FT General Election Poll 2019

[Tommo220]

Just now, Facecloth said:

So how do you think the person earning £20k a month in London/South East feels? Suck it up, you're earning a **** ton more than most. Don't like it, move out of London/South East, commute in. Or better still get a job as cleaner on minimum and see how you cope. 

i don't disagree mate, thats why i lived in Coalville and commuted to London for a couple of years!!

 

Just pointing out that if you want to live in London, £80k isnt MEGA money.

[Bobby Hundreds]

1 minute ago, Facecloth said:

So how do you think the person earning £20k a month in London/South East feels? Suck it up, you're earning a **** ton more than most. Don't like it, move out of London/South East, commute in. Or better still get a job as cleaner on minimum and see how you cope. 

Wait you didn't add on the London allowance for these people, make that £20,800. 

[Babylon]

7 minutes ago, Tommo220 said:

£4.5k/month is "only" £81k/year.  if you factor in the cost of living in London/south east and the cost of housing especially, if you have a mortgage and a couple of kids i doubt you'd have a lot of change left over at the end of the month from netting £4.5k/month - i mean a £500k mortgage on a £600k run of the mill flat in the city is going to run you to £2k a month alone.

 

(i realise that "only £81k" is a lot of money)

Don't live in the city then. A quick random search and you can live in a decent three bed semi in seven oaks for £400k.

Edited 22 November 2019 by Babylon

[Tommo220]

1 minute ago, Babylon said:

Don't live in the city then. A quick random search and you can live in a decent three bed semi in seven oaks for £400k.

 

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-62646336.html

But then the bigger boys will take the p!ss because i live outside zone 4!

[FerrisBueller]

Does anybody know roughly how much more tax you would pay a week/month based on earning 80k a year?

[Tommo220]

Just now, FerrisBueller said:

Does anybody know roughly how much more tax you would pay a week/month based on earning 80k a year?

plenty.

 

https://www.income-tax.co.uk/

 

 

[Facecloth]

1 minute ago, FerrisBueller said:

Does anybody know roughly how much more tax you would pay a week/month based on earning 80k a year?

https://salarybot.co.uk/

 

Punch the figures in here. Don't forget the 5% pension.

[Jon the Hat]

12 minutes ago, Tommo220 said:

i don't disagree mate, thats why i lived in Coalville and commuted to London for a couple of years!!

 

Just pointing out that if you want to live in London, £80k isnt MEGA money.

Your train costs must have been nuts. I pay £420 a month to get into London at the moment.

[Tommo220]

1 minute ago, Jon the Hat said:

Your train costs must have been nuts. I pay £420 a month to get into London at the moment.

i used to Drive to Stanmore a couple of days a week for the tube, then the train from Tamworth the others.

 

I was quite lucky with Public Transport though as i could travel off peak, so it was ONLY £30/40 return.  

[Guest MattP]

3 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

You have some chutzpah, Matt.... "Non-stop complaining about Tories"? You've made it your publicly declared mission on here to constantly complain about Labour/Corbyn as a propagandist for the Tories. 

 

I look forward to your analysis of the Tory manifesto. Plus, as I said, the Labour manifesto was only published yesterday. Some posters might have work or families - or want time to digest Labour's plans before commenting. Not everyone is an amateur propagandist with a knee-jerk response ready to go....

 

As for "hiding", I'd be genuinely interested to hear a response from you, @Salisbury Fox or anyone else to my post above, which has elicited no response.

 

Seriously, read the excellent, politically neutral page linked & look at the graph. Apart from WW1 & WW2, working people are now getting a lower share than at any time since the Edwardian era - and it's still falling. That's not purely a judgment on Tory & New Labour govts (though they've contributed to varying degrees) but a structural issue of this stage of advanced capitalism in the West, the mobility of global capital etc. It affects US & EU countries to varying degrees, too. Should nothing be done about that?

 

Anyone can have their views of Labour's plans, fair enough, but what about the underlying situation that they are seeking to address?

A situation where millions are in poverty even when working (Strokes said he didn't find £50k easy, well what's median pay, £26k? So, half the population are earning less than £26k). A situation where an ever lower share of profit / value-added is going to workers and an ever higher share going to capital - often capital stashed offshore - and fueling ever greater inequality, strain on society/public services & public division. 

 

If you don't like Labour's plans for addressing such problems, what are your alternatives? Or are you just happy to see growing poverty in work, insecurity, social squalor, crime, homelessness and the rest?   

It is all it has been over the last few weeks - Tory Twitter Handles/ dodgy websites/Rees Mogg and Grenfell/Priti Patel is a fascist - it's becoming ridiculous.

