Reeves and Miliband can't escape responsibility - "British troops are under fire from Iran, with a drone swarm striking a UK base in Iraq this week. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed, with oil prices spiralling upwards and putting further pressure on a flatlining British economy. Donald Trump has controversially lifted sanctions on Russian oil at sea in an attempt to bring down energy costs, sending a rush of funds into Vladimir Putin’s war chest. And the threadbare condition of our Armed Forces has been exposed, after decades of underinvestment. It would be understandable if the Government were a little unsure about which problem to attack first. Addressing each would also involve making difficult choices that the Labour Party is bound to feel uncomfortable with. Restoring economic growth, after January’s figures showed no movement in GDP, for example, would entail a long-overdue reckoning with the costs of the party’s approach to net zero, taxation, labour market regulation and welfare. So Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, and Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, have instead struck out at what they evidently consider to be the true threat to Britain: petrol stations. The pair met yesterday with retailers to warn them that they “will not tolerate” companies that “make excess profits”, and publicly criticised “price gouging”. What they seem to mean by “gouging” is the normal operation of the price mechanism. It is perhaps understandable that a Government dedicated to micro-managing apparently every aspect of the economy might be unfamiliar with this concept. Ministers’ fundamental ignorance of basic economics may in turn explain why British growth is so dire. Indeed, Britain’s vulnerability to external price shocks, the absence of growth, and the state of Britain’s military all stem from the same fundamental problems. We have chosen a set of policies that have made energy expensive, reduced incentives to work and invest, and devoured the funds which should have been used to defend the nation. Mr Miliband’s quixotic drive towards net zero has been sold as building resilience and energy independence. The purpose, we were told, was to reduce our exposure to shocks such as this. It hasn’t worked. Energy prices are rising sharply from an already high baseline. The enormous Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields sit idle as the value of what they contain soars. Tapping these resources – and reversing Mr Miliband’s attempt to close the North Sea – would not resolve the problem of high energy prices in one stroke. But it would secure a rush of revenue into the Treasury, and provide households and businesses struggling under current circumstances with a helping hand. Similarly, the decision by Ms Reeves and her colleagues to prioritise butter over guns – awarding huge pay increases to the public sector, failing to tackle the welfare bill, and raising taxes on the working fraction of the population to fund this – comes at a cost. Growth is disincentivised, future revenue streams are diminished, and the Armed Forces do without. As we are being reminded, such underinvestment has consequences. The UK evidently lacks the available forces to help secure shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and Britain must continue to rely on the United States to ensure Ukraine can remain in its fight with Russia. We are learning, again, the painful lesson that there is no prosperity without security, and there is no security without the prosperity to pay for it. Higher economic growth might not be a panacea for Britain’s ills, but it would do a great deal to alleviate the problems we find ourselves facing. If Ms Reeves and Mr Miliband truly wish to confront those responsible for the headaches facing the Government, they have no need to haul an unfortunate petrol retailer in for meetings. Finding the nearest mirror would suffice."
The cope is that this shows why you need even more disastrous left wing policies
Labour is coming after our pensions so it can keep on spending - "It is politically very difficult to tax the pension funds directly, especially given how people aged 60 and older are such an important voting bloc. But simply mandating investment in chosen projects or bonds that can be dressed up as helping the entire country is very simple... Spending that should come out of general taxation will be financed by dipping into pensions instead. The bank-robber Willie Sutton once observed that he raided banks “because that is where the money is”. Taxation this year will already reach a record high of 38pc of GDP, and it may well prove impossible to push it any higher. State spending is getting close to 45pc of output and keeps on rising. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is close to 100pc, and with stagnant output will probably cross that psychologically important threshold this year. Given that this Government has no interest in controlling the juggernaut of state spending, and that its backbenchers would not tolerate it even if it did, pensions are clearly the last remaining target."
