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Reply | Reform Policies
at 18:22 23 Jul 2025
Well said Gwyn.
If, for example, Labour were to stand at the next election promising a rejoin referendum the vote would not happen till maybe 2033/34 due to the complexity.
So that would be almost twenty years since the last one. No one would be able to argue that that is not enough time to make a judgement on how successful (or not) it's been |
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Reply | The future of our club
at 22:19 20 Jul 2025
Dammit. I got really excited there until I read your post  |
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Reply | The country has gone nuts
at 09:33 16 Jul 2025
Res, why on earth say it was a civil servant when you don't know who it was and why 'guess' that it was a person working from home when you don't know that it was.
Why not just say what you know. |
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Reply | Reform Policies
at 18:36 15 Jul 2025
Even £12.60 at 37 hours a week is over £24k. So 20% tax on £12k allowing for £12.5k tax free is £2400. |
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Reply | Reform Policies
at 12:37 15 Jul 2025
Apparently the Real living wage is £12.60 nationally with London being £13.85.
Logically, if you're on the real living wage then it's enough to live on without needing benefit top ups. So it should be a target set by government to be achieved within a reasonable period.
I'm not saying investors shouldn't be paid dividends. But equally, them being paid those dividends at the expense of their lowest paid workers being paid enough to live on is simply wrong. There should be a better balance. |
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Reply | Reform Policies
at 09:16 15 Jul 2025
It is DJ. £138 billion as of now. Is anyone advocating reducing the Sate Pension ? Is anyone advocating reducing in work benefits ?
In work benefits are there because a lot of jobs don't pay enough to live on (see my post just a few back). Taking out the two amounts above would leave perhaps £100 billion in benefits to be addressed (out of the total £303 billion). So stop the benefits (our taxes) being paid almost directly into the greedy pockets of shareholders and the shysters running their companies.
That would be a brilliant start. |
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Reply | Reform Policies
at 22:29 14 Jul 2025
Both you and hector are correct David. Just how many large firms are announcing big profits then paying out big dividends while the board pay themselves huge salaries. Why ? Because it's their brilliant work that has generated the profit.
Of course it is. It's nothing to do with the fact that their employees at the bottom are not being paid enough to live on. With the result that the government has to subsidise those workers pay with benefits.
So, as has been said, our taxes are to a large extent the profits that they claim to create. And those profits (our taxes) end up in the pockets of the shareholders and the bosses.
There's so much discussion about how to reduce the benefits bill. I wonder how many billions of benefits are paid out in this way. |
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Reply | These women's Euros
at 18:31 14 Jul 2025
Brilliant.
I used to look at Welsh women's football and wonder how they weren't even able to kick a ball properly never mind play the actual game well. But it has come along in leaps and bounds over the last few years as you say WR.
I didn't see any of the England game apart from the goals but in the other two games they did at times look good albeit against teams that are currently much better.
But i'm certain that given time and money Wales Women will become a lot better again. |
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Thread | Reform Policies
at 18:44 13 Jul 2025
They haven't come out with many actual policies but the one that's easiest to remember is raising the tax threshold to £20,000. It's a laudable thing to aspire to as it would benefit the lowest paid the most. As well as that idea, the way Farage and Tice and all the rest of them are talking it's as if they're saying ‘vote us in and there’ll be a revolution’. The British people will finally get what they’ve been demanding for so long and which Labour and the Conservatives never delivered.
It's such an easy thing to say and I believe they're saying it knowing that there'd be a huge number of people whose knee jerk reaction would be positive. They'd be about £1500 a year better off and many wouldn't think past that.
We can all agree there's not much money around and the UK is in an incredibly difficult financial situation. And whatever party is in Government they would have a hell of a job on their hands.
So, let's imagine Reform are in power now and not Labour. And this tax cut is their flagship policy. We know that Labour have claimed that a major problem they've had to deal with is the £20 billion black hole they claim the Conservatives left (accurate or not that's what they say).
The black hole created in the countries tax revenue of raising the threshold to £20,000 is £51 billion a year. But, to give them the benefit of the doubt let’s imagine that Reform would say we can't afford to do it in one go. People would probably accept the logic of that - initially.
So they may say we'll do it in three chunks - from £12,500 to £15,000 then £17,500 and then £20,000. The first rise would put an extra £500 in people's pockets. That’s £10 a week. And let’s say they had to wait for another year for another £10 and another year for the last £10. People would say, hang on Nige, this isn't a revolution. You gave us the impression that you could just push a few buttons and our lives would change.
And then they'd say, in the parallel universe where Labour are in power, we got a 6.7% rise (National Living Wage). So how is this better Nige ?
So they've implemented the first rise but now they've got a £17 billion black hole in the finances. And this is a REAL black hole. So what are they going to do.
Which brings me to the second part of the thread. Nigel and Richard and all of them are also incredibly critical of the spend on welfare. And without saying what they are going to do they've implied that they will be ruthless in that area.
