The Coalition thread

[londonblue]

Having said that "the rich" who will spend more money on luxury goods will be paying far more in VAT. The poor are presumably so poor they wont be buying luxury goods, like shiny new cars, big TV's and latest technological gadgets so it won't be costing them anything.
Increasing VAT gives more people the choice of how they pay their tax rather than have it taken from them at source.

No it doesn't because it is a tax on everything. People with a lower income have to spend a higher percentage of their income rather than save. VAT increases affect them disproportionately. Although I suspect you actually know that and are just trying to wind me up!

 

[londonblue]

Seriously though, you actually think THAT's the reason? Seriously?

Doesn't VAT have 0% restrictions on necessities to offset against disposable income - groceries, water, meds, public transport, books, children's clothing, etc?

Also... didn't the last budget raise personal allowance thresholds to take loads of lower income people out of income taxation?


* googles *

Yep:

• 6.5k to 10k personal threshold
• 2.7m people lifted out of paying ANY income tax since 2010
• For the average tax payer, £705 less income tax compared to when the coalition took power

On the flip side:

• More middle-earners finding themselves paying the highest rate.

Square those equations and we're essentially giving tax breaks to the poorest from an income and a 'VAT vs disposable income' basis, all the while taxing people at a higher rate when they earn more (at a sensible level commensurate with most of Europe), then taxing people again based upon their consumption of goods and services on a spend more, pay more basis.

Yes. Based on the type of person that is their core voter, it is a tax increase that they can get away with. Not only that, they get away with saying no increase in income tax to win an election, and then raise other taxes.

Yes, you are right that certain items are exempt, or attract a zero or 5% rate, and some of those are staple items. However, the vast majority of goods attract VAT at the standard rate. Fuel being the most obvious.

VAT disproportionately affects poorer people.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

No it doesn't because it is a tax on everything.

No it isn't it. Necessities are either exempted or zero-rated.

 

[londonblue]

No it isn't it. Necessities are either exempted or zero-rated.

Not all necessities. For example, I would include adult clothing and fuel as necessities.

 

[steveo]

No it doesn't because it is a tax on everything. People with a lower income have to spend a higher percentage of their income rather than save. VAT increases affect them disproportionately. Although I suspect you actually know that and are just trying to wind me up!

Not winding you up at all. You can buy adult clothes as cheap as chips. The poor man might get his polo shirts from Primark for 3 quid and the richer bloke form Lacoste for 70 quid so he is paying a lot more vat. The same applies to phones, computers etc.
How about the poor bloke who buys a car privately for 500 quid. Doesn't pay any vat compared to someone buying a car for 30 grand? The differences are massive and the choice is there - the car 30 grand car buyer also has the option not to pay VAT if he went for the private buy.
We probably wont agree. We need some hard facts and figures for this one.

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

well the economy's on the up, jobless total down and falling, growth up and much better than EU generally and definitely more than in "socialist counties". The balance between public sector and private sector much more stable, £200 million investment in Jaguar on Merseyside leading to 250 new jobs anounced today and Spain still an economic basketcase. The Scots referendum so long as the no voters turn out is going to be a resounding no and as ever Labour haven't got a clue. Still astounds me that there are still people who would vote for them.

The economy is on the up we are told but only compared to what it has been for the rest of this parliament. And what is it based on and if the economy is faring so well why aren't the Tories surging ahead in the polls? Because it is not up in the way that it effects most people's lives.

Travel costs - massive increases, gas and electric costs - massive increases, food costs - massive increases that have just started slowing down, housing prices - massive increases.

Unemployment - has come down compared to the highs in this parliament but most of the reduction is people taking on part time work even though they need a full time wage. Youth unemployment at an all time high.
Debt reduction has not hit the government's own targets. They havent touched the debt just tinkered with its increase - we were told cuts would reduce the debt not just reduce its increase a little. Personal borrowing is up.

They get things done though. Except for airport capacity - been haggling over that the whole time and no closer to a decision in the 4 years. Even 'Boris Island' was dropped from the posibilities so we were a bit closer to a decision until he insisted those employed to narrow the options were wrong and started spending more money researching that again. Who wrote the contracts on the Boris Bikes? Barclays walked away from that having paid half. And where are we with the high speed rail - nowhere other than in debt. And the East Coast contract they messed up and had to compensate everyone involved for how many millions? We did get that cable car thing though that loses money every day.

Immigation - they were banging on about quotas before the election so....gone up. Surely hiring a van with a 'should you be here warning on it' will make sure they hit the quota? Well after the border control staff shortages they had to try something. May was in charge of those massive queues and she was in charge of the latest passport fiasco and somehow thought it'd be a good idea to go to the police conference and slag them all off and get into a slanging match with Gove - how is she still in a job? The only people she has manages to keep out of the country is the high spending Chinese and she managed to dent the reputation of UK as a venue for high spending foreign students by closing colleges a few weeks before courses were due to finish.


NHS - shambles over trying to get GPs to run NHS trusts when most didn't want to. Making staff redundant to fit the new structure then reemploying them when the new structure was cancelled. Threatening to close numerous A&E units and hospitals - some being blocked by high court judges.

Education - tripling university fees. Free schools scheme when you don't need to have qualified teachers, don't need to have any experience in education to set one up, don't need to prove local need, don't even need to have a building to house the school to be granted a licence. Lack of funds for this experiment has led to funds being diverted from the budget to improve existing school buildings. Forced academies - numerous cases of schools being forced to become academies against the wishes of parents. The school my youngest attends was forced to become an a academy and the parents were asked to express an opinion on who should run it - 92% wanted it to be run by the management of another local school. It is now run by Tory donor Lord Harris so Gove only valued the opinion of 8% of parents. Democracy in action.