Labour is hellbent on destroying the private rental sector – but it’s social homes that are failing - "We’ve all seen the dramatic “nightmare landlord” stories that habitually make the headlines. And while it’s true that some members of my profession aren’t up to scratch, around 81pc of private renters are satisfied with their accommodation. Rather than being tormented by the “nasty landlord” stereotype, most private tenants are happy with their lot – more, in fact, than social renters, according to the English Housing Survey. While 75pc of social tenants reported being satisfied, this was despite the fact that their rents are typically half the cost of private renters. Seeing as private rents are often criticised for being too high – it’s one of the factors underpinning Labour’s misguided attempt to overhaul the system – you’d think those paying so much less would have more satisfaction with their accommodation. The ugly truth is some social tenants have to endure a severe lack of service. Read through any Housing Ombudsman report and your heart will break for the tenants who have had to live without functional kitchens, bathrooms, roof leaks, damp and mould, heating loss and a range of other problems for which any private landlord would, rightly, have the book thrown at them. Social homes are more likely to be overcrowded, suffer from damp and mould during the winter and to overheat during the summer, according to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). Government efforts to tax and legislate landlords out of existence will only put more pressure on the social housing sector, and while some on the Left uphold it as a panacea, the evidence of ailing councils failing to provide adequate accommodation suggests otherwise. What’s more, the availability of social housing is actually worsening... Of course, one of the best things to do when you’re failing as a government is to blame someone else. Private landlords have taken the flack for this and many other failings over the years. It’s led to a stampede of landlords leaving the sector, not just because financially it’s too challenging to make the numbers stack, but mentally, it’s hard to go about the day job when you are judged to be akin to a criminal. Another inconvenient truth is the increase in the time and money landlords now spend managing their rentals. Landlords with 11 or more properties spend an average of 78 hours per month doing some kind of property management, according to Pegasus Insight. Yet still HMRC appears to think this is not a trade, despite taking up almost half of the working month! The research also revealed that, despite the increases in rent charged by private landlords, profit margins were being further squeezed, with repairs and maintenance accounting for 31pc-39pc of landlord expenditure. This is all before you factor in the extra income tax property owners will have to pay from April 2027 because, well, owning and renting a property out for income is easy, isn’t it? Putting all sarcasm aside, Labour must wake up and understand that managing properties is expensive and time-consuming – yet time and money are two things most social housing providers are lacking. How, then, will they cope if private landlords continue to exit and would-be private tenants are forced to look to them for homes instead? Up and down the country there are council properties lying empty because the fact is they have yet to understand the mechanics of the real world of property. If anybody in politics actually wanted to make a proper job of fixing this housing crisis, they’d do well to ask a private landlord: just how do you survive the day-to-day?"
Activists arrested over ‘plans for mass shoplifting campaign’ - "Take Back Power has called for a citizen-led assembly that has the power to tax the rich... Last December, activists vandalised the case containing the Crown Jewels with fruit crumble and custard at the Tower of London on Saturday. Members of Take Back Power staged the attack, filming their unfurling of a sign reading: “Democracy has crumbled – tax the rich”. Police arrested four people. The same month, Left-wing activists emptied bags of horse manure under a Christmas tree at the Ritz hotel in London before being escorted away by security guards."
London council ‘illegally created six LTNs to make millions from motorists’ - "The ruling will prove embarrassing for those who have championed LTNs as a way to reduce traffic and pollution, as well as promote walking and cycling, after the judge described their benefits as being “relatively modest”... LTNs were introduced in the borough despite nitrogen dioxide pollution levels being “well within” UK targets, with a “slight” improvement on roads inside the LTN, but a “negligible increase in pollutants in neighbouring boundary roads on to which traffic had been displaced”. Mr Perry was elected as the Tory mayor in May 2022 after campaigning to scrap the LTNs, but about-turned on that pledge the following year. LTNs were created to improve several aspects of daily life. However, critics claim they simply shift traffic and its pollution onto already congested boundary roads, where poorer communities often live. The council’s own report could not show whether the LTNs increased walking and cycling. Councils across the country have raked in millions of pounds a year in fines from the schemes, which were set up in the pandemic by the Conservative government in an attempt to make people fitter and healthier."
