DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived Cleggeron era

finding it really hard to be all ;_; for people earning £40k+

Well, if we were both on 40k for sure I wouldn't be complaining. BECAUSE I'D STILL BE GETTING CB!

ned, presumably you will return to the workplace once the kids are old enough to get to school etc?

xp that's the real problem with this. quite pleased to see tories aiming their cuts at the better off, but you can't cut benefits to 1.2 million yet leave 900,000 wealthier people untouched and wave it away as an "anomaly".

Anyways, they're backtracking now...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11473609

Really, it's the "made-up five minutes before we go to conference-ness" of it all that makes me mad.

not debating the whole retardedness of the single vs combo benefit bullshit but still oh no it's a tough life on £45k

Tax high earners and fuck top 10% earners, I'm all for it, but why do things in a way that fucks up the most only people who are at exactly 10% at the bottom of the high scale? when there's already another perfectly good way for people to progressively contribute based on income?

wonder if it's time for a netmums vs mumsnet poll

http://www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/general-coffeehouse-chat-514/news-current-affairs-topical-discussion-12/385877-mumsnet-mafia.html

Tax high earners and fuck top 10% earners, I'm all for it, but why do things in a way that fucks up the most only people who are at exactly 10% at the bottom of the high scale? when there's already another perfectly good way for people to progressively contribute based on income?

― HOOS' THE BOSS (ken c), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 2:03 PM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark

high earners don't pay tax you noob. anyway there's fuck all of them.

tracer, i think we agree that ***if there were no risk to the integrity of the welfare state***, getting rid of CB for two parent families with incomes greater than twice the 40% income tax threshold seems pretty unobjectionable. obviously the issue re: single income homes like ned's is total bullshit and smells late night policy making, but paying 4k p.a. to families with an income of 85k is obviously not the best possible use of ~£1bn.

assuming we agree on that...

i am also saying that the principle of this policy does not represent much of a risk to the integrity of the welfare state. much of the money distributed in benefits/allowances is already means tested so it's demonstrably not a house of cards. i don't think this particular issue is any different. sure there will be further rollbacks during this government because it draws the line in a different place to the previous one, but they'll happen whether or not this policy is implemented, and not as a thin end of the wedge consequence of it.

ken i don't get the suggestion you're making? how do you change the income tax system to redistribute money to families with children? ask them to declare children to their employers?

ned, presumably you will return to the workplace once the kids are old enough to get to school etc?

Yes, I will walk into a job as a 46 year old with an arts degree who has been out of full time employment for 12 years. Anyway, even if it was that easy, you've still got kids going to school at 9, finished at 3, and having (please don't remind me) ten weeks holiday a year.

I know this sounds like "sense of entitlement" bs but please don't get me wrong, if I really thought "we were all in this together" I wouldn't be so pissed about it but, as I keep on saying, as far as I can see we're taking a 3% cut in income that I don't see the (actually, genuinely) wealthy taking. Instead, as per usual it seems, you encourage the non-rich by taking stuff away and encourage the rich by giving them stuff.

raise the 40% rate to whatever amount that would generate that extra 1bn, keep cb as it is

No no, Ken, this lot are making the *hard* choices.

raise the 40% rate to whatever amount that would generate that extra 1bn, keep cb as it is

― HOOS' THE BOSS (ken c), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 2:10 PM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark

this would cruelly punish stay-at-home mothers, if their menfolk got phttp://images.chron.com/blogs/askacat/hatcat.JPGted and earned more than £37k

raise the 40% rate to whatever amount that would generate that extra 1bn, keep cb as it is

― HOOS' THE BOSS (ken c), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 2:10 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

No no, Ken, this lot are making the *hard* choices.

― Tim, Tuesday, October 5, 2010 2:11 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

given the response in the right-wing press, i think you'd have to admit this is a hard choice. 'aspirational' people will now not want to earn more than £44k because they will get less of a handout. stay-at-home mothers may have to contemplate taking work.

this is clearly a pisser for people who earn £44-47-odd thou.

