Really enjoyed the scenes of those in Yorkshire telling May she wasn't welcome up there.
Did you? I had a different view. I wondered what they were doing there. They looked like a nasty strident rent-a-mob. Would it leave the majority of viewers watching the news after they had got home from a hard day's work speculating about whether they would want to be associated with a party whose members were acting like the political equivalent of Milwall supporters? I suspect such scenes if repeated frequently will do nothing but damage Corbyn's chances further.
Commoners eh?
More like professional agitators I thought.
I think you are starting to look a little ridiculous on this one @cafcfan.
It wouldn't be out of form for someone who pathetically tried calling me out in a completely different thread. I reckon he's just on a wind-up now given his recent contributions. Best off ignoring him like BBW.
Really enjoyed the scenes of those in Yorkshire telling May she wasn't welcome up there.
Did you? I had a different view. I wondered what they were doing there. They looked like a nasty strident rent-a-mob. Would it leave the majority of viewers watching the news after they had got home from a hard day's work speculating about whether they would want to be associated with a party whose members were acting like the political equivalent of Milwall supporters? I suspect such scenes if repeated frequently will do nothing but damage Corbyn's chances further.
Commoners eh?
More like professional agitators I thought.
I think you are starting to look a little ridiculous on this one @cafcfan.
Yes, I know. But I live in Essex. I have an inkling about how they think. There are a number of marginal seats here that Labour ought to feel they have a chance in. Harlow, Thurrock, South Basildon, perhaps Castle Point. To get elected, Labour will need gains like this. The infamous "Essex Man" having got home from a hard day at work and wondering where his vote might go now UKIP is pointless is going to be thinking badly about theses childish scenes:
Frankly it looks like what it is. People who have plenty of time on their hands to make and dress up in a very bad dalek suit rather than do any actual work. (You'll note the traditional Socialist Worker banners.)
Really enjoyed the scenes of those in Yorkshire telling May she wasn't welcome up there.
Did you? I had a different view. I wondered what they were doing there. They looked like a nasty strident rent-a-mob. Would it leave the majority of viewers watching the news after they had got home from a hard day's work speculating about whether they would want to be associated with a party whose members were acting like the political equivalent of Milwall supporters? I suspect such scenes if repeated frequently will do nothing but damage Corbyn's chances further.
Commoners eh?
More like professional agitators I thought.
I think you are starting to look a little ridiculous on this one @cafcfan.
Yes, I know. But I live in Essex. I have an inkling about how they think. There are a number of marginal seats here that Labour ought to feel they have a chance in. Harlow, Thurrock, South Basildon, perhaps Castle Point. To get elected, Labour will need gains like this. The infamous "Essex Man" having got home from a hard day at work and wondering where his vote might go now UKIP is pointless is going to be thinking badly about theses childish scenes:
Frankly it looks like what it is. People who have plenty of time on their hands to make and dress up in a very bad dalek suit rather than do any actual work.
Really enjoyed the scenes of those in Yorkshire telling May she wasn't welcome up there.
Did you? I had a different view. I wondered what they were doing there. They looked like a nasty strident rent-a-mob. Would it leave the majority of viewers watching the news after they had got home from a hard day's work speculating about whether they would want to be associated with a party whose members were acting like the political equivalent of Milwall supporters? I suspect such scenes if repeated frequently will do nothing but damage Corbyn's chances further.
Commoners eh?
More like professional agitators I thought.
I think you are starting to look a little ridiculous on this one @cafcfan.
Frankly it looks like what it is. People who have plenty of time on their hands to make and dress up in a very bad dalek suit rather than do any actual work. (You'll note the traditional Socialist Worker banners.)
coincidently they're very similar to that of CARDs... hmmm...
So. The Tory manifesto. I leave care with nothing, and finally pay off my mortgage a month ago. I am getting on towards the years of dementia and such like, and the home I've spent all my life getting will be used to pay for my (probably inevitable) years of care.
It's at this point I think May has completely lost my vote. I want to leave a home to my daughter. Not just x% of what's left of it's value.
Now it's Lab vs Lib... A lot to think about, either are protest votes IMO.
