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Post by michael on Jan 17, 2018 13:34:28 GMT
Another Facebook post complaining about cuts to public services appeared on my timeline recently. Obviously the reality of living within our means is some way off, if not impossible, I thought I'd open this can of worms. So, how would you balance UK PLCs books?
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Post by LandieMark on Jan 17, 2018 13:48:54 GMT
I don’t think can be done without serious reform, but look at the outcry when the benefits system got an overhaul. As soon as the NHS is mentioned then the government gets accused of trying to destroy it.
Rock and hard place situation.
I have a particular hatred of our local MP as she is viciously left wing and spouts vitriol at every opportunity.
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Post by Big Blue on Jan 17, 2018 14:08:31 GMT
So many that it would hurt.
1. Stop making certain procedures even remotely available on the NHS. I have no idea about some cosmetic ones but the overriding activities related to keeping people alive that have no quality of life and the costs associated are folly. When we discussed further operations with my dad and the likelihood of success he just gave it the thumbs down and was dead less than a week later. He never had to live life like he didn't want to and it was cheaper all round. Yes, that is my beloved dad I'm talking about: no time for sentiment.
2. Look at the amount of excess regulation in public operations and reduce it. Working on the railway is dangerous and you know about it. One of the reasons we have so many safety staff on site is that the workers and the safety staff don't really pay enough attention on an individual basis so the solution after a few incidents is to increase the numbers of lookouts etc.
3. More accountability to members of the public driven by a swifter pre-court exercise. Some claims are simply laughable and they get so far into the legal system that the cost in productivity and to the public purse is a disgrace.
4. Simplified benefits systems. You either get benefits because you have kids / an ailment / a disability / are poor or you don't. If you can't work and you have a good reason not to fair enough; if there's no work at all then vouchers not cash; if there's work but you don't like the idea of it then bad luck (probably catching myself in that one!)
5. Shoot all train drivers and introduce Driverless trains. These things run on rails, FFS. How long ago did Hornby introduce a computer system to control the flow of its trains autonomously? The increase in productivity and reduction in strike time will probably pay the deficit off in a week or two.
6. Defer all PLC dividends for 24 months from announcement so that if the following two years are a shower of shit the people that have invested in the business really are paying for their investment.
7. Ban all politicians from working in the private sector for a period of 5 years from leaving office. The can do paid organisational charity work or work in the CS or inside the party giving the benefit of their experience.
8. Increase the competition thresholds for public works and services by about 10-fold. This means if a local authority wants to just give Joe Bloggs Ltd the work tending to the plants in the local area they don't have to make him spend 100 man-hours tendering for it against Capita / Interserve / Veola etc. who have a team that ONLY do that all week long. That will save enough to feed the third world with 24Ct gold leaf within two years I reckon.
I could go on and on but basically there needs to be a massive period of painfulness before we got anywhere near living within our means. And lots of people would starve to death in that period as well.
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Post by johnc on Jan 17, 2018 14:46:07 GMT
I've just had a client call me to ask if they should agree to do work for the liquidator of Carillion. Apparently they are desperately running around trying to find people who are prepared to do work because so many of the previous Carillion contractors are now bust or have told them where to stick it. My client gave up doing much work for them about 18mths ago because it was taking 3 to 4 months to get paid on a good day.
I can see that the contractors who are prepared to work for them again are not going to miss the liquidator when it comes to quotes for the jobs - and the Government is underwriting that work!
My wife is just back from hospital after our daughter had a few hours of allergy testing - she said that half the nurses were standing about chatting the whole time she was there. Perhaps some NHS resources need re-aligning?
Our local authority wastes a fortune dumping tar into holes which a few weeks later is completely gone - there should be a law against this. They should have to do the job properly except in emergencies. A pothole at the top of our road had its 3rd winter fill just last week and I am sure that when the snow clears it will need filled yet again. The last time it was filled, there were 3 men and a lorry so it is hardly one man and a bucket.
The benefits system needs a massive overhaul to make it worthwhile for people to work. Why should someone who normally works 16 hours a week but does an extra shift lose their full housing allowance? It doesn't make sense. It also promotes tax evasion because if the employer needs the person to work more, he/she can't put it through the books so the worker gets paid in cash. The employer perhaps then does some cash jobs to get the money to pay the people he can't pay through the books. This then becomes the norm and the temptation is to do a few more cash jobs.