Unemployment now higher in UK than in Italy - "Unemployment is now higher in the UK than in Italy, according to official data that will reinforce worries that Britain is losing the labour market flexibility that has underpinned economic growth. Italy’s jobless rate fell to 5.1 per cent in January, the country’s statistics office said on Wednesday, the lowest rate on record since 2004. It reflects a long-running recovery that has brought Italian unemployment down from peaks above 12 per cent in the aftermath of the Eurozone debt crisis. Meanwhile, UK unemployment rose to 5.2 per cent at the end of 2025, up from a 2022 low of 3.6 per cent to reach its highest level in a decade, outside the pandemic period. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts it will rise further in the short term. Youth unemployment in the UK has also risen to its highest level in a decade, outside Covid, with a jobless rate of 16.1 per cent for 16- to 24-year-olds that now outstrips the Eurozone average, although it remains below Italy’s youth unemployment rate of 18.9 per cent. The figures will reinforce perceptions of a shift in the fortunes of major European economies, with countries in the southern periphery regaining momentum as “core” countries such as France, Germany and the UK lose some of their competitive edge... The UK has historically had lower levels of legal protection for workers but a higher employment rate than elsewhere in Europe. But many economists worry that recent policy choices are undermining jobs growth and making it more likely that the recent rise in unemployment will persist. Bank of England rate-setters said this month that government decisions to raise minimum wage rates and payroll taxes had hit young people especially hard. The Tony Blair Institute said this week that the government needed to rethink policies on tax, immigration and workers’ rights to make it easier for companies to fire staff and people to take up better jobs. The OBR is so far assuming that the rise in UK unemployment is largely due to cyclical weakness in the economy, and that the job market will start to recover from 2027 onwards. But in its latest forecasts, it flagged the risk of a structural change in the labour market that could make higher unemployment a persistent feature of the UK economy."
Time for more regulation and to "tax the 'rich'"
Labour is damaging the economy, says Tony Blair - "Labour’s policies are harming growth and undermining young people’s job prospects, Sir Tony Blair has warned. In his most damning intervention to date, the former prime minister’s think tank took aim at a raft of Labour’s flagship policies, criticising decisions to ramp up the minimum wage, National Insurance contributions and add more workers’ rights red tape. The Tony Blair Institute (TBI), the think tank he runs, said Labour should reverse course on a raft of its flagship labour market policies as the economy struggles and unemployment surges."
Left wingers hate Blair, so they will double down on destroying the economy
The Old World Show on X - "This is what it has always meant. Just look at England in the 50s
The Earls Fitzwilliam spent generations building a prosperous coal mining industry in Northern England, and were beloved by the miners because they cared about safety, paid very well, provided schools and such for the kids, and otherwise were great employers in a way that essentially none of the oligarchic rather than aristocratic coal miners were. In so doing, and building up a stable and prosperous coal extraction industry that was worked by loving and loyal employees, they became immensely wealthy. That wealth was used to build Wentworth Woodhouse, one of the grandest and most gorgeous English country houses, and its beautiful parklands. That state of things lasted for over a century, with the Fitzwilliams and their workers having remarkably good relations even as labor agitation elsewhere was a disaster. Then, in the aftermath of WWII, Attlee's Labour regime was elected, and it nationalized pretty much all of British heavy industry, from the steel mills to the coal mines to the railroads. That meant the Fitzwilliam mines were expropriated from them. Yet worse, it meant a spiteful mutant named Manny Shinwell ordered the strip mining of all the coal on the estate, including through their beautiful and beloved parkland. The workers still loved the Fitzwilliams, and they revolted, and in a genuine outpouring of love and support, refused to follow Shinwell's orders and begged Attlee to reverse the decision. He didn't, the strike was broken, and the grounds were irreparably destroyed. So too was the house, which had its foundation destroyed by the open-cast mining, which went right up to the doorstep. Now it can't be lived in, and the Fitzwilliams had to give it up. The government of course refused to pay for the damage it has done. And what was gotten from all that destruction? Nothing. The coal mined from the Fitzwilliam parkland was essentially valueless, the stolen mines were largely shut down by the Thatcher years, and all the capital that could have funded Britain's post-war rebuilding was instead stolen and wasted on the welfare nanny state. Priceless forms of English heritage were destroyed, and noblesse oblige not just ignored but punished, all to fund the NHS for a few days"
Western Exile on X - "Absolutely nothing should radicalise the Briton of today more than the scale on which Britain's cultural heritage was destroyed in the 20th century. Consider that in 1955, one stately home - the bedrock of British rural life - was demolished every five days."