That's fair enough that you want to leave a home to your daughter. And understandable.
What the Tories are saying is a compromise between protecting an inheritance to your kids and also protecting the taxpayer (ie you) whilst you are working and providing a living to your kids.
It's sensible - once again people can't have it both ways.
For me it's a fair way towards ensuring something goes towards your kids and balancing the taxpayer impact when people like you are supporting you as they grow up.
You will have more and more elderly suicides. You will have more court cases on the right to die. You will have more murders/manslaughters from the kids on property owning parents. You will have a huge increase of the old suffering in squalid and distressed conditions in order to protect what they have spent a lifetime getting for their children. You will have a financial services loophole industry taking off.
When I started out you paid your tax and your national insurance.
Insurance.
The idea was the insurance went towards your old age pension (which my father didn't live to collect) and the health service, particularly regarding the illnesses that come with getting older.
The Tories want to plunder quite a fundamental asset that people have struggled to get, to pay for a completely predictable situation.
They don't give a shit anyway as long as they maintain power.
So. The Tory manifesto. I leave care with nothing, and finally pay off my mortgage a month ago. I am getting on towards the years of dementia and such like, and the home I've spent all my life getting will be used to pay for my (probably inevitable) years of care. On the surface it seems reasonable enough until you realise that assisted suicide is illegal.
Care is a really tough one, if i've read it right, everyone will have to pay for care until they are down to £100k of total asset. Its currently something like £26k, but different if you are having care in your own home as the house isn't included. It's better for some (those in care homes) worse for others (those getting care in their own homes) and worse for all compared to what was coming in in 2020 but at least seems a little fairer.
The only people who will be effected really will be those who were to inherit a larger sum than £100k (or I assume £200k if it effected both people of a couple).
I don't think Labour had said the limits as to when you pay/when you stop paying and had referred to a cross party discussion on how it should be funded (wealth tax, employer contribution or a new social care levy). Sounds good in principal but with such opposing views between parties I think Labour would have been better simply setting out their stall.
At least the conservatives is a little clearer, if by no means perfect and certainly doesn't promote good financial planning.
You are almost saying to people, just make sure you have enough live on if you remain healthy. Why should anyone build up a nest egg to hopefully pass onto their children when most will either go in inheritance tax or care costs.........
I completely disagree. Social care is such an important issue and in fairness, that is recognised by the Conservatives as well as Labour. There is an awareness it needs fixing and the reason it hasn't been addressed is any solution requires taking medicine. The best solution is to make it a non -political decision and gain consensus so difficult calls that need to be made can be made. Do we fix Social Care or make the unfairness just a little bit fairer?
What was notable with the launch of the manifestos was the clamour from opponents to rubbish the costings. Predicatble yes but completely unfair in the case of Labour who provided far more detailed costings than the Tories. An example was Labour stating that the winter fuel payment cut put out by the tories will effect 10 million pensioners based on what the manifesto said. The retort from the Tories. How can they know how many will be affected when we haven't costed it?
So outside of labours 'let's talk about it' what's their plan for paying for this care? I totally agree it's a hugely important issue but call me suspicious but their staying quiet on such an important issue is because they realise it's not possible to get the state to pay for everyone?
The cost to keep someone in residential care is anywhere from £35k - £100k per annum. We can argue to get it free so we can leave money to our children but there'll simply lose a lot of that in additional income tax. Doing so will hit the poorest hardest as those who aren't due to inherit will also need to pay considerably more tax.
I don't know what the current split is between those who pay and those who don't. However the total cost is in the region of £400m a week. Using where my father is purely as an example 65 out of the 82 residents pay, so 80%.....and the expectation is more people will need that care in the future. If that's a number seen across the country we need to tax for a further £320m a week and increasing.
That's just residential care, many more I believe receive care in their own home (although the cost per person will will be less). But let's assume that's £80m a week.
You simply wouldn't be able to tax enough to let the state pay a further £400m a week or 21bn a year, we only collect in tax about 160bn as it is. That's everyone paying 15% more tax.
Not perfect but this is a reasonable compromise in my view and that's from someone directly effected.
