Tory leadership failure Part V: Rishi ‘Infosys’ Sunak

[billo]

This was being reported on the BBC News and Politics Live yesterday following the release of information regarding Sunak's earnings and tax affairs.

A Labour spokesperson pointed out, correctly I assume - I don't know for certain but no one challenged it - that Starmer's pension arrangement were put in place when he was DPP by a Tory government as part of wider pension arrangements for High Court judges.

Agree though that it doesn't look too good for him to now criticise the government for putting similar arrangements in place for doctors, unless Labour commit to a wholesale review of pensions and tax.

They have not made arrangements just for doctors, they have put this in place for EVERYONE which, I suspect, includes many of them and their friends. His criticism is that medics could have been singled out just like himself and judges were by a Tory gov.

 

[Tony L]

No Corbyn fan here, but I’ll call bullshit when I see it. Corbyn’s planned taxes were no higher than Thatcher’s IIRC.

They were a lot less.

It is essential to view the current Conservative Party and their Republican equivalents as something entirely new. They are not the conservatism of the past, they are a new extreme-right ideology funded by a billionaire elite. Corbyn’s tax policy was arguably well to the right of Thatcher’s as the top-rate was much lower (60% for most of her leadership, IIRC Corbyn wanted 45%). I bet Thatcher built far more social housing than Corbyn was proposing too. We really have slammed way to the right over the past 50 years, but the gaslighting has been so gradual the idiots don’t notice and they keep voting Conservative even when it is blindingly obvious only an oligarch elite benefit. The rest of us are far poorer with increased cost of living and decaying public services. Yet look! A trans refugee with a boat!

 

[ks.234]

No Corbyn fan here, but I’ll call bullshit when I see it. Corbyn’s planned taxes were no higher than Thatcher’s IIRC.

Also, Corbyn’s tax rises effected only the top 5%.

 

[ff1d1l]

Yup, the same tired and ill-informed pontytrope trotted out for the nth time.

 

[Ponty]

Also, Corbyn’s tax rises effected only the top 5%.

That’s the problem. You could tax the top 5% to the hilt and it wouldn’t make a dent in terms of making life better for wider society. Once you’ve rinsed, or driven out, the top 5%, they are no longer the top 5% so you have to go after the next tranche, ad infinitum.

 

[paulfromcamden]

You could tax the top 5% to the hilt and it wouldn’t make a dent in terms of making life better for wider society.

I thought it was a handful of billionaires whose tax kept us plebs in a life of luxury - the top 1% paying 28% of all income tax etc.

 

[Ponty]

I thought it was a handful of billionaires whose tax kept us plebs in a life of luxury - the top 1% paying 28% of all income tax etc.

IIRC that’s the top 1% of income tax payers. Chances are many here fall into that category.

 

[ks.234]

That’s the problem. You could tax the top 5% to the hilt and it wouldn’t make a dent in terms of making life better for wider society. Once you’ve rinsed, or driven out, the top 5%, they are no longer the top 5% so you have to go after the next tranche, ad infinitum.

Sorry, don’t follow that argument at all. If you tax the rich more, then income inequality will fall.

If you are interested in benefit to a wider society the obvious solution is to pay people like nurses, train drivers, etc a lot more money. Then there would be a far bigger tax pool, a more equal society, and a better health and train service.

 

[ks.234]

IIRC that’s the top 1% of income tax payers. Chances are many here fall into that category.

Not me.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Indeed. You can see why people seek to (legally) protect wealth they have built, when a govt can change everything in a heartbeat. The risk of Corbyn becoming PM being a good example. Very difficult for people to make long term life plans.

All very laudable but suspect most of it would disappear into a quagmire of govt inefficiency. I can’t help thinking we have a higher tax burden now than even Corbyn could dream of, certainly feels like it. Trouble is he just wanted to hammer those who have more than him, which just wouldn’t collect enough revenue to have an impact on wider society.

I’m suggesting that the current overall tax burden could actually be higher than Corbyn was proposing.