Alexander on X - "The house that used to sit where my old tennis club now is. The grounds were converted to a housing estate and a park. Also, one of the staircases is now displayed in the Moma in New York."
Western Exile on X - "Another such example would be Deepdene House in Surrey. In 1969 the Italianate masterpiece was demolished and replaced with a ghastly office block."
Will Tanner on X - "Immense amounts of priceless cultural heritage were destroyed in the name of equality, and now the British are equally poor and living in a backwater It is important to remember that this vast destruction of Britain's cultural heritage didn't occur because the landowners suddenly got feckless and lost it all It happened because of extortionate taxes that made it financially impossible for even the wealthiest to maintain these beautiful homes, and often the state just confiscated them in the name of the people, without compensation, as happened during and after WW2 The result of the tax regime was the destruction of a country home a day, and a great stately home a week, for over a decade"
What on earth does it mean to be Left-wing now? - "generally speaking, the more a group or its spokesperson refers to “the rich” with obvious distaste, the further to the Left it is. Confusingly, however, they all say that the interests of “working people” are the sacred measure of political value, without ever defining precisely what that means. This is obviously intended to replace the old Labour shibboleth that the party represented the interests of working class people as opposed to the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. So “working people” is imprecise for a reason: it performs an important function by relinquishing the old militant associations and avoiding the rather patronising note of snobbery implicit in the word “class”. Now, anybody whose heart is in the right place (and who works for a living) can be a part of the Labour movement. Unless and until they earn too much money whereupon they become part of the hated “rich” – even if they have earned their wealth through honest endeavour and in the process created opportunities for other people to become more affluent and therefore not reliant on the state for assistance. So the term “working people” perpetuates the problem rather than solving it. It preserves the distinction between those who work (probably very hard and at genuine risk) perhaps by creating their own businesses, and those who are employed by them. It is the latter group whom Labour notably seeks to protect from the possible predations of the former, through extended employment rights and increases in the minimum wage. Labour, in virtually all its guises, remains on the side of those who work for somebody else rather than embracing those who initiate new enterprises – and that is a sure fire recipe for undermining economic growth. If you want growth – which has been the endlessly reiterated goal of Sir Keir Starmer and his Chancellor – you must embrace the idea of creating new wealth wholeheartedly which means, as Blairite New Labour used to say, letting some people get “filthy rich”. If you want a free enterprise economy to succeed, and to bring the self-determination and social mobility which it can provide, you must not cast yourself as the enemy of entrepreneurialism, especially as the budding entrepreneur is as likely as not to be from what we used to call the “working class”. Running through all this verbiage, there is a deep rooted contradiction which nobody from any of the factions seems prepared to address. Much of Labour’s policy – or lack of policy – is related to its attitudes to welfare spending. Supporting people who are not working, or helping to support those whose working income is too low to sustain them, seems to be the encumbrance which none of the party’s incarnations can confront. Even when the cost of this support is making it impossible for the state to spend money on improving the services which are important to its favoured “working people” – health, education, defence – the Left, even in its diluted modern form, cannot wind it down. Paradoxically, this inability to reform welfare dependency is a major obstacle to reconciling Labour with what used to be its natural supporters. Working class people, whom Labour now call “working people”, are notoriously infuriated by those in their communities who live on welfare benefits. Unlike middle class sympathisers who manage to blame themselves for “social unfairness”, they are inclined to believe that the word “fair” means “you get out of life pretty much what you put in.” The Left’s position is obviously contradictory: if you revere working people and regard their interests as the sacred core of your political mission, then you should share in the resentment that they feel for those who choose not to work, or who calculatedly limit their earnings so as not to lose their in-work benefits. What the welfare programme does, as most “working people” can see, is reward poverty and penalise those who begin to emerge from it by removing guaranteed state support from them. As Arthur Laffer put it: “If you pay people to be poor, you will get more and more poor people.” There are other perversities too in the Left’s message. In all its forms, but most stridently as it approaches the hard end of the spectrum, the Left urges the most extreme environmental measures. Ed Miliband, the hard-Left’s most plausible voice, is evangelical on this point. It seems not to occur to him that the voters whose cost of living would be most severely affected are precisely those “working people” whom he idealises. Telling them to sacrifice their precarious standard of living for the sake of future generations makes him sound more like an indulged aristocrat than a defender of the proletariat. Add to this that many of his comrades on the “progressive” Left support Arab regimes which suppress women and murder homosexuals. What on earth does being Left-wing mean now, in any of its forms? There was a time when there was very little confusion about this. When the Soviet Union ran the show, its agents and fellow travellers knew precisely what line they were to take. If they deviated from it, they would quite possibly be killed. At least we’ve moved on from there."