Ps the cost is set to increase but a fair margin with the increase to the minimum wage.
It is basic common sense that where you have an issue that pretty much everybody agrees something needs to be done about and the thing that needs to be done might not be universally popular - that you de-politicise it. There are solutions that are fairer, but won't be popular. One - just one would be a death tax - spreading the risk as it were as anybody could succomb to needing this support. But the solution will only come through consensus.
It is the same with climate change. If you all agree how important it is to do something - take it off the political agenda and agree with each other what needs to be done and try to do your bit to save the palnet. And pray everybody else does their bit. America is currently trying its best to destroy it. Corporate interest which rules politics through its power and influence puts money above our survival and if that doesn't scare you it should. It is incredible. Parties need to be pragmatic and work together on these important issues.
I see the excellent posts of Fiish and can't resist a wry smile. I come out of that political questionaire as being more Conservative than him now! He explained perfectly rationally why the blunt tool of a questionaire isn't the best gauge, and also why his scores changed. This got me thinking, that in the space of quite a short time my position has changed, possibly more than Fiish's. I believe that May will win this election easily and I blamed Corbyn for that. I thought he was a disaster and was calling for a new party of the left of the right and the right of the left to get together. I have changed my position massively towards Corbyn. My historic posts have been totally damning of him but I suddenly feel I have got it. I now support him and don't want him ousted in a post election coup.
Corbyn will never be prime minsiter, but he is the man who has started a process that is the only chance of giving the majority of people in this country a voice that they currently don't have. He has to hold on to power and find a charismatic successor to lead the Labour party into the next election. One that can fight the corporations who manipulate and distort. You have your work cut out to beat them, but you have to try. I am not against rich people, I might be one, but the enemy is the elite that control the world. Trump/Brexit are actually signs that people are angry - they are encouraged to channel that anger at those below them who are unfairly rising above them - immigrants/scroungers etc... Not the elite that own/contol more and more of the world. When you have the control they have, you set the agenda, but you can break through. Corbyn is trying to do that. Bernie Saunders is doing similar in America. These are the unlikely heroes paving the way for a better, fairer world.
We have up until this election only had the choice between Neo Liberal with a bit more heart and Neo Liberal with a bit less. I laughed when a question to an uninformed member of the public was answered with 'they are all the same'. That was probably fair in previous elections, but it is a ridiculously ignorant statement in this one. It has clearly been pointed out that the Conservatives, rather than following the economic policies they campaigned on last time, actually followed Ed Milliband's much more closely. This election whether you vote Conservative or Labour or for somebody else, is the first where there is a distinct choice. People won't take it this time, but they may next if Labour hold their nerve.
So. The Tory manifesto. I leave care with nothing, and finally pay off my mortgage a month ago. I am getting on towards the years of dementia and such like, and the home I've spent all my life getting will be used to pay for my (probably inevitable) years of care. On the surface it seems reasonable enough until you realise that assisted suicide is illegal.
Care is a really tough one, if i've read it right, everyhave to pay for care until they are down to £100k of total asset. Its currently something like £26k, but different if you are having care in your own home as the house isn't included. It's better for some (those in care homes) worse for others (those getting care in their own homes) and worse for all compared to what was coming in in 2020 but at least seems a little fairer.
The only people who will be effected really will be those who were to inherit a larger sum than £100k (or I assume £200k if it effected both people of a couple).
I don't think Labour had said the limits as to when you pay/when you stop paying and had referred to a cross party discussion on how it should be funded (wealth tax, employer contribution or a new social care levy). Sounds good in principal but with such opposing views between parties I think Labour would have been better simply setting out their stall.
At least the conservatives is a little clearer, if by no means perfect and certainly doesn't promote good financial planning.
You are almost saying to people, just make sure you have enough live on if you remain healthy. Why should anyone build up a nest egg to hopefully pass onto their children when most will either go in inheritance tax or care costs.........
I completely disagree. Social care is such an important issue and in fairness, that is recognised by the Conservatives as well as Labour. There is an awareness it needs fixing and the reason it hasn't been addressed is any solution requires taking medicine. The best solution is to make it a non -political decision and gain consensus so difficult calls that need to be made can be made. Do we fix Social Care or make the unfairness just a little bit fairer?
What was notable with the launch of the manifestos was the clamour from opponents to rubbish the costings. Predicatble yes but completely unfair in the case of Labour who provided far more detailed costings than the Tories. An example was Labour stating that the winter fuel payment cut put out by the tories will effect 10 million pensioners based on what the manifesto said. The retort from the Tories. How can they know how many will be affected when we haven't costed it?
So outside of labours 'let's talk about it' what's their plan for paying for this care? I totally agree it's a hugely important issue but call me suspicious but their staying quiet on such an important issue is because they realise it's not possible to get the state to pay for everyone?
THe cost to keep someone in residential care is anywhere from £35k - £100k per annum. We can argue to get it free so we can leave money to our children but there'll simply lose a lot of that in additional income tax. Doing so will hit the poorest hardest as those who aren't due to inherit will also need to pay considerably more tax.
I don't know what the current split is between those who pay and those who don't. However the total cost is in the region of £400m a week. Using where my father is purely as an example 65 out of the 82 residents pay, so 80%.....and the expectation is more people will need that care in the future. If that's a number seen across the country we need to tax for a further £320m a week and increasing.
That's just residential care, many more I believe receive c
Not perfect but this is a reasonable compromise in my view and that's from someone directly effected.
Ps the cost is set to increase but a fair margin with the increase to the minimum wage.
It is basic common sense that where you have an issue that pretty much everybody agrees something needs to be done about and the thing that needs to be done might not be universally popular - that you de-politicise it. There are solutions that are fairer, but won't be popular. One - just one would be a death tax - spreading the risk as it were as anybody could succomb to needing this support. But the solution will only come through consensus.
It is the same with climate change. If you all agree how important it is to do something - take it off the political agenda and agree with each other what needs to be done and try to do your bit to save the palnet. And pray everybody else does their bit. America is currently trying its best to destroy it. Corporate interest which rules politics through its power and influence puts money above our survival and it that doesn't scare you it should. It is incredible. Parties need to be pragmatic and work together on these important issues.
I see teh excellent posts of Fiish and can't resist a wry smile. I come out of theat questionaire being more Conservative than him now! He explained perfectly rationally why the blunt tool of a questionaire isn't the best gauge, and also why his scores changed. This got me thinking, that in the space of quite a short time my position has changed, possibly more than Fiish's. I believe that May will win this election easily and I blamed Corbyn for that. I thought he was a disaster and was calling for a new party of the left of the right and the right of the left to get together. I have changed my position massively towards Corbyn. My historic posts have been totally damning of him but I suddenly feel I have got it. I now support him and don't want him ousted in a post election coup.
Corbyn will never be prime minsiter, but he is the man who has started a process that is the only chance of giving the majority of people in this country a voice that they currently don't have. He has to hold on to power and find a charismatic successor to lead the Labour party into the next election. One that can fight the corporations who manipulate and distort. You have your work cut out to beat them, but you have to try. I am not against rich people, I might be one, but the enemy is the elite that control the world. Trump/Brexit are actually signs that people are angry - they are encouraged to channel that anger at those below them who are unfairly rising above them - immigrants/scroungers etc... Not the elite that own/contol more and more of the world. When you have the control they have, you set the agenda, but you can break through. Corbyn is trying to do that. Bernie Saunders is doing similar in America. These are the unlikely heroes paving the way for a better, fairer world.
We have up until this election only had the choice between Neo Liberal with a bit more heart and Neo Liberal with a bit less. I laughed when a question to an uninformed member of the public was answered with 'they are all the same'. That was probably fair in previous elections, but it is a ridiculously ignorant statement in this one. It has clearly been pointed out that the Conservatives, rather than following the economic policies they campaigned on last time, actually followed Ed Milliband's much more closely. This election whether you vote Conservative or Labour or for somebody else, is the first where there is a distinct choice. People won't take it this time, but they may next if Labour hold their nerve.
I'm only in my 40s and worth more to my family dead than alive so I'm not sure what all of the fuss is about.