Would aspirational people with kids want to earn more than 44k if earning 45k means you're in fact worse off

computer says no

Would aspirational people with kids want to earn more than 44k if earning 45k means you're in fact worse off

― HOOS' THE BOSS (ken c), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 2:21 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is what the right-wing media is saying, well done

Would aspirational people with kids want to earn more than 44k if earning over 45k means they're considerably richer than you

it's handy that the worlds smallest violin has just been invented.

xpost

break even for someone earning just below to just above 44k is at 45.8k for one child plus 900 for each subsequent child. i.e with one child you start to be better off ~46k, ~47k for 2 etc. Not better off if you already were above those thresholds but if your pay rises above them.

the fabled disincentive to earn, helluva priority for those setting tax rates.

Er xpost I was using your point to show my point. Thanks thought!

I.e. its ridiculous even in an 'aspirations' point of view compared with just setting the. tax correctly

ken, it looks like they realise they've fucked up in that 40-46k window.

Let's start with 3% of this, just to make it fair.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11473352
I make that £210m. Buy a hospital.
Of course, then their incentive to work would go and they'd piss off to Hong Kong. Or something.

it goes w/o saying that bankers can and should eat a dick

given the response in the right-wing press, i think you'd have to admit this is a hard choice.

If you believe whoever it was on the radio this morning, they weren't expecting this kind of response from the right. I'd have thought a raise in income tax would have been harder and fairer, but whatevs. I'm not especially against this, I recognise that there are going to be cuts and I fully expect to be a lot more angry about a lot more things in the future.

("This" in that last sentence being the removal of child benefit from top-taxed people, fwiw)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1317800/Theresa-May-steals-conference-bash-tight-fitting-top.html

What awful, awful people in that article.

http://www.solarnavigator.net/aviation_and_space_travel/aviation_space_images/Lancaster_bomber_aircraft_dropping_bombs_1944.jpg

...on the lot of them.

New Statesman currently speculating that cutting housing benefit, capping benefits and the flight of the poor from inner cities would make it a lot easier for the Tories to win seats like Hammersmith and Westminster North where they failed last time around.

well duh, boris 4 life

Yeah, it's sort of like Gerrymandering, but in reverse...

"Letting their hair down: Alan Duncan (left) and (right) Toby Young"

Be a bit difficult for toby young to let his hair down in actuality?

Yeah, the weird thing about this thread is that we're arguing about whether a sensible, phased withdrawal of CB for incomes over the 44k-51k range would be a good thing or not, but *nobody is actually offering such a thing* - instead we're getting a bizzarre situation where people will be asking whether they could turn down their annual pay rise, please.

(Someone upthread said they wanted to see Osbourne et al taking their 3% pay cut - presumably Cameron is doing exactly this? I guess his real income is after-dinner stuff / consultancies in the future)

That would be me. I meant taking 3% of his actual wealth (£4m inheritance), fuck taking a paycut on money he doesn't need.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/oct/04/child-benefit-cuts-uk-statistics

Oh wait not inheritance, trust fund!

Gravel - they only need about a grand and a half payrise to make up for that lost child benefit though. It's not that big a deal.

From BBC news:

Heads given power outside school
Head teachers in England will be able to discipline pupils "any time, any place, anywhere", says Education Secretary Michael Gove.

They will walk around shopping centres at weekends, waving a cane.

Can we ask them to do home visits?

What does this tell us beyond 'this is where the children are'? Take a look at the data and see what you can do with it.

Typical lazy journos.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11476802

Shadow Schools Minister Vernon Coaker accused the goverment of announcing powers that already exist.

wonder how toby young's campaign for his whites-only free school in acton is going

Gravel - they only need about a grand and a half payrise to make up for that lost child benefit though. It's not that big a deal.

Oh right - had no idea it was so little!

No, they'd need more like two grand because of tax.

Whatever, it is not seriously going to damage their aspirations of earning more money in the future. If anything it might increase them.

i'd quite like to have a 2 grand pay rise

^aspirational

yeah me too ken! i'm sure it's on the horizon, any day now

;_; for media people