dsr-burnley
Well-known member
- Aug 15, 2014
- 2,625
On the other hand, they need to be careful not to encourage a position where it's perceived that people who've spent everything get given more while people who've saved get it taken off them.
[Finance] Rachel Reeves to reveal £20bn shortfall left by Conservative Government
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The Conservative Government shouldn’t be sending out 28 mil to local authorities to use on vanity projects ffs.
Not entirely surprised about the heating allowance payment change and it is a legitimate target for a Chancellor looking for savings. However, I am a tad surprised re the junior doctors settlement. I wonder whether Wes Streeting has negotiated any undertakings from the medics in return, assuming they accept this offer. We shall see, but my initial thoughts are that the all powerful BMA has proved too strong for our tough talking Health Secretary. Next up, the GPs and their threatened strike action!
dsr-burnley
Well-known member
- Aug 15, 2014
- 2,625
By careful position of signs, cameras and road markings, the income could be enough (and more), over time, to cover the cost of the work.
Maybe he was persuaded by the case before him. I'm not sure that it is likely to be the default position of a labour health secretary to block all pay increases for medics. But I could be wrong.
Weststander
Well-known member
Always been the way, impossible to stop?
My dad and older brothers had various friends who earned fantastic money all their working lives as self employed skilled tradespeople. Some, even from the 1960’s, saved really well into pension funds, having far fewer holidays than others who blew the lot on countless holidays, fags and booze. In retirement the latter claimed the full array of mean tested benefits which amount to a significant sum.
You could always get a job
Those Tories couldn’t be trusted with money, no wonder we are f***ed
Weststander
Well-known member
What undertakings do you have in mind?
Maybe Harry, but after all his tough talk about sorting out the NHS and ‘taking on vested interests’, this has given me a ‘hmm’ moment with regards to the outcome of the future battles ahead, if he is to achieve his ambition.
PS. I don’t think any Health Secretary ever wanted to block all pay increases for medics and the militant medicos were never going to settle with the Tories.
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
The Tories refused to meet the doctors to discuss anything.
Dave the OAP
Well-known member
I think that ship sailed a long time ago
I haven’t given it all that much thought, but during successful negotiations it is usual for both sides to get something they want. Perhaps, working practices, overtime allowances, future undertakings re industrial action etc.. I am sure there are a number of arrangements in a complex and ginormous unwieldy beast like the NHS, that could be usefully reformed to the benefit of all interested parties, including patients! if the BMA, the NHS hierarchy and the Department of Health were to work together.
Anyway, let us see what the outcome is.
I am not sure that is entirely true. The militant leaders of the medics were as equally intransigent as the other side.
nicko31
Well-known member
We have outsource a lot of our emissions. That said it is true today that China, Russia and Iran all have higher emissions than us per capita.
But since the industrial revolution (that we started) we are way ahead, we have the carbon deficit as do other developed nations, notably the USA. Circa £2B a year isn't really that much when you consider these poorer countries are going to get hit hardest for something they didn't create. Its a small gesture, compo it ain't ..
KZNSeagull
Well-known member
It does but they may have narrowed the target by too much. There are 800,000 people eligible for pension credits who don't currently get it so therefore won't now get the winter fuel payment.
This really does highlight the urgent need for a simple but accurate (as far as possible) means testing system in this country.
Weststander
Well-known member
That last bit is always silly. Apologists for India and Brazil continuing their destruction of ecosystems apace and CO2 emissions growth, sometimes effectively go on about folk in Britain who in the 1700’s who first used coal. When any Brits in 2024 dare to mention their CO2 emissions. The argument goes that it’s only fair that they do what they want now, in the interests of fairness.
Shirley any true environmentalist simply wants and argues for total global CO2 to be reduced. Rather than the very British thing of insular navel gazing.
Daddies_Sauce
Falmer WSL, not a JCL
- Jun 27, 2008
- 885
This coming winter would have been he first time that I became eligible to the winter fuel payment, That’s now gone, frankly it would have been nice, but I can live without it, same as others who I’m aware of. The worry is those just above the benefit threshold who are struggling now, and will be more so in the winter.
With reference to the 22% pay rise for medics, then they may get the pay rise, but their tax and NI contributions will also increase, there will also be those who will go through the basic rate tax to higher rate thresholds, so maybe not the full 22%. Give with one hand and take away with the other.
With the upcoming budget I can see that that tax relief may be aligned, so higher rate tax payers are not able to claim higher rate tax relief on their contributions, something that I have though was unfair for some time.
With reference to the 22% pay rise for medics, then they may get the pay rise, but their tax and NI contributions will also increase, there will also be those who will go through the basic rate tax to higher rate thresholds, so maybe not the full 22%. Give with one hand and take away with the other.
With the upcoming budget I can see that that tax relief may be aligned, so higher rate tax payers are not able to claim higher rate tax relief on their contributions, something that I have though was unfair for some time.
This is a very good point. Universal benefits, not means tested, has always seemed unfair to me.
When I was a kid I did Saturday shopping for a woman (who live much nearer the shops than my family). This was a spin out from bob-a-job week. The family all smoked like chimneys, and took two foreign holidays a year. We on the other hand stayed in a Caravan in Teignmouth for a week, if lucky.
Oddly my dad had bought our home, on a 25 year mortgage, whereas my employers lived in a council house. As a nine year old I asked myself why they lived in a council house.
When I was a student, one of my mates lived in a council flat with his nan. Thirty years later, a technician in my place of work lived in a council flat with his nan. When she died, he was in his 50s. He was able to take over the lease. He was the very same former student who unlike me, who created an independent life, spent his income from a well paid job on gigs and weed. Then went on sick leave when forced to think about his future.
Council houses are great for taking the poor out of slums. But were they really meant to be a sinecure to be passed on to feckless kids?
My neighbour left school with no qualifications. She and her hubby moved from London to buy their house in the 70s when it could be done. She worked three cleaning jobs to put herself through part time training to become a social worker. Unbelievable graft. The house is now paid off.
My in laws live in a council house. When they die, it will be passed back to the council. An opportunity to buy and cash in was eschewed, for no apparent reason. Fear of the responsibility was part of it. I'm not sure what to make of it.
Sorry for the rambling. As a labour man I expect the state to help the needy, but not to subsidize the abandonment of ambition, saving, taking risks and graft. Obviously the council house culture is largely gone, and we now have a overpriced housing scam whereby without the bank of mum and dad most kids will be stuck in the rental sector for ever. 'Rebalancing', the Tories would call it.
We seem to have lurched from pillar to post since 1945. First the creation of a nationalized economy and the 'welfare state', leading to 1970s style expansion of petty working class wealth and the booze and fag culture. Then Thatcher, a transient enrichment of lucky council house renters, converted to home owners and working class Tories (eugh!) and the great Rebalancing. For those who gained, only the imaginary enemy of immigrants dragged them off the sofa to shake their tiny fists at the ruin of the English way of life. It would be nice to see some hard nosed rationality going forward, now we have defenestrated the last of the political charlatans. Will Labour seize the day? There will be pushback....
Given the hubristic reaction by the Tories to todays means tested fuel payment initiative (the "greatest ever electoral betrayal") I don't see the Tory culture wars moderating themselves any time soon.