The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[snowychap]

13 minutes ago, Risso said:

A rise in the personal allowance benefits everybody.

It doesn't benefit those people whose income is already below the personal allowance.

Edited May 4, 2017 by snowychap

[TrentVilla]

8 minutes ago, blandy said:

I think the last sentence is right, but not the first. Different takes on it, or different experiences maybe lead us to our views. I think a fair chunk of the Corbyn/Momentum support is from people who wouldn't be thought of as traditionally working class by a long way and a lot of the people who have deserted him would be.

Further, the UKIPs or former UKIPs voters are likely to make a huge difference in this election - I saw a survey/poll that said something like a 30-40% of them were gonna stay UKIPs, about 40-50%+ were going to go back to the tories and hardly any to Labour, Liberals or Greens. There were something like 12 million people voted for the purple pillocks last time, weren't there? or 8 million. Anyway, loads. Mostly poorly educated, northern and midlands people, plus the various middle class racist nans etc. I wonder if they'll not be a major factor. And hardly any of them like Corbyn or Labour.

In terms of the first/second sentences, I think they go hand in hand.

I take your above point about the loss of bedrock support to UKIP, but I don't think that removes the idea that the remaining bedrocks of the two main parties are to a fairly large extent class orientated. You are even alluding to the class factor in your second paragraph above.

I just don't think there are very many working class members of the Tory party or upper class members of the Labour Party, other than some of the MP's obviously.

[Risso]

14 minutes ago, blandy said:

If you raise the 40% threshold from 42K to 45K that benefits only well paid people doesn't it?

It depends if you class £42K as especially well paid, I suppose.  Somebody bringing up a family and paying a mortgage on that amount isn't going to consider that that's much of a "tax cut for the rich" I'm guessing.  

[Chindie]

I think you'll struggle to find many people who would class £42k as not well paid. It's miles above average wage.

[Risso]

17 minutes ago, snowychap said:

It doesn't benefit those people whose income is already below the personal allowance.

True, I'll give you that, Captain Pedantic!  

Although of course, anybody over the age of 25, working for more than 30 hours a week, has to earn more than that by law.

[StefanAVFC]

34 minutes ago, Risso said:

If you're going to lump everybody together, I'd say we're a naturally hard-working and entrepreneurial country.  I loathe the self-defeating and making-life-equally-shit-for-everybody nature of socialism with a passion.  Wanting the best for your family isn't selfish, it's human nature.  And I firmly believe that that belief creates wealth for everybody else too.

I think there's a realistic reality that's somewhere between what we are now as a nation and the hardcore socialism you talk about it but I don't think there's an appetite for it.

[Risso]

7 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I think you'll struggle to find many people who would class £42k as not well paid. It's miles above average wage.

It's above the overall average of course, but the average salary for anybody who has been working for 10 years or more is £36K, and 20 years or more is £39K. (Figures plucked from monster.co.uk).  I really, really don't think that that constitutes "tax cuts for the rich".  Somebody on £45,000 will be taking home roughly £2,800 a month.  After mortgage/rent, council tax, food, heat, light, travel costs etc, I don't think anybody where that is the main salary in the family is going to be snorting coke off a hooker's ringpiece any time soon.

Edited May 4, 2017 by Risso

[Chindie]

3 minutes ago, Risso said:

It's above the overall average of course, but the average salary for anybody who has been working for 10 years or more is £36K, and 20 years or more is £39K. (Figures plucked from monster.co.uk).  I really, really don't think that that constitutes "tax cuts for the rich".  Somebody on £45,000 will be taking home roughly £2,800 a month.  After mortgage/rent, council tax, food, heat, light, travel costs etc, I don't think anybody where that is the main salary in the family is going to be snorting coke off a hooker's ringpiece any time soon.

I'm not sure I'd expect anyone bar the '1%' to be snorting coke from hookers orifices. But I can't comprehend a £42k salary as anything other than fairly well paid. I'd literally crawl through fire for that money, and I say that as someone who could be doing far worse than I am. And I'm paying the same bills as a sole earner.

£42k is well paid.

[jon_c]

28 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I think you'll struggle to find many people who would class £42k as not well paid. It's miles above average wage.

You'd be lucky to find a job in the service, or retail industries (A huge percentage of the UK workforce) that pays half that. 

[Chindie]

2 minutes ago, jon_c said:

You'd be lucky to find a job in the service, or retail industries (A huge percentage of the UK workforce) that pays half that. 

Indeed. Vast swathes of this country can't imagine a wage that high. A working couple with main income at that level is solidly middle class.

[Risso]

18 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I'm not sure I'd expect anyone bar the '1%' to be snorting coke from hookers orifices. But I can't comprehend a £42k salary as anything other than fairly well paid. I'd literally crawl through fire for that money, and I say that as someone who could be doing far worse than I am. And I'm paying the same bills as a sole earner.

£42k is well paid.

It's all relative though.  As per the figures I quoted, it's a little bit above average for most people in their late 30's/40's.  It might be well paid, but anybody earning that with a family to support certainly wouldn't consider themselves "rich".  I supported a family of 4 on that, and after the all the bills was lucky if I had anything at all left over each month.

[jon_c]

1 minute ago, Risso said:

It's all relative though.  As per the figures I quoted, it's a little bit above average for most people in their late 30's/40's.  It might be well paid, but anybody earning that with a family to support certainly wouldn't consider themselves "rich".  I supported a family of 4 on that, and after the all the bills was lucky if I had anything at all left over each month.

