[kreuzberger]

The opinion-former mates of theirs will surely be subject to IHT at some stage in the mid-term future, so it's already being pitched as a "death tax", along with all the connotations of manifest unfairness - the revenue will be kicking down your door the moment you croak your last.

Of course, that bilge falls to pieces the moment it comes in to contact with critical thought, but such fragility has never concerned the tories in the past.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Isn't all the evidence that right-wing voters do not apply any form of critical thinking or logic to their voting decisions, but instead go on emotion and 'instinct'? Therefore the IHT cuts appeal to them, as they contain the words 'tax' and 'cut'. Also known as 'I'm fucked if I'm going to pay for infrastructure, security, policing, education or health.'

When Thatcher said there was no such thing as society she knew her base.

On the doorstep I once had a Tory tell me that he wasn't going to pay for education now that his kids had left school...

[Oboogie]

On the doorstep I once had a Tory tell me that he wasn't going to pay for education now that his kids had left school...

My brother and I once got into a similar argument with some Durham Uni students who felt it unreasonable that they should ever pay any tax as they "didn't use any public services", they went to public schools, had private medical insurance etc.

With my economics lecturer (not at Durham!) hat on I took great delight in pointing out the benefits of roads, of not being mugged on the way to the pub, of not living in a country riddled with cholera, of a pleb on standby to haul their silver-spooned arse out of Daddy's pile if it should ever catch alight etc etc.
They couldn't grasp any of that, "but the government pays for that" came the exasperating reply. My brother had to restrain me from putting my militant ex-boxer's hat on and acquainting their heads with the pavement they didn't think they should have to pay for.

I believe the vogue term for them is "cunts".

[Malcolm Armsteen]

It is indeed.

But that disconnect is widespread.

[davidjay]

On the doorstep I once had a Tory tell me that he wasn't going to pay for education now that his kids had left school...

My brother and I once got into a similar argument with some Durham Uni students who felt it unreasonable that they should ever pay any tax as they "didn't use any public services", they went to public schools, had private medical insurance etc.

With my economics lecturer (not at Durham!) hat on I took great delight in pointing out the benefits of roads, of not being mugged on the way to the pub, of not living in a country riddled with cholera, of a pleb on standby to haul their silver-spooned arse out of Daddy's pile if it should ever catch alight etc etc.
They couldn't grasp any of that, "but the government pays for that" came the exasperating reply. My brother had to restrain me from putting my militant ex-boxer's hat on and acquainting their heads with the pavement they didn't think they should have to pay for.

I believe the vogue term for them is "cunts".

We've probably all come across people like this, who think public services just happen by magic and resent every penny they pay in tax because it goes on the undeserving poor. There are times when I think Nye Bevan was too soft on the bastards.

[Abernathy]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2 ... gHQvoIuJ3I

May election is ‘worst kept secret in Westminster’, says senior Labour MP


Big Emily knows.

[Abernathy]

The other thing is that the “arguments” against the Inheritance Tax are so simply and easily destroyed . It simply isn’t “double taxation” on the deceased’s estate. It isn’t paid by the deceased -it cannot be, they’re dead, for fuck’s sake. It IS a tax on unearned income, a personal “windfall tax” if you like. It IS only paid by less than 4% of all the estates in the country, and the fucking King doesn’t pay it, nor the likes of the Duke of Westminster. Most people will be completely unaffected either by the tax, or by its abolition.

Scrapping it really is such an obvious carrot for the fuckwitted, the venal, and the gullible.

[Andy McDandy]

Appeals to the people who think that the past was better because everyone knew their place, and things weren't so complicated, and ooh look at Nice Kate in her nice clothes with her nice children.

You know, morons.

[kreuzberger]

Do they even believe that there any votes in it? Surely, not enough to get them over any electoral line.

It is perhaps just another large, self-quenching drink (pint, obvs) in the Last Chance Saloon where last orders are being called and then they are destined to spend a generation, waiting for "Sir Tim" to open up for the regulars.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Some better projections for the economy.

May would seem a bit early for this to be felt.

[davidjay]

That doesn't look like much growth in early 2024 and summer will be too late for any benefit to work through.

[Killer Whale]

Do they even believe that there any votes in it? Surely, not enough to get them over any electoral line.

The British middle classes like to fantasise about getting improbably rich through hyper-inflation in the housing market, so much so that this kind of unearned wealth is pretty much considered as a 'right'. I would guess that there are a few votes to be had in indulging this transparent bollocks, but this is more about keeping hold of the core than anything more.

[Andy McDandy]

A while back, the cunt Johnson did a column in which he explored inheritance tax and concluded that it was perhaps the best, most progressive and fairest tax out there. He then went on to defend banning it because he didn't feel like paying it.

[Spoonman]

Do they even believe that there any votes in it? Surely, not enough to get them over any electoral line.

The British middle classes like to fantasise about getting improbably rich through hyper-inflation in the housing market, so much so that this kind of unearned wealth is pretty much considered as a 'right'. I would guess that there are a few votes to be had in indulging this transparent bollocks, but this is more about keeping hold of the core than anything more.

There was an article published on the Beeb's site today about how housing costs have became unaffordable to many young Australians...

The year the Australian Dream died

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-67723760

Near the end...

A sharp spike in immigration and government grants pushed up house prices in that era too, but Mr Kohler says it was these tax breaks that forever changed the way Australia thinks about housing.

"It will be impossible to return the price of housing to something less destructive... without purging the idea that housing is a means to create wealth as opposed to simply a place to live," he wrote.

Doing so will upset a large class of voters, which will take courage and innovation from policymakers, he adds.

And that's something critics say successive governments at federal, state and local levels have struggled to muster.

...it's not just an Austrian problem. New Zealand is having similar issues (where a restriction on property ownership by Ardern's Labour government did little to help, and in the end lost out in the recent national election largely thanks to a cost-of-living crises), while closer to home property prices in Dublin have also been skyrocketing to levels rivalling the height of the Celtic Tiger bubble, if not getting even worse.

Ultimately, while many members of parliament and & ministers either hold property portfolios, or are being financially backed by one of more such backers, turkeys aren't going to vote for Christmas.

[davidjay]

Do they even believe that there any votes in it? Surely, not enough to get them over any electoral line.

The British middle classes like to fantasise about getting improbably rich through hyper-inflation in the housing market, so much so that this kind of unearned wealth is pretty much considered as a 'right'. I would guess that there are a few votes to be had in indulging this transparent bollocks, but this is more about keeping hold of the core than anything more.

Even though it won't affect them, they like to think it will. I would guess many Tories think themselves better off than they are.

[Killer Whale]

Even though it won't affect them, they like to think it will. I would guess many Tories think themselves better off than they are.

I often think it's a similar phenomenon to the American lower middle classes who consider themselves to be temporarily embarrassed millionaires much more than members of the precariat.

[Abernathy]

Cue Mr. Moorhouse.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I've just bitten Rob Ford's hand off.

[Abernathy]

So Sunak says he intends to call the election some time in the latter half of this year, but in the meantime he’s getting on with “delivering”

I don’t believe the cunt.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2 ... k-election

Political realities constrain Sunak over when to call an election

[Watchman]

He’s referring to the potential for a GE later in the year as a “working assumption”, what the fuck does that actually mean