 

Me and @SMX11 have already conceded that the Tory spending plans are ridiculous as well, within a decade and a half we've gone from arguing whether we can add a penny on income tax to raise 5 billion for the NHS to just "promising" an extra 20 billion

Why don't we just go the whole hog wth the Greens and promise a trillion? Does it even matter anymore?

As I said in my post the other day - there are tons of ways we can make life easier for, lets keep taking as many of the lower paid out of tax as we can, let's start increasing stamp duty on wealthy foreign nationals looking to buy property in the country and reduce it for younger folk, on top of that let's actually start getting healthy as a nation so we spend less on public services - 200 odd billion a year should be more than enough to fund the healthcare of 60 million people - it isn't because instead of being a nation of fitness freaks we are a nation or obese alcoholics (myself included).

I know you don't believe it, but I do want to see inequality tackled - but I'm not prepared to make everybody poorer just to reduce levels of inequality, I just don't hate the rich that much.

 

As for the graph - no one is actually complaining about the extra public spending, they are laughing at the idea we can raise an extra 80billion a year through additional taxation.
 

3 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

My understanding is that Portugal is now doing well, economically, under its Socialist-led govt.

A socialist government in name only, though doing very well to pass itself off as one whilst implementing more tax breaks and deregulation than your Singapore-on sea Tories would offer.

 

https://www.thenation.com/article/portugal-economy-public-investment/

[Guest MattP]

5 hours ago, leicsmac said:

The various US governments have spent far too much time and money having to kowtow to the religious fundies on this matter. I see no good reason why the UK government need do similarly, barring a sensible week-based cutoff point.

Sadly, I get the feeling this is becoming part of the culture war. Idiots on the right want to stop abortion, so idiots on the left will try and increase it. I don't see any end to this division either now.

 

We have one set of people who feel a strong concept of nationhood, identity, value the traditional family, see a deserving and an undeserving poor, want to close borders and see no problem with abolishing the workings of civic duty and society.

 

Then we have the other side than want to be more global, have more immigration, believe in trans rights etc, individualism, believe wealth should be shared whatever and see no problem with abolishing personal responsibility for your actions.

I just hope it doesn't come to choosing one side or the other.

[Facecloth]

1 minute ago, MattP said:

It is all it has been over the last few weeks - Tory Twitter Handles/ dodgy websites/Rees Mogg and Grenfell/Priti Patel is a fascist - it's becoming ridiculous.

But you're exactly the same the other way round  

 

And if the Tories didn't keep trying to mislead the public by pretending to be independent fact checkers or editing videos, or buying google ad space to bad mouth Labours manifesto (dressed up at first look as not their doing), or making outrageous comments about people dying in fires etc, then people wouldn't be criticising them. You wouldn't let this shit go with Corbyn or McDonnell or Abbot so why should the Tories get a free ride.

[bovril]

Just now, MattP said:

 

We have one set of people who feel a strong concept of nationhood, identity, value the traditional family, see a deserving and an undeserving poor, want to close borders and see no problem with abolishing the workings of civic duty and society.

 

Then we have the other side than want to be more global, have more immigration, believe in trans rights etc, individualism, believe wealth should be shared whatever and see no problem with abolishing personal responsibility for your actions.

Well no, we don't. Some people just think that way to make the complexities and nuances of life easier to deal with.

[Strokes]

2 hours ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

But the facts are that people who earn >=£70k are the top 5% of the UK working popn, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax despite what they think about it.

I wonder if that includes bonuses and dividends as ‘income’ or not.

[Jon the Hat]

48 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Problem is, and it comes back to financial mismanagement again. I know a few lads who earn that through work, they spend money like it's nothing. Range Rover for him and his Mrs £1200 a month. Massive 5 bed house with two people knocking about it in, Mortgage £1600+. Suddenly they are half way through their monthly income and they haven't even started buying their 8000k watch on tick, or their £2000 handbags etc. 

 

There will be some that feel exceptionally well off and others who feel like they have nothing at the end of the month. 

Not rich then are they?  If you have to carefully manage your money to have some left at the end of th month, if you are choosing between a new car and a holiday, or if putting the kids in Private school means no new cars or haoliday, then you are not Rich.  Comfortable probably, but definitely not rich.  

Edited 22 November 2019 by Jon the Hat

[Milo]

1 hour ago, Koke said:

£80000 a year is £1600 a week. That guy said he's not even in the top 50% earners in UK. Also, what accountants does he knows that earns more than £80k. 

I’m confused - some people on here are talking pre-tax and some after tax. 

 

£80k salary would be taxed to the tune of about £25k. So earnings work out about a grand a week, or just over two hundred quid a day. 

 

I know plenty of labourers who charge this daily rate.

 

It’s a lot, but I doubt the guy currently tiling my kitchen would class himself in the ‘rich’ bracket. 🤷‍♂️ 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bobby Hundreds]

1 minute ago, Milo said:

I’m confused - some people on here are talking pre-tax and some after tax. 

