UK Politics: Oh Ambassador you are really spoiling us!

[felice]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

Raising an extra £800 billion in tax is certainly possible, but would be either so politically toxic (taxing working people more) or so incompatible with Tory doctrine (taxing companies and the rich, closing tax loopholes) that it is unrealistic.

Of course with working people's incomes all going up by £18k or so, there'd be a substantial increase in tax take without any change in rates. And people spending all that extra money would substantially boost the economy and raise the business tax take. The rich would need to be taxed at higher rates as well, but the additional amount needed would be well under £800 billion.

[Which Tyler]

Opened a new thread on UBI, as it deserves broader discussion than the UK board.

In terms of back-of-an-envelope maths for the UK, let's take Wert's estimate of £800B spend.

UBI would replace pretty much all other welfare payments (some disabled would need higher UBI). So that's £275B already accounted for - let's call it £250 for approximation.

It would also remove the need for the "personal allowance" 0% tax bracket, so the first £12k of income for 37M people (it'd be less because plenty work, but earn less than £12k - but we're doing approximations here) - so thats another £444B - let's call it £425B.

DWP is currently the biggest department of HMG, with 80,000 employees, Staffing costs around £2.6B. A massively simplified UBI would need less than 1\10 of this, so there's another couple of billion on staffing, let alone all the other costs associated. Negligible for these purposes, but allows a little leeway for our margin of error.

Either way, for a spend of £800B, we immediately account for £700B without touching the tax structure.

 

Now, let's look at the £800B estimate to hand out £18k per person - my googling gives different figures (above), and kids aren't free. UK population is about 66.6M (kids will need less, they're hardly free), so £18k each is £1,120B.

But IMO £18k each is high balling it. HMG think £12k is a livable wage (personal allowance before they start taxing you). From personal experience, my wife and I both earn around that, and we're... okay, no real luxuries, but not particularly close to poverty. We certainly have more than we would ever expect UBI to cover. We live in Gloucestershire, so hardly London prices, but hardly Northumbrian or Highlands either.

I'd suggest that an average around £10k as a UBI would be enough to cover the absolute necessities (we spent years earning significantly less than that which was genuinely concerning, but enough to survive). Yes, the South East would need way more, but equally the North East wouldn't need as much.

 

Of course, it's way, way more complicated than this, but on the face of it, responding all welfare payments with UBI, and taxing all earnings beyond it, is pretty-much cash neutral, with active profit being possible.

[Which Tyler]

1. Was the assumption I was going by, and using to generate that extra £400B.

 

The assumption (that wouldn't survive contact with the real world) is that HMG gives you £10k - tax free.

If before that, you had a part time job (which you keep) that earned you £6k a year, you'd now pay £1,200 in tax instead of £0.

Equally, if you had a full time job paying £24k, you'd now pay £4,800 in tax, instead of £2,400.

No apologies necessary - I put the figure here as they were UK specific

 

Or have I completely misunderstood the question?

[lessthanluke]

How the fuck do you survive on 12k a year I wanna know.

[Spockydog]

Meanwhile, here's some more of that glorious, world-beating, taking back of control.

Move to EU to avoid Brexit costs, firms told

Exporters advised by Department for International Trade officials to form EU-based companies to circumvent border issues

Quote

British businesses that export to the continent are being encouraged by government trade advisers to set up separate companies inside the EU in order to get around extra charges, paperwork and taxes resulting from Brexit, the Observer can reveal.

In an extraordinary twist to the Brexit saga, UK small businesses are being told by advisers working for the Department for International Trade (DIT) that the best way to circumvent border issues and VAT problems that have been piling up since 1 January is to register new firms within the EU single market, from where they can distribute their goods far more freely.

 

[Fragile Bird]

So much winning!

[Spockydog]

As Glorious Leader once said, 'Fuck Business.'

He's certainly delivering on that promise.

 

[Pebble thats Stubby]

7 hours ago, lessthanluke said:

How the fuck do you survive on 12k a year I wanna know.