On the one hand you seem to be arguing that people were afraid of Corbyn because of the risk to their tax planning, and on the other you seem to be arguing that the current tax burden is higher than what was risked under Corbyn. It makes it difficult to discern the basis of your argument, so as to engage with it.

 

[MikeMA]

They have not made arrangements just for doctors, they have put this in place for EVERYONE which, I suspect, includes many of them and their friends. His criticism is that medics could have been singled out just like himself and judges were by a Tory gov.

Yes of course you’re right ,not just doctors, my bad

 

[Tony L]

That’s the problem. You could tax the top 5% to the hilt and it wouldn’t make a dent in terms of making life better for wider society. Once you’ve rinsed, or driven out, the top 5%, they are no longer the top 5% so you have to go after the next tranche, ad infinitum.

Once the billionaire criminality that funds the Conservative & Republican parties has been driven out there is maybe a chance to rebalance. Again I suspect your wealth brings you blinkers as to just how awful the modern UK is. I have to walk less than half a mile to see people queuing at foodbanks. A concept that didn’t even exist before the UK fell to the oligarchy of Johnson, Sunak etc.

 

[ks.234]

Once the billionaire criminality that funds the Conservative & Republican parties has been driven out there is maybe a chance to rebalance. Again I suspect your wealth brings you blinkers as to just how awful the modern UK is. I have to walk less than half a mile to see people queuing at foodbanks. A concept that didn’t even exist before the UK fell to the oligarchy of Johnson, Sunak etc.

Cost of living: Food banks used by 3% of UK families
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65050920

 

[Ponty]

On the one hand you seem to be arguing that people were afraid of Corbyn because of the risk to their tax planning, and on the other you seem to be arguing that the current tax burden is higher than what was risked under Corbyn. It makes it difficult to discern the basis of your argument, so as to engage with it.

Well, a thing called covid came along, then a war, massively driving up public spending and debt, which now has to be recouped. What we saw was a conservative govt handing out money like a labour govt. They had little choice in reality. And here we are.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Going to take issue with your argument a tad, there. I don't recall any Labour government handing out money to its mates, cronies and donors.

£37 billion to Dido Harding for Test and Trace. That's a third of the annual NHS budget. It's a third of the cost of HS2. To somebody who failed at TalkTalk, and elsewhere, and we've never seen any sort of accounting for the preposterous sums spent there. And that's before we talk about the useless PPE and the millions (collectively billions) spent on that, often to companies set up in some cases only weeks before and fasttracked via the VIP lane.

So no, not spending like a Labour government. Not even remotely like that.

 

[Ponty]

Sorry, don’t follow that argument at all. If you tax the rich more, then income inequality will fall.

If you are interested in benefit to a wider society the obvious solution is to pay people like nurses, train drivers, etc a lot more money. Then there would be a far bigger tax pool, a more equal society, and a better health and train service.

And a lot more inflation.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Don't give the less well off more, it only causes inflation. Got it.

 

[Ponty]

Going to take issue with your argument a tad, there. I don't recall any Labour government handing out money to its mates, cronies and donors.

£37 billion to Dido Harding for Test and Trace. That's a third of the annual NHS budget. It's a third of the cost of HS2. To somebody who failed at TalkTalk, and elsewhere, and we've never seen any sort of accounting for the preposterous sums spent there. And that's before we talk about the useless PPE and the millions (collectively billions) spent on that, often to companies set up in some cases only weeks before and fasttracked via the VIP lane.

So no, not spending like a Labour government. Not even remotely like that.

No argument with Harding etc. Worse than useless and funds should be recovered. We had a govt paying people to not work and stay at home, paying businesses, bailing out rail companies, airlines etc. Now we have a govt paying people’s energy bills. That’s really not normal or sustainable.

 

[Colin L]

The old "taxing the rich too much will drive them out" trope is doing overtime in this thread.
Can't understand why we don't follow the US example and make UK passport holders pay tax on their worldwide income and while they are at it ban offshore trusts.
Presumably that doesn't sit well with the tax-dodging rich.

 

[Ponty]

Don't give the less well off more, it only causes inflation. Got it.

Well, if you hugely increase the pay of millions of people, I’d suggest that’s inflationary, yes.