Calls for wealth tax as Rich List shows £772bn in the hands of just 350 families : r/unitedkingdom - "Blanket 100% tax of inheratance of 1mill"
"I’d leave, to be blunt, because what’s in it for me? Pay tax on company profits, good for me. Pay tax on employing some very cool and talented people, good for me.’ Pay tax when I’ve saved up enough to buy somewhere to live, good for me. Pay tax to educate my kids, not really cool because my Wife speaks a language I don’t and I think it’s important our children can speak to their relatives. But ok. Pay tax on my salary, normal. Pay tax pay tax pay tax.. ok, generally I think we need to contribute because we should care about we live and other people less fortunate who I live with. Ahhh, now after all of the effort to make business profitable you’d like to arbitrarily tax me on what’s left? Bye :) £14m in salaries moved so far out of the U.K. in 2025 from our company, more importantly at our staff request. We are upstaffing in Canada heavily and opened new offices in Portugal and France which is where a lot of our staff have families. Hiring in the US and Canada, Lisbon as well because they are incredibly well educated but don’t have many opportunities in country. Your comment is.. interesting. I stayed because I was born here, all our international team will have left by the end of August. We can’t even prevent basic street crime or control rent or cost of living."
"ok, so where is the utopia with well funded healthcare, police, and schools where you would pay less taxes?"
"I have replied out of thread for some reason, but to answer your question, where would I go? Lausanne in Switzerland or Lisbon in Portugal or somewhere on the coast in the Basque Country in France close to the sea."
"Switzerland has a wealth tax, Portugal does not have good schools / healthcare / policing, and taxes in France are also higher"
"I’m Swiss, amongst other nationalities. I have a very clear understanding of Cantonal and Federal taxes and have an office in Zug. Your understanding of the Swiss tax regime isn’t one I’d recognise. Pictet will give you a quick update if you can spare the time. Portugal/Lisbon has fantastic international schools, Policing contrary to what you say is good. We have family in both Customs and the Police force in Portugal so I’m just going to say you are wrong. Healthcare in Switzerland is insurance based and excellent, healthcare in Portugal is a concern outside of Lisbon and Porto to be charitable. Employers NI in France is 40%, but education is 1/3 of the cost of the U.K. for a top international school outside of Paris. Property is also significantly cheaper, healthcare is ok/significantly better than the U.K. We have family friends who are GP’s in Paris. They despair at the English healthcare system, it’s not great there but miles better than here. Property costs are significantly less including annual taxes. We offered our Engineering teams in London relocation last year, 2/3’s of our staff are leaving and we are paying or have paid for their relocation. Most are going back to their countries of birth with their families. We also pay for middle and senior team’s health insurance and children’s education if requested. Throw all the figures at me you’d like, I can give you a real world view. There’s not really much in your reply that I’d consider and issue in real terms to be fair."
Private schools, pupils and their parents lose historic High Court bid to stop Labour introducing VAT on school fees : r/unitedkingdom - "Yes because private school IS a luxury product and you shouldn't be getting benefits from the rest of us to subside it. Having money to raise frivolous court cases just confirms this..."
"Private schools shouldn't be a thing. It should be based on geographical area and might then encourage those who can to fund state schools so they provide the education they want for their children."
"As Finland has shown when private schools are banned rich families will vote in their local communities to increase taxes to fund improvements to education so that their kids can go to good quality state schools."
"Finland also has entrance exams for schools, something that most people against private schooling in the UK seem to be against."
"Yes. All secondaries in Finland are the uk equivalent of grammar schools which you enter based on your grades and all universities have entrance exams."
Left wing logic: not paying VAT on school fees means the taxpayer is subsidising you
Finland doesn't ban private schools either. As usual, left wingers live in Lalaland
Naturally, people were complaining about school funding