After working out our spending for the last year, hubby and i spent just over 11k in a year.this us excluding what we spent on the new kitchen a d Hubbys replacement car

 

But we don't have kids, totally own our house and there has been covid so not going out. We not been out to dinner since feb, nor had a hair cut nor visited anywhere for fun  that costs any money, nor been to a shop other than food.  So not what I'd really call living.   Yes we could have cut down even more by buying cheaper food, but doubt we could have easily cut down enough if we had to pay a mortgage or rent.

[Heartofice]

10 hours ago, lessthanluke said:

How the fuck do you survive on 12k a year I wanna know.

Living in london that wouldn’t even cover most people’s rent. 

[HexMachina]

10 hours ago, lessthanluke said:

How the fuck do you survive on 12k a year I wanna know.

With great difficulty. At a rough estimate I lived off slightly less than this for 9 months of the year while I was at uni (maximum maintenance loans + personal savings from my previous job + ocassional small financial bumps from family) and I was constantly scraping to get by and budgeting down to the last penny. And that was just me with no dependents. Fora whole year i doubt it would have covered me

[Which Tyler]

12 hours ago, lessthanluke said:

How the fuck do you survive on 12k a year I wanna know.

No kids and no car helps, as does very rarely going out for anything that costs. We have what we have, and we live within our means. Also, luck with when we joined the housing ladder, I guess, the mortgage on our house would struggle to get a flat now - but it would provide a roof over our heads.

But then, IMO UBI would be given to kids, and is there to provide a minimum, not a particularly comfortable life. If you want a car, a new phone every year, expensive TV package, date-night once a week, or a house rather than a flat - you'd need a job.

Of course, there's an argument that UBI should cover that, and that sort of thing is a valid discussion.

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Living in london that wouldn’t even cover most people’s rent. 

Which is why I thinking should be localised, but as the other thread shows, that's far from a universal opinion.

[Spockydog]

Fellow Scots, it's time to break out the blue woad!

Scotland will hold independence referendum if SNP wins in May, says Sturgeon

Quote

Nicola Sturgeon says she will hold an advisory referendum on independence if the Scottish National party wins a majority in May’s Holyrood elections, regardless of whether Westminster consents to the move.

Her party is setting out an 11-point roadmap for taking forward another vote, which will be presented to members of the SNP’s national assembly on Sunday.

Scotland’s first minster told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday morning: “I want to have a legal referendum, that’s what I’m going to seek the authority of the Scottish people for in May and if they give me that authority that’s what I intend to do: to have a legal referendum to give people the right to choose.

“That’s democracy. It’s not about what I want or what Boris Johnson wants”.

Intae them! Intae them! Get intae them!

 

[Heartofice]

18 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

No kids and no car helps, as does very rarely going out for anything that costs. We have what we have, and we live within our means. Also, luck with when we joined the housing ladder, I guess, the mortgage on our house would struggle to get a flat now - but it would provide a roof over our heads.

But then, IMO UBI would be given to kids, and is there to provide a minimum, not a particularly comfortable life. If you want a car, a new phone every year, expensive TV package, date-night once a week, or a house rather than a flat - you'd need a job.

Of course, there's an argument that UBI should cover that, and that sort of thing is a valid discussion.

Which is why I thinking should be localised, but as the other thread shows, that's far from a universal opinion.

This is why, even though I like the idea of UBI, it all seems a little utopian, and the practicalities and also human behaviour make me suspect it just wouldn't work.

For instance, there is this discussion about localisation. If everyone always got the same amount of money they MAYBE we could have some base agreement on the fairness of it. But once you start localising it, once those 'soft southern londoners' get all this extra cash to pay for their fancy flats and lattes, I think you'll just see endless backlashes. Then, knowing how the national conversation goes, you'll have people screaming 'why is this person getting as much as me when I am suffering this level of oppression, surely we should treat different people differently'. I'd guess that after numerous tweaks where we have to just give more money to certain people and less to other you will eventually just end up back where we started.