Basic rate tax should probably go up 1%, dividend tax should go up to 10%, they should drop any IR35 type legislation and reintroduce a higher personal allowance for pensioners so that those who depend on dividends aren't penalised.
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Post by alf on Jan 17, 2018 15:27:33 GMT
The Blair/Brown governments massively increased spending in some public service areas (such as the NHS) with very little return in efficiency - it is not just about money, by a log long way. Trevor's post above is spot on - it massively pisses me off that the Corbyn wing of Labour, and all their social media crap, endlessly claim the Tories want to destroy the NHS. Every sane person with a vaguely centrist political view (and the Tories are bang in the centre currently, except perhaps on Brexit) wants good public services. But they have to be run efficiently, and fairly, and know what they are supposed to be doing. Ringfencing NHS spending while cutting other areas was a mistake IMHO, and we see areas like adult social care where people are trying to pass the buck massively. It needs a top down look at which services should be doing what, and a long term view on spending now to avoid massive financial issues later (e.g. preventative medicine). But in our political system this is unlikely....
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 17, 2018 16:20:28 GMT
Never mind balancing the books, I'd like to get a look at the books. The Government spends £772 billion every year and we always seem to be pissing round the edges with a few hundred million here and there. I'd need a lot of convincing we're not just pissing billions up the wall on stuff we don't get to hear about.
Blue for President. Make The UK Great Again!
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Post by johnc on Jan 17, 2018 17:24:29 GMT
Public service index linked pensions cost a significant slice and of course MP's get a full pension after 5 terms in office - I think that is about £45K/£50K a year for maybe 20 to 25 years service.
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Post by bryan on Jan 17, 2018 17:48:24 GMT
Having looked at a job in the NHS recently, and taken Mrs M to used it teeth extraction services, I have paid a little closer attention than normal. I think it needs a definition in what services it provides and what is out of scope (as per BB above) and it needs proper cohesive management across the board so the clinicians can do their thing. Whilst sat in the waiting room for Mrs M's wisdom teeth - there were 3 receptionists working through one hatch (one for each department in the building rather than a shared service), a chap arrived to swap over the water cooler bottles (we swapped to mains water fountains years ago) and the walls were covered in posters but no one seemed to take down the old stuff.....the problem isn't money it is using what they have more effectively
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Post by chipbutty on Jan 17, 2018 18:26:01 GMT
Taxation needs to be much simpler - then you can de-scale the HMRC monolith (will save massive amounts of money) and collect more taxation as people will be less able and inclined to engage in avoidance activities.
Obviously, we need some supporting spreadsheetery - but in principle, something along the lines of :
1st £20k - tax free - after which every subsequent £ is taxed at 30% flat.
No tax credits (why take money off people and then pay other people to give it back ?? - just don't take it in the first place).
Limits on what self employed people can claim as offset (e.g - a P/T claiming the electricity to their washing machine to wash their sports kit).
Abolish RFL (replace with 2p a litre on fuel).
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Post by johnc on Jan 17, 2018 20:10:15 GMT
Limits on what self employed people can claim as offset (e.g - a P/T claiming the electricity to their washing machine to wash their sports kit). A claim of that sort should only be the additional cost over and above their normal cost of washing everything else he/she normally washes - so a very small amount. P/T's and lots of others try to claim a whole load of stuff which they are not allowed and I see my job as getting them all they are allowed but not allowing the expenses they think they are entitled to after talking to a few people down the pub. One problem is that HMRC no longer have the resources to review all these Tax Returns so lots of rubbish slips through. There are lots of rubbish accountants and lots of totally unqualified people who pretend to be accountants and apply all the pub rules - we see it all the time and have to let people down gently.
