Forum | Religion and the far right by saint901

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Religion and the far right 14:47 - Jul 28 with 7280 views

Our news threads are filled with the usual summer madness in the UK of young, lagered up men being told a lie, choosing to believe it and subsequently throwing insults and eventually bricks and worse at anybody who doesn't look like them.

The far right is becoming more mainstream and we se them weaponising fear and making claims that our country (of 70 million) is being "invaded" by a few thousand people arriving here illegally. (If a poor person arrives this way, he/she is illegal. If a rich person arrives and takes years to "clarify" their status, he/she is an "investor". )

More recently I've seen more posts linking being a "christian" to being a "patriot" and that "christians" have a duty - almost a religious duty - to be passing the bricks to those stupid enough to believe the sort of racist and xenophobic nonsense being spouted.

I am not a religious person. I have no issues with those who chose to believe, but I don't. I do however see this linking of the christian culture with what might loosely be called a doctrine in which Caucasian people are seen as in some manner superior to other races or entitled to something just because of accident of birth, as troubling.

I get that this is straight out of the right wing playbook, i.e. create a sense of jeopardy in certain groups to bring them alongside, but from what I understand of christian philosophy, its about tolerance, love they neighbour, turn the other cheek, be a good Samaritan. It's not about hate other people who have less than we do or choose a different set of rules to live by.

(For what it's worth my understanding of other religions is that they have similar ideas but we know that some will chose to interpret the rules in very different ways).

Religion and the far right on 09:26 - Aug 12 with 282 views

mushinexile

Heaven forbid!

Poll:

Should the BBC show Glastonbury or Wimbledon?

-1

Religion and the far right on 16:21 - Aug 12 with 183 views

GasGiant

Religion and the far right on 15:50 - Aug 8 by kentsouthampton

Totally missing the point, which is without immigration and migrants the health service would collapse, I made no other point, You've clearly never had the misfortune to spend much time in hospital.
The truth of the matter is we could end immigration tomorrow as long as you and others like you are happy work to longer and to retire later (state pension) and pay more tax and accept poorer public services. because heaven forbid we tax the wealthy any more than we currently do, they might starve.

I don't miss points, I just clarify them. FOr instance, with recent immigration at just under 700,000 pa, is your solution to the Health and Care sector shortages a sustained immigration rate that will see a further3.5 million immigrants by 2030? do you imagine 3.5 million vacancies in these sectors? For comparison the entire NHS currently employs around 1.2 million including contract staff and an uptake last year of just 38,000, so tell us what happens to the (over) 3 million "spares"? Are you going to address the issue or not? By your own admission you don't believe in fair taxation, just a system that you don't have to pay any more towards - just get those already paying far more than you to pay even more again and you don't even break sweat. Laughable unworkable, impactical hypocritical Corbynistic bollocks.

Religion and the far right on 16:49 - Aug 12 with 168 views

saint901

In "tax world", there has been a lot of discussion recently over various ideas to raise more tax. Personally I think this is a flawed proposition without some consideration of how any extra tax will be spent, but let's cover what was said on the supply side of the debate for now.

Inheritance tax. Paid when you reduce your "estate" by way of transfer of value to another person. Most obviously paid when somebody dies and his/her assets are distributed to beneficiaries. First £325k is exempt. If the asset is a property you live/lived in, add another £175k to that. So a married couple could transfer a £1m property to beneficiaries with no tax.

The above tax free amounts were frozen (by the last Tory Gov't) with the result that more estates are being brought within the tax charge. Even so, less than 1 in 20 estates actually fall liable.

Labour has removed from "business assets are zero rated" most agricultural property. Instead it will be included in the estate of deceased land owners if the land is used for farming and taxed at 20% - that is half the usual rate. This has caused outrage which in some instances is justified.

A wealth tax has been suggested - and if the latest "leak" from number 11 Downing St is to be believed, rejected. This is a tax on assets. It has been used at one time or another in most European countries - and abandoned. (Switzerland has it but at a very low level).

There are a number of problems with such a tax and the people needed to run it would reduce the tax take substantially. It also discourages inward investment and where it clashes with IHT, things get complicated very quickly. Almost certainly will not happen.

VAT on more goods and services, including private health care is being considered and may happen.

Stamp duty (usually paid on buying property) will almost certainly increase by the simple trick of freezing limits.

The core problem remains that the British taxpayer does not want to pay for the services they want to enjoy.

I've seen numbers (which I've not verified) which say that increasing the budget for education, health and defence to levels promised by the last Tory Gov't would see basic rate income tax (20%), rise to at least 25%. (For a number of reasons, not least the perception given, increasing the tax rate for incomes of £150k or more above the present 45% will not happen because with NIC, the effective rate of money taken from such people will exceed 50%. Given that this group - 1% of UK earners - pays more than half of all income tax already, a further increase would be counter productive. Look at something called the Laffer Curve.)

If tax rises are unlikely to produce enough money to move the dial - usually north of £20bn - then cuts are needed = equally unpopular but the electorate has less say.

Another answer is to extend the economic horizon from the present usual 5 year view to say ten years. This gives more room to borrow. (The US does this and has an economic horizon of about 40 years.)

There is no simple answer here but it's clear that "tax the rich" is not the answer.

Religion and the far right on 08:53 - Aug 13 with 82 views

kentsouthampton

Religion and the far right on 16:21 - Aug 12 by GasGiant

You're right,,those millionaires are going to starve if you tax them more, less than 10% of our population hold 90% of all the wealth yet someone fleeing war and famine is the problem, give me a break.

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