We all know what happened to Labour with the WFA cut and the proposed reform of PIP. There may be some people on this site who thought those cuts were a good idea but from memory the vast majority of you didn't. And the vast majority of the country disagreed as well.
I heard a discussion on Talk Radio a few days ago between Jeremy Kyle and Richard Tice (a brief digression - Jeremy Kyle has to be the most useless excuse for a broadcaster in the history of British radio. It's as if a ten year old is speaking through a man's body - just awful).
Anyway, the bloke who had called in, a Reform voter, was talking about the above cuts and he was criticising Labour for having given in to the 'BLOB' in dropping the plans. And Richard Tice was laughing and agreeing with him, happy it seemed that the guy was on his side. He agreed that Labour should not have given in to the ‘BLOB’, that they should have stuck to their guns. By saying that he was implying that Reform, if they were in power, would have carried on with the cuts.
The savings from those cuts would have come to maybe £5 billion I believe. So can anyone explain where they would save the extra £17 billion from their tax cuts in the first year. And in the second year the £34 billion ? And in the third year the £51 billion ?
Would it all be from the benefits bill ? The total benefits bill this year is £303 billion. Of that £138 billion is the State Pension and an enormous part of the rest is paid out to people actually in work. If you add the two together that would leave maybe £100 billion in other benefits. Are Reform going to cut that £100 billion by £51 billion ?
Going back to the phone in, the 'BLOB' is a word that's been used mainly against the Civil Service (not just the CS but mainly) saying that they actively work against the Government implementing their policies.
But in this case the people disagreeing with the Government were millions of ordinary people disgusted at the policies. Also their MP's and just about all the media. And here we have Richard Tice laughing at the 'BLOB' which in this case would include millions of the people who he would hope would vote Reform.
But I doubt if those millions would have been listening to that phone in and hearing the disdain that Tice had for them. A pity because if they did there’d be no way Reform would ever get in to power.
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Reply | Starmer/Macrons very cunning plan….
at 09:34 13 Jul 2025
I'll try  .
The words legal and illegally are the problem. They are classed as illegals while crossing but as soon as they arrive and claim asylum they automatically become asylum seekers. And then, whether we like it or not, we are legally bound to assess whether they have a valid claim. I don't know if it's just the ECHR that requires that.
As far as I understand it we can't deny anyone the right to claim asylum once they are here. We can play around with the benefits system as much as we like but as asylum seekers we'd still have to provide accommodation of some sort, they'd still have to eat and drink, they'd still have to live.
Bore da David. |
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Reply | Starmer/Macrons very cunning plan….
at 10:47 12 Jul 2025
Many on this site argued that the Rwanda deal would be a deterrent even though just four volunteers went there. Now many people are complaining about this idea which would return, in the first instance, 2500 proper illegals with the UK taking back 2500 legal asylum seekers.
Whether the plan will work or not this is the logic. The arrangement will start at 50 a week and when the process is shown to be working the numbers will increase.
The complaint about the 2500 being deported just being replaced by a different 2500 is a bogus one. That 2500 coming in will arrive fully documented and join up with family (if that's the reason they're eligible) and be able to start work. They will not be put up in hotels, given money etc etc so will not be a drain on UK resources.
The 2500 being deported will not be able to apply for the legal route. If they try to reenter the UK they will be deported again (proved by a DNA test maybe. None of us know the detail). In order to reenter they'd have to find another £5000 or whatever amount. They almost certainly won't do that because they won't be able to fund it.
Then the numbers would be increased to 100/200 etc.
Meanwhile the asylum backlog is dropping quickly. At the end of 2024 it was 91,000. I remember numbers of 170,000 a couple of years ago.
From the little I know this is how it will work. Whether it does or not we'll have to wait and see. But even now we can see how infinitely better it is than the Rwanda scheme would have been when we know that that deal would have resulted in a few hundred being got rid of each year. If it ever worked. |
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Reply | No more tax raises
at 09:51 11 Jul 2025
'The putative legal challenge is based on a series of judgements by various United Nations bodies that the Chagos Islands belong to Mauritius.
Essentially, they argued the UK had no legal right to separate the islands from Mauritius before the former British colony became independent in the 1960s.'
So we ignore what the UN says ? Or try to find a way to make it work ? |
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Reply | Bob Dylan
at 18:26 10 Jul 2025
Agreed. I saw him in Cardiff (CIA) about fifteen years ago. Walking back to the car afterwards I said to my brother 'I wish he'd sung Blowing In The Wind'. My brother said he did |
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Reply | No more tax raises
at 18:09 10 Jul 2025
Revisit council tax. The figures are based on house valuations from 1991.
The highest in Swansea is around £5000. Out of curiosity I googled the rates in Westminster. Would you believe their highest is £4,300. For some reason we have nine bands where they have eight.
There are probably a million houses in London worth over £1 million, many over £10/20/50/100 million. Create a super band (Blind Faith anyone ? sorry, couldn't resist ).
£100 million - £50,000. Why not ? |
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