I am aware of someone who does a lot of Facebook posting and is always going off to business seminars all around the world. Sydney, Las Vegas, Florida in the last year as far as I can remember. He claims these as business expenses but his mistake is that he takes his wife and then stays on for a few days/weeks afterwards. That gives the trip duality of purpose (private and business) and the law says that makes the whole cost disallowable as a deduction. I am sure he has told everyone what a great thing he is doing and how good his accountant is. I am sure he won't publicise it when he has to find a fortune when he is caught - HMRC do quite a bit of Social Media searching (although I have known them to get the whole wrong end of the stick as well)
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2018 20:29:18 GMT
So many that it would hurt. 1. Stop making certain procedures even remotely available on the NHS. I have no idea about some cosmetic ones but the overriding activities related to keeping people alive that have no quality of life and the costs associated are folly. When we discussed further operations with my dad and the likelihood of success he just gave it the thumbs down and was dead less than a week later. He never had to live life like he didn't want to and it was cheaper all round. Yes, that is my beloved dad I'm talking about: no time for sentiment. 2. Look at the amount of excess regulation in public operations and reduce it. Working on the railway is dangerous and you know about it. One of the reasons we have so many safety staff on site is that the workers and the safety staff don't really pay enough attention on an individual basis so the solution after a few incidents is to increase the numbers of lookouts etc. 3. More accountability to members of the public driven by a swifter pre-court exercise. Some claims are simply laughable and they get so far into the legal system that the cost in productivity and to the public purse is a disgrace. 4. Simplified benefits systems. You either get benefits because you have kids / an ailment / a disability / are poor or you don't. If you can't work and you have a good reason not to fair enough; if there's no work at all then vouchers not cash; if there's work but you don't like the idea of it then bad luck (probably catching myself in that one!) 5. Shoot all train drivers and introduce Driverless trains. These things run on rails, FFS. How long ago did Hornby introduce a computer system to control the flow of its trains autonomously? The increase in productivity and reduction in strike time will probably pay the deficit off in a week or two. 6. Defer all PLC dividends for 24 months from announcement so that if the following two years are a shower of shit the people that have invested in the business really are paying for their investment. 7. Ban all politicians from working in the private sector for a period of 5 years from leaving office. The can do paid organisational charity work or work in the CS or inside the party giving the benefit of their experience. 8. Increase the competition thresholds for public works and services by about 10-fold. This means if a local authority wants to just give Joe Bloggs Ltd the work tending to the plants in the local area they don't have to make him spend 100 man-hours tendering for it against Capita / Interserve / Veola etc. who have a team that ONLY do that all week long. That will save enough to feed the third world with 24Ct gold leaf within two years I reckon. I could go on and on but basically there needs to be a massive period of painfulness before we got anywhere near living within our means. And lots of people would starve to death in that period as well. You get my vote too, John C also has some good points. Stop all the tax breaks, just make the taxation system simpler and low enough that there is no incentive to Cheat the system. The NHS would take more fixing basically a look at admin numbers and streamlining the system. Get a grip of doctors and managers and stop the in fighting that occurs with them and the nursing group. Each group think they have the right idea's and this wastes money. Many more but I think my concentration is slipping a little. Too much of a good time by half. |
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Post by Alex on Jan 17, 2018 21:15:15 GMT
Many good points but the trouble is a lot of politicians are too scared of losing votes to implement them. The benefits one is a good one, anything the tories have done to reform it has led to cries that they are the nasty party. Most classic example being the spare room subsidy for council house tenants which Labour have successfully given the title of Bedroom Tax (reducing benefits is not a tax!). The tax credit system should be scrapped as it discourages work and causes significant pain to anyone who has the temerity to take a promotion or work more hours (my wife found this to her cost when, despite telling them of her change of circumstance was slapped with a charge of 3 grand for overpayment). Universal credit is a much better system than the Labour or Lib Dem’s would have you believe and I hope it starts encouraging those claiming benefits as a lifestyle to go get a job.
The NHS needs reform that involves looking at overall management. Much as they make for good publicity, cosmetic surgery and health tourism accounts for a mere drop in the ocean of their budget. Do you think we’ll be able to employ 10,000 extra nurses if we stop offering boob jobs? I think the management structure needs looking at in hospitals. Some hospitals can quite rightly be accused of having too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Bottom and middle management positions are often used to retain staff when perhaps having better working conditions would be a far better means of preventing nursing staff leaving the profession. If they want more people to take up private medical insurance to reduce the public reliance on the NHS why not stop charging benefit in kind tax to whose employers provide it. This might make more employers offer it.
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Post by Big Blue on Jan 17, 2018 21:22:00 GMT
If they want more people to take up private medical insurance to reduce the public reliance on the NHS why not stop charging benefit in kind tax to whose employers provide it. I've been saying this for 25 years |
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Post by PG on Jan 17, 2018 22:08:40 GMT
Lots of good stuff already here. If only we ran the country.....