This is off the top of my head so apologies if I've messed anything up.
No I don't think they have done a mighty fine job.

 

[steveo]

No I don't think they have done a mighty fine job.

So would you say the previous Government did a mighty fine job?

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

So would you say the previous Government did a mighty fine job?

They had their moments but aren't up for re-election, this lot are and the above isn't too attractive is it?

 

[steveo]

They had their moments but aren't up for re-election, this lot are and the above isn't too attractive is it?

When you say they had their moments do you mean good or bad?
Even you must admit when this Government took over, the Country was in a terrible state and most Labourites put this down to the World recession and as such definitely not their fault.
Severe measures had to be taken at some stage or we would have just stumbled form crisis to crisis in the traditional Labour way. If you accept the world recession caused the problems, it was the same for other countries, so how are we doing now compared to those other countries? If we are doing better then you have to admit this Government has had some success.

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

When you say they had their moments do you mean good or bad?
Even you must admit when this Government took over, the Country was in a terrible state and most Labourites put this down to the World recession and as such definitely not their fault.
Severe measures had to be taken at some stage or we would have just stumbled form crisis to crisis in the traditional Labour way. If you accept the world recession caused the problems, it was the same for other countries, so how are we doing now compared to those other countries? If we are doing better then you have to admit this Government has had some success.

In terms of domestic policy Labour brought in minimum wage which the Tories were against - that for me is the most important piece of legislation over the last few governments. The ban on smoking in public has massive benefits and was a brave move as could be a vote loser. Ban on hunting with dogs got rid of what was a national embarrassment.
i don't like Blair's promotion of academies and religious schools but I doubt a future Labour government would go down that line and these policies were not being forced onto parents like they are with the current government. This forcefulness goes largely unreported but it has alienated a lot of those that it effects.
Many left wingers take an anti war / illegal war stance. I don't buy into that. Official reasons may be flawed but they deposed a dictator who was murdering his citizens. It has now become a power vacuum and fundamentalist terrorists are murdering people. The current government did nothing about a murdering dictator in Syria and there is a power vacuum and fundamentalists are murdering people. Same result shows we don't know how to deal with the situation but for me the do something sends a better message than do nothing. Tried and failed is better than looked away.
Economy - without a doubt a could do better but it was a worldwide phenomenon and at least unemployment and interest rates were low. Brown had the backing of many world leaders in his methods of dealing with it but wasn't given enough time to see if his methods would have worked. I can understand the thinking behind reducing VAT to assist retail and the new car price reduction to assist the car trade. I don't understand the thinking behind increasing VAT and cutting thousands of public jobs. I think Osborne has recently got lucky on the economy as any improvement doesn't seem policy led - I can't see where the improvement comes from. I don't slate the current government on the economy as they came into power during a worldwide recession and for most of their term we have stayed in recession or flat growth. Things have picked up but very recently in ways that most people can't see effecting them. Confidence may be seen in boardroom pay rises but personally I see no benefit in that. What I see is my food travel housing costs being sky high and that one of my kids is at a school with a government led hostile take over which 92% of parents were against.

 

[steveo]

This was my point the ***, you say

but it was a worldwide phenomenon

to excuse Labours economic mess, but now we are recovering, quite well compared to some other European Countries, you say

I think Osborne has recently got lucky on the economy

So anything Labour does wrong is not their fault and anything any other party does right is down to luck.

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

This was my point the ***, you say to excuse Labours economic mess, but now we are recovering, quite well compared to some other European Countries, you say

So anything Labour does wrong is not their fault and anything any other party does right is down to luck.

Read to the end - I said I don't slate the government on the economy, I don't think the rise and falls have been particularly policy led for either government. The fall was noticeable to the average person though and the improvement doesn't seem noticeable, we are told its there but can't see it or feel it.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

The Tories Tourism minister advocates "staycations" in response to the passports crisis.


http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-27937958

The summer silly season has obviously started early.

 

[callan]

Read to the end - I said I don't slate the government on the economy, I don't think the rise and falls have been particularly policy led for either government. The fall was noticeable to the average person though and the improvement doesn't seem noticeable, we are told its there but can't see it or feel it.

Would you give them any credit for not leading us into an illegal war?

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Would you give them any credit for not leading us into an illegal war?

If you're talking about Syria, there's no question that the Tories wanted to go to war but had to see sense when they were unable to get all party support in the Commons .In any case had there been majority support in the Commons it would presumably have been a legal war as was Iraq ,technically speaking.

Somebody who genuinely does deserve credit for not taking us to war (for those of us with longer memories) is Harold Wilson, who refused to send even a battalion to Vietnam, despite intense pressure from LBJ.

 

[callan]

If you're talking about Syria, there's no question that the Tories wanted to go to war but had to see sense when they were unable to get all party support in the Commons .

Somebody who does deserve credit for not taking us to war (for those of us with longer memories) is Harold Wilson, who refused to send even a battalion to Vietnam, despite intense pressure from LBJ.

They didn't take us into an illegal war.
Can the last labour government say the same?

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

They didn't take us into an illegal war.
Can the last labour government say the same?

You won't hear me defend Tony Blair's government.

I marched against that war.

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

Would you give them any credit for not leading us into an illegal war?

No, see above.

 

[steveo]

The Tories Tourism minister advocates "staycations" in response to the passports crisis.


http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-27937958

The summer silly season has obviously started early.

Good idea. Probably be better than going to Spain. I went there last year. It's a third world **** hole.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Good idea. Probably be better than going to Spain. I went there last year. It's a third world **** hole.

Ha!

Come to Barcelona (or Sant Cugat).

They both look in much better nick than dear old Southend does these days.:sad: