that people suffering with depression should aspire to. Really? Then of course, with the NHS cut backs, we have those who are still waiting for a vital operation. Perhaps Rishi should provide free zimmer frames for some of these.
1
@sirmeowthelibrarycat I think you are referring to the EU Anti Tax Avoidance Directive which really related to corporation tax, but was one of the main driving forces behind Brexit.
1
I would say that power rests with the rich owners of the media misinformation networks that PMs run scared from.
1
What will Farage give us next? His influence has already given us the disaster of Brexit. What nightmare next?
1
Its all part of the progression of Neo Liberalism right across the Western World and they are winning. Their power and influence dominates with their snake oil messaging in the press and media generally. We need more articulation of the kind in this video but it needs to be applied where it counts and that's the problem. The powerful have already got that blocked off.
1
This Select Committee isn't fit for purpose. It needs a complete clear out.
1
@NetZeroNo over the past couple of centuries the West has benefited enormously from international trade and business continues to benefit. There are problems brewing however as business is finding cheaper labour and more profit by increasing the amout produced abroad, particularly in the far east. Over the past decade or so 2.4 million in the US lost their job. They are very angry and gave rise to Trump, more protectionism, make America Great Again, and far right politics. Much the same is happening here and across Europe. Politicians are not however blaming business and the super wealthy, they are blaming foreigners and its getting worse. The solution is to tax the wealthy and support the rest of the population with some form of UBI.
1
@waulie_palnuts Interesting. This has been reported multiple times recently. I will have to check it out. The FT is usually a good source for getting facts straight.
1
@thecrimsondragon9744 I think that most people would accept that wealth inequality is increasing. I don't hear anyone asking whether that trend will continue and what are the consequences if it does. Then if it does need to be tackled, how should we deal with it etc etc.
1
@nunyabidness3075 I think that you may have misinterpreted my use of the word "inefficient". If too much money is being sucked out of the real economy of jobs, and business etc, i.e. the engine room of the economy, then that in my view is inefficient. The problem with the affluent is that they are already spending more or less all that they want to and regularly have an excess which they invest into assets such as property, shares etc. If the affluent are then given a greater share of the country's wealth then that will increase asset prices as the affluent are left with even more money to invest. So the extra wealth finds its way into asset prices rather than the real economy. This has a dampening effect on the real economy which is why I say this inequality is inefficient. We are seeing increasing asset prices, wealth inequality and real hardship in certain sectors of society and that is likely to continue. The affluent will have ownership of automation and with its continual development including robotics, more and more physical jobs will be replaced by machine. We are already seeing this on a regular basis everywhere. The solution is not to discourage wealth creation and capitalism but to recycle some of the wealth that is created through taxation and back into society and the real economy probably through something like UBI. The Wealth Tax Commission (https://www.ukwealth.tax) estimated that a one-off 1% wealth tax charge on a couple's net assets over one million could bring in £260 billion spread over 5 years. The affluent are often capable of achieving better rates of return on their investments than most people, consequently a 1% charge may hardly even be noticed by them.
1
@SmileyEmoji42 I wasn't referring to GDP I was referring to the damaging effect of wealth inequality in the UK. An interesting new book by Paul Collier has just been released on this subject called "The Left Behind" which is discussed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f51urcvWmsM.
1
@SmileyEmoji42 Yes. Life then was very unequal and dire. Average life expectancy was about 40 years.
1
The public continue to be squeezed by the wealthy through their control of the media and government influence. We've had austerity, we've had Brexit, now it's the dismantling of the NHS. The tax burden is at a 40 year high but who is paying that tax? It isn't the wealthy. Osborne slashed corporation and took 5% off the top rate of income tax. The UK tax burden is around 37% of GDP but this is still lower than Germany at 42% and France at 47%, but of course the US is much lower at 25%. This is where the wealthy now have their sights and that requires the privatisation of the NHS.
1
Ask an average male to fight for his country and risk his life and he will. Ask a rich man to give up even a small amount of his wealth for his country and he will scream blue murder. Fortunately for him, the wealthy have control over the media misinformation network so any suggestion along those lines is quickly suppressed.
1
Not a great start by Reeves and doesn't bode well for the future. In a recent interview she was asked if she would create money as the US had done for investment. Her reply was that unlike the US, UK Sterling was not a Reserve Currency and so couldn't. Strangely, the IMF regards Sterling as one of 8 world reserve currencies.
1
abhi739 I think that is income tax. It is an incredible statement of the sheer size and extent of the skewed income distribution within the UK particularly when you bear in mind that the top rate of income tax is only 45%, and as we know a lot of these people don't pay anywhere near that rate. Sunak for example had a tax rate of around 22% on his vast income. The problem with the extremely high earners and owners of wealth is that they are unable to spend enough. They are always able to spend as much as they can possibly want and will always are left with a surplus each year. Thos surpluses, rather than being spent in our economy, get invested into the purchase of assets such as shares and property. The consequence of this is that asset prices increase which is detrimental to the rest of society but it is also a drain on the working economy of business, jobs and services as an ever increasing amount gets channeled out from the economy into asset prices. It is a growing problem.
1
@lampshadesneeded They still think it is enough of a problem to have their navy escort their cargo ships through the Red Sea.