On the expenditure side, the government has to really look at what it should do and what it should not do. To add to some already mentioned, why should the government fund the arts for example? Beethoven and Mozart never got any government support and they wrote some banging tunes. If art and artists - music, pictures, theatre, whatever - are popular (with the general public or some rich sponsor) they don't need support.
Benefits - I think it was Churchill who said social provision is a safety net, not a hammock. So, remove many benefits, but make work pay. The mantra of hard work needs to be restated over and over again - at school and in life. I can never get my head round how areas of London - the richest city in Europe probably - can have areas that are described in the press and by some politicians as "amongst the poorest in Europe" and with high rates of unemployment. Just how is that possible?
Health - Alex's idea re private health insurance is a start. I'd go even farther. I'd introduce a flat rate higher pension relief (say 30%) which will save billions, but also introduce that same 30% relief for private medical insurance paid by individuals. And say that if companies paid premiums for all staff it is not a benefit in kind (same as company paid life insurance and disability insurance is now). The aim must be to get as much elective surgery as possible into the private sector. We may need to spend a higher % of GDP on health, but why that had to be public money defeats me. I also think that the whole notion of GP practices and GP's being self employed is archaic. Bring it all under one controlling organisation. Set up poly-clinics that employ all staff next to hospitals and unless you arrive in an ambulance, that's the gateway to A&E as well as the source of your GP consultations.
Old age - we need to discuss life quality v life extension. You see and read of so many terrible examples - 88 year olds having broken hip surgery and dying three days later and so on (as my late father in law did when he broke his hip). But we've all got to accept that end of life care is expensive and often wasted. Are we willing to pay for it or not and willing to discuss whether it should even happen? Tough one for society that but an essential conversation we all need.
Taxes and NI (a tax by any other name) - the system is needlessly complex, stupidly perverse, defies common sense and impossible to manage. I think the only taxes that really work are ones that can't be avoided or have a low enough rate that it is not worth avoiding them anyway. Just about every tax we have fails those tests - the rates are too high (so worth the millions we spend avoiding it legally or evading it illegally) or possible to avoid (cash job anyone?). It is estimated that the black economy is worth £200Bn - £250Bn of GDP. Tax that at the average of 35% we tax the official GDP and a lot of the deficit is gone anyway! The only thing is therefore to widen the base and lower the rate. Here's my plan -
Abolish Corporation tax - it is voluntary for global companies who ought to pay the most so falls needlessly on local companies
Abolish Air Duty, Road tax (few pence on duty instead), Insurance Premium Tax, Stamp Duty Land Tax and all those other things that have to be administered.
Abolish Inheritance tax, but as death is a taxable event (as the legislation so lovingly puts it) we'd all pay Capital Gains Tax on death on anything we had that had gone up in value.
Houses - I'd make all houses subject to Capital Gain Tax (yes, only homes too). But allow the gain to roll up on a house you live in until you either downsize or die and levy it at a rate of 20%.
Income tax - roll in NI and as chip said, make it a high allowance and flat at 30% thereafter.
VAT - I'd expand the scope of VAT to all areas of the economy. It is the one tax that people cannot avoid for ever. Yes you can pay cash to your builder, but we all have to buy food, fuel, heat, light, power, clothes etc that we cannot avoid. It would also go on nearly all the items that are exempt - like insurance, financial services, some rents etc. So the rate could be dropped.
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Post by ChrisM on Jan 19, 2018 8:30:21 GMT
Our local authority wastes a fortune dumping tar into holes which a few weeks later is completely gone - there should be a law against this. They should have to do the job properly except in emergencies. A pothole at the top of our road had its 3rd winter fill just last week and I am sure that when the snow clears it will need filled yet again. The last time it was filled, there were 3 men and a lorry so it is hardly one man and a bucket. Is it the Local Authority doing this or is it like Surrey where repairs have been subcontracted out. The subbie may just throw stuff in the hole to fill it then disappear whilst the stuff falls out in days, the local authority don't seem to bother to check the nature or quality of the work being done. It's the same regarding topping uop the grit boxes with salt - subcontracted out, the subbies do a very poor job but the LA don't appear to check what standard of service they are getting. More accountability is needed, and ideally these services should not be subbed out but run, competently, in-house |
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Post by Big Blue on Jan 19, 2018 10:56:40 GMT
Is it the Local Authority doing this or is it like Surrey where repairs have been subcontracted out. The subbie may just throw stuff in the hole to fill it then disappear whilst the stuff falls out in days, the local authority don't seem to bother to check the nature or quality of the work being done. It's the same regarding topping uop the grit boxes with salt - subcontracted out, the subbies do a very poor job but the LA don't appear to check what standard of service they are getting. More accountability is needed, and ideally these services should not be subbed out but run, competently, in-house This is one of my big bugbears with infrastructure repairs. There is no accountability for repairs, so we get drain covers that are several cm different in height to the road around them. Quite often the retention amounts are so small that the contractor would rather leave the road fucked up than attend the area and repair it properly. Our highway engineering standards are also bollocks for local roads: not far off cart tracks with tar on them and don't get me started on utility repairs. That said there are plenty of Alpina drivers in the US that have had wheels written off driving around NYC so it could be worse. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 11:23:27 GMT
When I was in Lichfield I saw the very poor state of so called repairs but when I informed the council they could not be bothered, not 'their' money. If there were performance issues related to pay they might.
