NI rate rise for 25 million brits planned.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Looks like this has gone down like a sack of shit in the country. Tories' poll figures have fallen off a cliff. Down 4-6% in a week. YouGov, which had the Tories 16% ahead in June and 13% ahead in July now has Labour in the lead.

Funny old game, politics.

[SydneyRover]

Looks like this has gone down like a sack of shit in the country. Tories' poll figures have fallen off a cliff. Down 4-6% in a week. YouGov, which had the Tories 16% ahead in June and 13% ahead in July now has Labour in the lead.

Funny old game, politics.

It's interesting to see the directions from early June where the tories have gone steadily down to as you say with the off the cliff bit and labour has steadily risen except for a hiccup in August then up. Starmer would be reasonably happy with that, a steady increase over 3 months. I guess wages in the country-non metropolitan centres are generally lower and there is plenty of time for people to work out who is going to pay in the end.

[BillyStubbsTears]

From the BBC.

The majority of the £36bn fund raised by the rise over the next three years will go towards tackling the backlog of NHS cases, which has worsened during the Covid pandemic.

A smaller portion of the money - £5.4bn over the next three years - will also go towards changes to the social care system.

I hadn't realised this. So all the stuff I posted last week about how A tax rise is inevitable because it is funding current costs as so much bullshit. Sunak has chosen to tax workers essentially to fund a short term capital cost, to keep borrowing down

This is a truly dreadful decision and they deserve a huge kicking for it.

[hstripes]

If increasing a regressive tax in employees NI and a tax on employing people (employers NI) weren't bad enough.

Doing these things during an economic recovery based largely on the consumer spending of lower/middle income groups is economic stupidity. Especially given interest rates are so low.

Why are they doing this now? Politics. They hope people will have forgotten about this in 3 years come the next election.

[BillyStubbsTears]

It's an obsession on the Right. Because running up debt is essentially a future tax on the wealthy.

When Cameron said in 2010 that Austerity was morally necessary because it was unfair to leave "our children" to pay back the debt, he really DID mean "OUR children". As in HIS children and the children of other very wealthy people.

And here we are again. An extremely wealthy Chancellor choosing to hammer low paid workers rather than have the very wealthy pay.

This might be forgotten by the next election. Or it might become a totem.

[hstripes]

This decision by the Tories represents a huge opportunity for the Labour Party esp in the face of the Tories 'levelling up' agenda which they will lead on in the 'Red Wall' seats they won at the last election.

Also a big test of Keir Starmer's (so far questioned) effectiveness as leader.

To win the next election Labour need to ensure the memory of this decision is firmly in people's minds when they enter the polling stations.

But 3 years is a long time - which is what the Tories are banking on by doing this now rather than more sensibly (for the country if not their own prospects) in a year or so post-recovery.