Official™ Conservative and Unionist Party manifesto thread

[sal]

Plus moving jobs and investment out to the regions that really need it, reducing somewhat pressure on housing and services in London. A good thing, if it happens.

A good thing, unless you are a civil servant with 20 years on the job, without any real world applicable skills about to lose his/hers job...

[eek]

So like every government has tried before.

Then they find they can't get the specialist staff including IT staff to go to live in Newcastle or where ever, and also struggle to get contractors.

That actually doesn't matter - the work can be done remotely from Mumbai regardless..

Sadly it doesn't go far enough I would be announcing the movement of Parliament to Manchester, Nottingham or Leeds....

[contractorinatractor]

Being handed out to the press now. Sounds like there isn't much detail. Not really surprising. That way they can screw over the maximum number of taxpayers afterwards.

There is an apparent irony in wishing to 'screw taxpayers' and simultaneously limiting benefits and welfare provision, in all its guises, to the needy. It sounds rather obtuse to me.

I'm sure most people are for high taxes if the majority of those taxes are spent on worthwhile endeavors, rather than wars and at the sacrifice of those ultra-rich taxes. Most would prefer the same or slightly more taxation of middle classes and significantly more wealth taxes on the rich and ultra rich.

[jamesbrown]

There is an apparent irony in wishing to 'screw taxpayers' and simultaneously limiting benefits and welfare provision, in all its guises, to the needy. It sounds rather obtuse to me.

I'm sure most people are for high taxes if the majority of those taxes are spent on worthwhile endeavors, rather than wars and at the sacrifice of those ultra-rich taxes. Most would prefer the same or slightly more taxation of middle classes and significantly more wealth taxes on the rich and ultra rich.

The top 5% of income tax payers account for roughly 50% of the total tax take, and the top 1% around 30%. How much is "fair™"? We need to refocus taxation away from income to wealth, particularly property wealth, but the reality is that it's exceptionally difficult to materially increase taxes on those with the highest incomes or the largest accumulation of assets because they don't respond passively to tax policy. Soaking the rich simply doesn't work.

[OwlHoot]

I'm sure most people are for high taxes if the majority of those taxes are spent on worthwhile endeavors, ...

A lot of brainwashed idiots may be. But in the long run all the poor and downtrodden you bleat on about would be best helped by lower taxes, because these would better help private industry to come up with solutions far more effective than anything civil servants in the bloated public sector could conceive of let alone implement effectively.

[contractorinatractor]

The top 5% of income tax payers account for roughly 50% of the total tax take, and the top 1% around 30%. How much is "fair™"? We need to refocus taxation away from income to wealth, particularly property wealth, but the reality is that it's exceptionally difficult to materially increase taxes on those with the highest incomes or the largest accumulation of assets because they don't respond passively to tax policy. Soaking the rich simply doesn't work.

I agree. My take is that it is unacceptable to use an arbitrary random target (this decade it seems to be the reduction of 'The Deficit') as a vehicle to implement an ideology. The middle classes, contractors alike, pay more income and wealth tax. The poorer pay indirectly through loss of reliable public services. The disabled and extreme poor pay in ways we already know of; loss of income, respect and dignity.

Yet we, the middle, lose those services yet pay more taxes? I don't think so - I'm not ok with this. I pay more taxes and I see services improve for the poor and needy? I'm ok with that, subject to fair tests to ensure there isn't a high fraud rate. I'm ok with a 5% fraud rate - it has and never can be zero, due to the way humans operate.

In this case it is milking the lower and middle classes, whilst placing a few avoidable - with the right accountant - wealth taxes upon the so-called rich. I call 80k middle class. I'm really talking of £300k upwards to infinity as being extremely well off and therefore trending to ultra rich.

[OwlHoot]

I agree. My take is that it is unacceptable to use an arbitrary random target (this decade it seems to be the reduction of 'The Deficit') as a vehicle to implement an ideology. ...

Eliminating the decificit, or making a serious attempt to, isn't an "arbitrary random target" you bloviating windbag!

If the Government didn't then among other things foreign investors would demand higher interest rates before buying gilts and bonds and they would have even less to spend on your precious NHS and the hordes of huddled poor.

[jamesbrown]

I agree. My take is that it is unacceptable to use an arbitrary random target (this decade it seems to be the reduction of 'The Deficit') as a vehicle to implement an ideology.

The problem with indefinitely deferring the deficit, and hence the national debt, is that it doesn't take much, during a downturn, for the markets to lose confidence, resulting in a sovereign debt crisis. The impacts of such crises are always felt primarily by the poorest. Anyway, idealism certainly isn't the solution. You can hardly accuse May et al of being idealist on this. The original target for eradication of the deficit was 2015 , and they've been entirely "pragmatic" (some would say foolhardy) in deferring it now to the mid 2020s. If we can't tackle the deficit during a period of sustained growth, we're pretty fecked, long-term. Anyway, most of the idealism seems to be coming from Corbyn. There's enormous irony in current Labour policies insofar as they will hurt precisely those people they're trying to help, in the long-run, even if they lead to greater public spending in the short-term. We need a sustainable tax base, not a shopping list of spending ideas.

[BlasterBates]

Tory Manifesto small print - commitment to pay enormous EU bill

[jamesbrown]

Tory Manifesto small print - commitment to pay enormous EU bill

The Indy is more than a little schizophrenic on Brexit. I imagine they were hoping that the Lib Dems might gain some traction. I thought they might too. It's interesting how badly the Lib Dem strategy appears to have failed in the polls. The vast majority (70%+) just want to get on with it, apparently.