You’re in Charge…

Reply to the comment left by Gary Dully at 12/12/2017 - 13:42
Anyone holding Donald Trump as anything other than a dire consequence of Tony Blair s care in the community policy after the en-masse closure of mental health facilities needs to carry out a sanity check, self-evaluated or other wise. Outcomes from either I assure you would not be something anyone would advertise or confess up to.

HMP budget - easily halved with a 3 strikes and you are out policy. Deported to an Island with no amenities. If you cant live with civilised people in a civilised manner, off you go !
Not Working but claiming benefits - teach them to fill in pot holes and landscape gardening. Lets fix our byways and highways. There is no crowding out of the private sector by the public sector because the public sector does not have the money.
Absent fathers not paying their way - find them, and make them pay or stick them in prison , especially as my previous suggestion has created surplus capacity.
Armed Forces - who needs them ? We have a nuclear deterrent .
NHS - Any injury self inflicted must be personally paid for. You must legally exercise personal responsibility.
If you smoke and you get lung cancer - pay for it yourself.
You eat too much and become obese - pay for it yourself.
You drink too much and your liver fails - pay for it yourself.
You go rock climbing and you have an accident - pay for it yourself. There are enough risks in life without inviting them openly with the reassurance if something happens the NHS is there.

I think I have balanced the books as regards to the £50bn Brexit bill.

Reply to the comment left by Asif Ahmed at 12/12/2017 - 16:20
Being populist and insulting well meaning people will attract friends not worth having.
Learn to think for yourself and not follow the crowd, lest you be Trumped!
Apart from emotional constipation, what specifically do you have against a man who seeks to return democracy, freedom of speech thought and opinion and hope that your job and country isn't going to be taken and over-run by a cut price mob from a third world hellhole, to the people who are most in need of support?

Reply to the comment left by Asif Ahmed at 12/12/2017 - 17:06
Would you remove all duty from fags and booze based on your proposal?

Reply to the comment left by Mark Alexander at 13/12/2017 - 08:54
Excellent question Mark, and the answer is no I would not.
The UK welfare state has grown all out of proportion since its inception and substantial part of the population are subsidised by tax credits, this entitlement allowance that entitlement allowance and has bred a mind set of entitlement .
Take mobility allowance - annual allowance was circa £7k.
I see all new plate cars displaying these park anywhere badges and I am thinking to myself that's a £20k car , where do they get the money from.
Do your sums, average salary in the city less household expenditure does not translate into being able to afford this transport without assistance. ( I am talking about where I live)
So if my taxes are being used to top up a household income based on a formula and that money is being spent on cigarettes and alcohol, I would like that money back into the treasury.
Cigarettes and alcohol should not be on the shopping list of those receiving any sort of government support - though it often is.

Reply to the comment left by Jamie Moodie at 12/12/2017 - 22:28
I confess to having many afflictions , but never of emotional constipation. Here is a couple of home truths one often cited by many and one that i have personal copyright on.
the much cited - if you are a liberal at the age of 20 you have heart, f you are a liberal at 40 you are a fool.
I have copyright on this - 99% of politicians are liars and 1% tll you what you want to hear.

The current system is not great, we all have gripes. This question seems to have created a lot of (quiet extreme) right wing replies, and no i'm not a lefty, I hope at least some of these are in jest. Generally as a landlord we are lucky to be in the position we are in, some i'm sure will say its not luck its hard work which I would agree with but you also need a bit of luck as there are plenty of people out there that work damn hard for a lot less.

Capitalism is by far the least worst option however of late there is too much wealth going to the few and not enough going to the many, that's why capitalism needs regulation, its a fine balance between regulation/taxation and encouraging enterprise.

The system should be fair, those that can afford the most should pay the most however it is also important I believe to include everyone in society, and part of that is paying their part of tax, if you take people out of the tax system then the link that actually government spending is paid for by everyone goes away and self entitlement and waste creeps in..

Corbyn wants to drag us into socialism, the problem with socialism has always been sooner or late you run out of other peoples money to spend.

We currently have too many low paid jobs in our economy, these jobs do not pay for a developed countries infrastructure (NHS, schools, police etc), we have gone through a sustained period of increasing out population (which we need to do what we can to reduce), this has increased our GDP however it has caused a flood into the labour market which has led to poor terms of employment and low pay. At the moment we lag behind in productivity per person, this is because rather than invest in new technology to improve efficiency companies would rather just hire more staff that they can then fire should the market go back down. Double the statutory redundancy payment.

We don't like the new taxes on landlords however we cannot keep increasing the percentage of property rented as that leads to an uneven society, the issue is we can borrow vast sums of money and leverage that money to make more, some have gambled big and its paid off because of house price inflation, this inflation is stopping and there is a risk of a deflation, interest rates will rise, some landlords business models do not stack up, I think a better way to control the the PRS is to remove the section 24, reduce 3% stamp duty to 1% (just to pay for no stamp duty for first time buyers), say any new loan must not exceed 50% LTV and any existing loan above that must be on a 25yr repayment basis until it reaches 50% LTV. This will mean it is the landlords money at risk if things go wrong not the banks.

We have to look after the most vulnerable in society, sending them effectively to the work house is archaic, pick out certain trades that we are short of, brick layers, plumbers, sparkies, care home worker, nursery worker.. After 6 months on benefits, make them choose one of these and send them back to college to learn (give a man a fish he will eat for a day, give a man a means to fish and he will feed himself and his family for a lifetime).

There are things that need to change, but some of the comments are cruel and barbaric, give people dignity, some people have had extremely hard lives and deep rooted problems that are not their fault... Help them not squash them.

Reply to the comment left by steve p at 13/12/2017 - 10:39An excellent well balanced contribution.

Reply to the comment left by David Price at 13/12/2017 - 10:50
I second that.

Reply to the comment left by steve p at 13/12/2017 - 10:39Hear hear.
I was until Section 24 a lifetime Conservative party member since my teen years, when my father used to be the chairman of a senior cabinet minister's constituency Consrvative association and was a district councillor. From that background you might be able to see that I am not some millennial snowflake.
I am heartily thankful that the majority of the contributors above are nowhere near the levers of power. I am scared enough already and, thanks to the likely results of Brexit for a person with pre-existing conditions which make long term health insurance unlikely to be possible, unfortunately am not in a position to "do a Mark" and flee to Malta to get away from it all.
Frankly, you should be ashamed of yourselves for your lack of common decency and compassion for those who have not shared your abilities, attitudes and opportunities.