Thats not even mentioning how we even define what the base amount of money you would need is. We are now at a point where a mobile phone and broadband is essentially a basic human right,  what if we are disadvantaging people by only allowing them a basic broadband package.. the conversation starts getting heated over issues like that then

[Spockydog]

The bill for Boris Johnson’s Brexit is coming in and it’s punishingly steep

British companies are being told by the British government that the way to survive is to lay off British workers and transfer their jobs to folk across the Channel

Quote

You will recall that it was one of the Brexiters’ signature promises that departure from the EU would be a liberating moment. A buccaneering free trade Britain would flourish as wealth creators were unshackled from the stifling regulatory chains of Brussels. What Brexit has actually done is impose a vast amount of cumbersome and costly new bureaucracy on exporters and importers. British companies have been put in a chokehold of regulations, customs declarations, conformity assessments, health and rules-of-origin certifications, VAT demands and inflated shipping charges. While some ministers talk about reducing worker protections in the name of “cutting red tape”, a move for which there is little demand even from employers, Brexit is ensnaring British businesses in writhing snakes of the stuff. I guess Jacob Rees-Mogg, he who thinks that fish unable to reach EU markets are “happier” knowing they are British, will claim that struggling British exporters should be patriotically proud to be throttled by red, white and blue tape.

So. Much. Control.

 

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

The bill for Boris Johnson’s Brexit is coming in and it’s punishingly steep

British companies are being told by the British government that the way to survive is to lay off British workers and transfer their jobs to folk across the Channel

So. Much. Control.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55771223

Control.

[Which Tyler]

Absolutely nothing about the EU prevents countries sourcing vaccines their own way.

Nothing about our out-performing the EU on vaccines (and only on vaccines) is don to us being outside of the EU

It's just as much a straw man as the "EU would have prevented the MHRA from certifying vaccines" there's a base fact, and then a huge lie plonked on top of it

[Spockydog]

4 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

us being outside of the EU has allowed us to out perform them. 

Aye. You got that right.

Death! Death! Deeeeeeeeaaaaathhhhhh!

[Heartofice]

9 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Aye. You got that right.

Death! Death! Deeeeeeeeaaaaathhhhhh!

Well talking of straw men, what has the death rate got to do with Brexit or are you just scrabbling around?

[Heartofice]

2 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

Absolutely nothing about the EU prevents countries sourcing vaccines their own way.

Nothing about our out-performing the EU on vaccines (and only on vaccines) is don to us being outside of the EU

It's just as much a straw man as the "EU would have prevented the MHRA from certifying vaccines" there's a base fact, and then a huge lie plonked on top of it

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-eu-s-vaccine-catastrophe-is-a-crisis-of-its-own-making
Really? Von Der Leyen said:
"We have all agreed, legally binding, that there will be no parallel negotiations, no parallel contracts,' she said. 'We’re all working together.'

But clearly Germany hasn't gotten that message because it's going off on its own, seeing what a slow moving vehicle the EU is. Hardly surprising. 

Not being in the EU vaccination program has meant that we were able to approve vaccines faster than them, and were able to make decisions on our own about which vaccines to purchase. Even the head of drug firm Sanofi said that Brexit was a factor in our speed:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/02/exclusive-brexit-may-have-helped-uk-win-race-covid-vaccine-drug

Anyway, you just have to look at the numbers, very recently the UK had managed to vaccinate as many people as the EU had altogether. We are WELL ahead of them. Brexit is certainly a factor in that. 

Of course , going back in time, you would never have thought that would be the case: 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-vaccine-delays-brexit-ema-expensive

 

Quote

In an article published today on the Guardian website, the academics and lawyers say Boris Johnson’s determination to “go it alone”, free of EU regulation, after Brexit means the UK will probably have to join other non-EU countries in a queue to acquire the vaccine after EU member states have had it, and on less-favourable terms.

 

[Heartofice]

2 hours ago, Spockydog said:

The bill for Boris Johnson’s Brexit is coming in and it’s punishingly steep

British companies are being told by the British government that the way to survive is to lay off British workers and transfer their jobs to folk across the Channel

So. Much. Control.

 

Also, on this, the reverse is also true. It’s really not a big deal

https://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2020/01/more-than-1000-eu-firms-plan-first-uk-office-after-brexit/