 

£80k salary would be taxed to the tune of about £25k. So earnings work out about a grand a week, or just over two hundred quid a day. 

 

I know plenty of labourers who charge this daily rate.

 

It’s a lot, but I doubt the guy currently tiling my kitchen would class himself in the ‘rich’ bracket. 🤷‍♂️ 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you saying they aren't paying tax?

[Babylon]

4 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Not rich then are they?  If you have to carefully manage your money to have some left at the end of th month, if you are choosing between a new car and a holiday, or if putting the kids in Private school means no new cars or haoliday, then you are not Rich.  Comfortable probably, but definitely not rich.  

If you earn £80,000 and don't have loads left at the end of the month then you are financially incompetent at best. You'd be in the top 5%, so yeah compared to the average person you are rich. If you are even debating putting a kid in private school, then you are rich. It's not something most of this country could even comprehend being able to do. 

[Finnaldo]

2 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Not rich then are they?  If you have to carefully manage your money to have some left at the end of th month, if you are choosing between a new car and a holiday, or if putting the kids in Private school means no new cars or haoliday, then you are not Rich.  Comfortable probably, but definitely not rich.  

 

Top 5% would probably classify you as 'rich' if you're working on demographics. Babs specifically said 'two Range Rovers', presumably new on lease, 8 grand watch and a 5 bedroom house before they're 'struggling'. On that line you could argue having to choose between Private School and the new Yacht doesn't make you rich. Spaffing money you don't have doesn't necessarily mean you're not rich.

[Strokes]

46 minutes ago, Tommo220 said:

plenty.

 

https://www.income-tax.co.uk/

 

 

That is assuming you don’t have a company vehicle, you need to half that tax code.

[SecretPro]

Are people seriously arguing about other people earning £80k per annum having to pay an extra tenner a month in tax? The state of it

Edited 22 November 2019 by SecretPro

[Babylon]

7 minutes ago, Milo said:

It’s a lot, but I doubt the guy currently tiling my kitchen would class himself in the ‘rich’ bracket. 🤷‍♂️ 

Rich compared to a footballer? No. Rich compared to everyone else? If you are pulling £1000 a week after tax, then yeah you should be living a life of comfort not available to most. 

[WigstonWanderer]

59 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Problem is, and it comes back to financial mismanagement again. I know a few lads who earn that through work, they spend money like it's nothing. Range Rover for him and his Mrs £1200 a month. Massive 5 bed house with two people knocking about it in, Mortgage £1600+. Suddenly they are half way through their monthly income and they haven't even started buying their 8000k watch on tick, or their £2000 handbags etc. 

 

There will be some that feel exceptionally well off and others who feel like they have nothing at the end of the month. 

Yup, then there’s all the cocaine & prossies

[Babylon]

Just now, WigstonWanderer said:

Yup, then there’s all the cocaine & prossies

I do that on the average wage....   

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, MattP said:

Sadly, I get the feeling this is becoming part of the culture war. Idiots on the right want to stop abortion, so idiots on the left will try and increase it. I don't see any end to this division either now.

 

We have one set of people who feel a strong concept of nationhood, identity, value the traditional family, see a deserving and an undeserving poor, want to close borders and see no problem with abolishing the workings of civic duty and society.

 

Then we have the other side than want to be more global, have more immigration, believe in trans rights etc, individualism, believe wealth should be shared whatever and see no problem with abolishing personal responsibility for your actions.

I just hope it doesn't come to choosing one side or the other.

As @bovril above says and I'll elaborate on here, a lot of that is simply down to a lot of people wanting to reduce things to those concepts in order to make their lives easier to deal with. However, perception is important (especially when it is codified into legislation) so there's a point there. I don't think it's an entirely false dichotomy, but it's not as strong as perhaps you might think it is.

 

That being said, I do agree that such blatantly polarised thought isn't good because it naturally encourages conflict, which mankind really cannot afford.

 

All in all, if I'm going to choose a side, it will be the one that wants what we do in society to not be tied up in our identity and based purely on personal choice, and one where morality is entirely subjective and legislated by no one up to the basic point where one's actions cause harm to another independent human or group of humans. Where mutual aid is the key driver of society as opposed to competition, confrontation and conflict. Where change is easy and people adapt to those changes and progress. So yeah...that probably could come down to individualism and progressivism, really.

 

And the reason I would choose that side is not out of any perceived stronger moral standing - but because IMO such a world represents the best chance not only of the largest amount of humans actually living fulfilling and happy lives but also of human civilisation actually lasting as long as we can possibly make it do so. Whether someone thinks making human civilisation last as long as it can is moral in of itself is purely down to the beholder, of course.