That's because they cut your tax family credits.

[markavfc40]

3 hours ago, Risso said:

  I loathe the self-defeating and making-life-equally-shit-for-everybody nature of socialism with a passion.  Wanting the best for your family isn't selfish, it's human nature.  

I think that is perfectly reasonable and I am no different in that regard but I think where there is a divide is that for some of us it is human nature to also want what is best for the disabled guy down the road, the old lady two streets away who is dependent on social care, the bloke who has just lost his job and needs help from the state, the Syrian family who have had their life's destroyed through no fault of their own and who want a chance to build a new life for themselves. It is also human nature, for some of us, to want to ensure that health care is the best it can be for everyone regardless of how many pennies you have in your pocket and that regardless of where you live or how much money mommy and daddy have all children have access to a good school.

It isn't socialism that is about making things shit for everybody. It is the Tories who have promoted a race to the bottom for the vast majority of the population. Who played off public sector against private sector in regard to issues such as pensions, freezing pay rises for nurses and other public sector workers and who have overseen a huge rise in the working poor, the stagnation of wages, the drop in living standards for the majority of us in real terms all whilst increasing debt, destroying our public services and demonizing those reliant on state help be they disabled or otherwise. Quite a record over the last seven years all in the name of reducing the deficit when really it was simply ideological choices. If we let them they will now spend the next god knows how many years making similar choices, and some, whilst hiding behind Brexit.

Edited May 4, 2017 by markavfc40

[snowychap]

2 hours ago, Risso said:

True, I'll give you that, Captain Pedantic!  

Although of course, anybody over the age of 25, working for more than 30 hours a week, has to earn more than that by law.

It was more than mere pedantry that led me to making that point, though.

The IFS in their 2014 Green budget booklet made the claim more than once that 17% of workers in 2014/15 paid no income tax with the personal allowance at the level it was then.

Excerpt:

Quote

Further increases to the income tax personal allowance would not be particularly effective in helping the low paid. The lowest income 17% of workers will pay no income tax in 2014–15 anyway. A large majority of the giveaway would go to families in the top half of the income distribution, or with no one in work (mostly pensioners).

And many of the lower-income gainers would gain only partially as their universal credit and/or council tax support would be automatically reduced.

 

[blandy]

3 hours ago, TrentVilla said:

You are even alluding to the class factor in your second paragraph above.

In so much as I was saying that poorly edicuated northern voters are switching in significant number back to the TORIES from UKIPs (according to the analysis done which I saw on that internets). - i.e. What are these people doing voting tory and UKIPs if Labour is "their" party (for class reasons). Does that explain my point better?

[TrentVilla]

12 minutes ago, blandy said:

In so much as I was saying that poorly edicuated northern voters are switching in significant number back to the TORIES from UKIPs (according to the analysis done which I saw on that internets). - i.e. What are these people doing voting tory and UKIPs if Labour is "their" party (for class reasons). Does that explain my point better?

It does. I'd assumed those switching back to the Tories to be your southern variety shandy drinking softies who had become kippers over immigration.

[sharkyvilla]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

It was more than mere pedantry that led me to making that point, though.

The IFS in their 2014 Green budget booklet made the claim more than once that 17% of workers in 2014/15 paid no income tax with the personal allowance at the level it was then.

Excerpt:

 

In 2016, 47% of working-age adults paid no tax and the top 1% of earners paid 27% of the nations tax, up 3% on the previous year.  1.6m more people were in the 40% bracket too so revenues would have gone up there too.

[snowychap]

55 minutes ago, sharkyvilla said:

In 2016, 47% of working-age adults paid no tax

Did they not buy anything?

55 minutes ago, sharkyvilla said:

the top 1% of earners paid 27% of the nations tax

You mean income tax here, too, don't you?

I'm not really sure what the stats that you've posted have to do with the point I was making or why you'd insist on trotting out the old '1% pay blah blah' mantra when that fails to tell the story of what proportion of the income of all 'earners' that the 1% receive (in order that 27% of the income tax received comes from them*). Edit: I didn't mean that to sound antagonistic - it just shows my frustration at the widespread use of this.

 

* I don't believe simply calculating back from amount of income tax received and the relevant rates would get you to an accurate figure just in case anyone's so inclined to try and do that.

Edited May 4, 2017 by snowychap

[Awol]

Andrew Marr: Are you a Marxist?

J McDonnell: There is a lot to learn from reading Capital..

JM is usually pretty unashamed about being a Marxist so it was a fair question to ask the possible next Chancellor.

I suspect it will get repeated over and over in interviews until he admits it - the political equivalent of drinking polonium tea - or denies it and is outed for lying. 

This is one part of his political past McDonnell won't be able to spin away.

 

[a m ole]

4 minutes ago, Awol said:

Andrew Marr: Are you a Marxist?

J McDonnell: There is a lot to learn from reading Capital..

JM is usually pretty unashamed about being a Marxist so it was a fair question to ask the possible next Chancellor.

I suspect it will get repeated over and over in interviews until he admits it - the political equivalent of drinking polonium tea - or denies it and is outed for lying. 

This is one part of his political past McDonnell won't be able to spin away.

 

He did also say there were things that Marx got wrong.