1
Presumably he got this money as a result of the Brexit damage that he created. He needs to pay this, as a part payment, into government to compensate for his damage, but we need many billions more so he needs to get out there and bring much more money in.
1
Also, Hunt spoke about the halving of inflation target having been met according to the CPI index, yet on Channel 4 he denied that the target was based CPI but on core inflation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbUZFssO-ZE&t=231s. Doesn't anyone want to pick up on and comment on these discrepancies? What's going on?
1
On the subject of critical thinking: Why do students have loans but the over 60s don't have healthcare loans? I have yet to see this properly articulated. A huge amount of NHS come from the over 60s and will increase as treatments become more sophisticated and they live longer. If they paid for their own healthcare through a loan, it could be settled from their estate upon death or be written off at that stage.
1
@piccalillipit9211 I haven't heard Labour discuss this.
1
@Nickle314 My question was about healthcare rather than state pensions. Admittedly a small amount of NI contributions are supposedly specifically attributable to healthcare but that is minimal.
1
@Nickle314 Wrong. Just do a Google search. I have just done a few. The typical result is "National Insurance contributions are a tax on earnings and self-employed profits paid by employees, employers and the self-employed. They can help to build your entitlement to certain benefits depending whether you are employed or self-employed, such as the State Pension and Maternity Allowance." Where is healthcare mentioned? Just think about it. Why do students have to have student loans? They never used to. My understanding is that government were concerned about the escalating costs of tertiary education and the amount of public expenditure on that area. Roll on a few decades and we now have a similar position with healthcare. It is nothing about screwing people.
1
@Nickle314 You tell me.
1
@PeterPete NI contributions are to pay for state benefits and pensions, not healthcare. Having said that, a very minimal part has been used to fund healthcare particularly recently, but it barely scapes the surface of the massive public expenditure on healthcare.
1
@PeterPete They might have all sorts of weird and wonderful notions like this which are nothing to do with the realities of healthcare funding. They have probably even paid their TV licence, but so what? Tertiary education was also free but isn't now. None of this gets at the question about why one is free but the other isn't.
1
@PeterPete Where do you get this idea that NI contributions pay for healthcare? NI contributions don't even cover state pension and benefit costs.
1
I agree. We need to tax wealth and perhaps reduce the tax on income. At present we have an economy that is slowly seizing up as its life blood lubrication is draining away into the asset pots of the wealthy. The Wealth Tax Commission advocated a wealth tax in 2020 (https://www.wealthandpolicy.com/wp/WealthTaxFinalReport.pdf) but the wealthy, through their media misinformation network, do a fantastic job in suppressing or ridiculing any ideas of this type.
1
Good book, worth reading. With its massive control in Parliament Labour has had the opportunity to be transformative but the neoliberal influences on them have made them timid. Such a waste.
1
@rickatatastan2695 No-one is saying that they have to. The point is that if they want to, agricultural land should be economically affordable based on their productive use and not a concocted tax shelter one set up for the wealthy.
1
Economics on their side? I don't think so. As I see it the starting point is the affluent. The affluent are basically unable to spend enough. They spend as much as they want but always have a surplus then if they get more then their surplus grows. The question then is what do they do with their surplus and the answer is that they use it to buy assets such as shares and property. Over time, increasing amounts are being channelled from the real economy of jobs, business and public services into asset purchases. It acts as a drain on the real economy and will get worse as wealth inequality grows. So no, economics isn't on the side of landlords.
1
Great book and well worth reading. If only we could scape this insanity...
1
Yes, the growing wealth inequality is slowly draining the life blood out of the real economy and we can see that with poor growth, deteriorating services etc. Sure, the rich are unable to spend enough. They always have a surplus and that surplus is getting ever larger and just gets fed into assets such as shares and property, and the prices of these gets inflated through increasing excess demand. So we end up with a reducing share of national income going to working people then on top of that there is a further drain on the real economy as property rental costs escalate. Is there any realistic solution other than a wealth tax? There are no signs of this on the political horizon and if anything the proposed scrapping or reduction of IHT goes in the opposite direction. I suspect that things will get far far worse before there is even a slightest sign of improvement.
1
Was this a serious discussion or just a rant?
1
@taffyterrier Please enlighten me.
1
@ForburyLion Buy to let was a bad idea. Introduced by John Major and accelerated by Tony Blair, and all coming from Thatcher's deregulation of the banks. Somehow we need to unravel this but it is entrenched and won't be easy. What's worse is that we now have an increasingly inefficient wealth distribution which is damaging the economy.
1
@Norfolkandchance886 The dynamics are changing albeit slowly. The younger generation have been screwed big time, not just with property costs but also things like student loans and the increasing burden of an aging population etc.
1
@Norfolkandchance886 There is a growing trend of wealth inequality which is economically damaging and will lead to more and more increases in house prices. The ability of the young to buy will diminish further and inheritance will become the default means of ownership. This will lead to a polarisation where tens of millions lead sh*t lies and the rest live in absolute luxury. The other problem of course then is that it inhibits the starting of families so the UK will rely increasingly on immigration. Not a very politically stable scenario.
1
@davideyres955 Nice if that happened and released properties to UK residents but reality is different. Take Lord Harmsworth for example. He owns the Daily Mail and is non domiciled in a tax haven yet owns the massive stately home of Ferne House in Wiltshire. People like this like to have property in the UK.
1