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Post by scouse on Jan 19, 2018 15:30:19 GMT
Simple fact is that the books will never be balanced. Each department now exists only to serve itself, expand its own bureaucracy and pander to the worst excesses of both right and left wing press - see the Home Office refusing visas/rights to reside to Afghan interpreters and Public Health England denying trans 'men’ (women who believe they are men) routine screening for breast and cervical cancer in case it offends them, while offering trans 'women’ (men who believe they are women) smear tests in case it offends them to be excluded.
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Post by Roadsterstu on Jan 21, 2018 10:21:43 GMT
Having looked at a job in the NHS recently, and taken Mrs M to used it teeth extraction services, I have paid a little closer attention than normal. I think it needs a definition in what services it provides and what is out of scope (as per BB above) and it needs proper cohesive management across the board so the clinicians can do their thing. Whilst sat in the waiting room for Mrs M's wisdom teeth - there were 3 receptionists working through one hatch (one for each department in the building rather than a shared service), a chap arrived to swap over the water cooler bottles (we swapped to mains water fountains years ago) and the walls were covered in posters but no one seemed to take down the old stuff.....the problem isn't money it is using what they have more effectively 2 years ago I had an appointment in the eye clinic one dayvand the following day I was due an appointment at the respiratory clinic, which is in a separate hospital around 4 or 5 miles away. Whilst at the first appointment the nurse from the respiratory department arrived to collect my bundle of notes. All on paper of course and because there was no time for the internal mail service to ship the files over in a van, she had come in a taxi to collect them. Paper files. Being carried about. By nursing staff in a taxi. In 2015. But then, we saw what a fiasco the NHS computer system became before it was abandoned. |
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Post by Tim on Jan 23, 2018 15:38:51 GMT
There are a few things around large contracts that could clearly be a source of saving.
It's become clear from the Carillion failure that the Government contracts were keeping them afloat while they under-charged the private sector.
That needs to stop.
In addition when the Edinburgh tram fiasco was getting looked at there were some figures for comparable projects in other bits of Europe and their cost was far smaller per mile. Why?
Several of our train franchises are run by foreign state-owned railways and a suggestion has been made that the profits from these franchises are being used 'at home' to subsidise state run railways (Germany and, I think Holland have been mentioned).
Can't we find a away of running the trains ourselves and effectively pocketing the profit back into the Treasury?
I assume that any number of other PFI type projects follow exactly the same model with savings to be made?
The Government sold off the HMRC estate to some dodgy, offshore domiciled tax efficient organisation.
There's a load of money being paid out with no return again.
We need to stop that waste.
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Post by Big Blue on Jan 23, 2018 16:41:41 GMT
If you imagine that rail franchisees (TOCs) are making a huge profit, think again. The margins on SWT for Stagecoach before they lost the biggest rail franchise in Europe to SWR (First / HK-MTR) was so minuscule that having too many posters delivered to a station for promotional fares was a concern! The companies that make money from the railway are the RoSCos (them that lease out the trains) who basically print money.
The service companies that probably do make money in the UK to help "back home" are Veola and their ilk, who do lots of local authority services. As with most of these things its about risk appetite and management: LB Wandsworth run a really tight ship and have good service contracts and low council taxes because they manage their contract providers like the bastards deserve to be managed.
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Post by Alex on Jan 24, 2018 21:50:44 GMT
I’ve heard that Virgin are struggling to make ends meet on the East Coast despite having 3-5% year on year growth in passenger numbers. Rail Magazine have slammed the government for forcing TOC’s to overbid when pitching for the various franchises. Virgin have had their franchise term cut by theee years for simply having the audacity to complain that the upgrades required for the new Hitachi Azuka trains has not been forthcoming leaving them to have to keep the HSTs plodding on for years to come.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2018 23:41:56 GMT
I know it goes against the grain, for me as much as anyone else, but, nationalisation with proper management seems to be the only way left. Blast from the past, I remember the HST's when they were only a program. Oh for the days of expose reporting on the dire state of BR catering.....
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Post by ChrisM on Jan 25, 2018 8:22:41 GMT
Oh for the days of expose reporting on the dire state of BR catering..... Ah yes, all the jokes about British Rail pork pies and stale sandwiches....... :-) |
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Post by Big Blue on Jan 25, 2018 8:37:00 GMT
I know it goes against the grain, for me as much as anyone else, but, nationalisation with proper management seems to be the only way left. But who has the appetite for this? There was good management in Network Rail and when the railway went through a sea change from Privatised RailTrack to Not-for-Profit NR the CEO (Iain Coucher) that brought maintenance back in-house, held the rail areas to account and implemented huge civil engineering projects was hounded by the press for having the kind of remuneration package that his responsibility and position frankly deserved. NR is now in fact properly nationalised as a public sector body and worse for it than it was under Coucher. The MD of the division I supply my professional services to is on a huge salary: it's the only way to get his ilk on board. What is the number one people refer to when they talk about him? His interaction with the Secretary of State? His no-nonsense approach with the Regulator? His ultimatums to the delivery bodies? No: they talk about his fucking pay, big by yours and my standards but minuscule against the backdrop of billions of pound of budget annually he looks after. |
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Post by johnc on Jan 25, 2018 8:53:46 GMT
they talk about his fucking pay, big by yours and my standards but minuscule against the backdrop of billions of pound of budget annually he looks after. The green eyed monster is a dangerous thing when it's let out of its cage.........and I bet the man you are talking about works 24-7 and doesn't even get paid 10% of what Sanchez will get paid by Man United. However those with green eyes don't complain with the same vitriol because footballers aren't seen as being part of the rich elite money grabbing bosses!
The world is a f*cked up place.
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Post by michael on Jan 25, 2018 10:54:21 GMT
The rail industry does seem to attract the greediest workers and they are all unionised downing tools and causing chaos unless they get an underserved pay award or there is any threat to their numbers. As BB mentioned earlier the implementation of driverless trains can't come soon enough and will be start in making the railways more affordable.
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Post by Tim on Jan 25, 2018 11:10:13 GMT
they talk about his fucking pay, big by yours and my standards but minuscule against the backdrop of billions of pound of budget annually he looks after. The green eyed monster is a dangerous thing when it's let out of its cage.........and I bet the man you are talking about works 24-7 and doesn't even get paid 10% of what Sanchez will get paid by Man United. However those with green eyes don't complain with the same vitriol because footballers aren't seen as being part of the rich elite money grabbing bosses!
The world is a f*cked up place.
It'll be highlighted to the general public by the media - run by a bunch of people who are paid large amounts of money that is carefully moved around to minimise tax.
Still, they never let hypocrisy get in the way of good story that'll get the 'man on the street' frothing at the mouth!
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Post by alf on Jan 30, 2018 17:47:05 GMT
I know it goes against the grain, for me as much as anyone else, but, nationalisation with proper management seems to be the only way left. A shame, then, that this does not exist in a broadly replicable sense. With good timing as regards this thread, The Economist at the weekend reckons an additional £20bn is needed annually by the NHS to get close to making it run as per current expectations, and that parties of all ilks will need to look seriously at huge tax increases in the near future. And it won't just be for those earning over £80k either... My fear is that the extra money will achieve very little in many cases. There is certainly some kind of reckoning on the way with regards to what people expect from public services (all the panicky social media suggests people expect more spending always) and what people are prepared to pay. I see little appetite for scandinavian-style taxes. |
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Post by johnc on Jan 30, 2018 18:17:28 GMT
I see little appetite for scandinavian-style taxes. But they also get paid much more than we do. Increased taxes without increased income is a recipe for wage fuelled inflation. |
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