That is very true for a lot of the working population. My wife would get a serious amount of life assurance and pension....and to add to that as she would be a low earning single mum she would suddenly become eligible for quite a bit of state benefit, get her child allowance back etc.
Really enjoyed the scenes of those in Yorkshire telling May she wasn't welcome up there.
Yes, I thought the quip about 1970?...... I think it might be 1870 they were talking about, made me laugh out load, by the Yorkshire protesters. Just completed the quiz, and apparently I will need to vote Labour. I guess my upbringing is ingrained in my rather feeble dithering of who to vote for. Voted green in the local elections as the candidate at least turns up for most community groups.
Must say I am quite upset at the scrapping of free school dinners, this seems a very short sighted action. Been working on a very part time basis back in education, and exam assessment, Regardless of a parents financial background, I cannot see how a young child should have to suffer the stupidity of there parents support for there children at school, and there ability to be able to compete, and participate in lessons properly. One of the reasons when I was a school governor that I encouraged breakfast clubs at primary school, it amazed me how many children did not have any food before lunch, in what was a middle class area like Bexley village was staggering. This may have been 18 odd years ago, but I am still not convinced that from this weeks exam invigilation that that they are best prepared, either for the questions, or being alert to do themselves justice.
A can of fizzy, and a bag of crisps does not cut it I am afraid.
I'm only in my 40s and worth more to my family dead than alive so I'm not sure what all of the fuss is about.
That is very true for a lot of the working population. My wife would get a serious amount of life assurance and pension....and to add to that as she would be a low earning single mum she would suddenly become eligible for quite a bit of state benefit, get her child allowance back etc.
Christ no one tell her or I'm in trouble
I'd like to think the kids would miss me but on a present value basis the maths is undeniable unless my career was to take an unexpected (and undesired) upward jump.
Noting @Rob7Lee 's estimates of the cost of care homes, that seems to me an example of how yet again so few people in Britain are interested in asking the questions behind the key issues. By which I mean:
1.Why is good residential care in the UK so damn expensive? because in countries like Germany and Norway (I recently visited a care home in Oslo) they are largely State provided and very good. How come these countries can afford them through the State budget and we allegedly cannot?
2.Whyis that Germany, with a bigger population, and recently flooded with impoverished immigrants, has a state based healthcare system where there is a place for anyone in a clean well run hospital when they need it, without a wait on a trolley in a corridor (source, my niece who works in one such hospital and found the tenet of my question bizarre)
3. Why is that all across the EU students can go to their own universities (or in the Nordics to any Nordic uni) and pay little or nothing in fees, yet we are told that there is an economic crisis in our unis which requires us to saddle students with prohibitive levels of debt?
4. Whyis it that we bicker endlessly about whether we should build HS2 or concentrate on improving the rest of the network, yet no one questions the actual cost estimate for HS2, despite the known fact that it will cost at least 10 times more per km to build than a French TGV line?
5.Why is it that when it comes to tax, it's all about hitting/ not hitting the taxpayer, but nobody stops to ask whether we are correctly collecting the taxes as agreed and intended by successive Parliaments. At both ends of the tax bill spectrum those in the know say HMRC is not fit for purpose, yet what do we hear about this at election time? Not a dickie.
This is the thing about living on the Continent and then returning regularly. Listening to friends and family, and then opening your wallet and getting the feeling some one has nicked half of what you thought you had - you just keep asking yourself, why is everythingso damn expensive, and why does the mass of the population on the streets look in worse shape (certainly, not more affluent) than those in the big cities of Northern Europe? Of course not many have the chance to make that personal comparison regularly, I appreciate that, but benchmarking these questions internationally is possible, and some organisations do it. Why don't we listen to them, why don't we ask, WHY is Britain so damn expensive?
I don't know the answers to most, on Nordic in particular the only insight I have is my father in laws partner who is Norwegian...... she visits about once every 2 months and spends most of her time shopping and parcelling up stuff to send back to Norway as things are so much cheaper over here!!
Some years back when I bought a ne Honda Civic for £15k she was shocked as one in Norway was 30,000 Euros which I assumed at the time was tax.
On care homes maybe I've been lucky where my dad is but in the main it's excellent and I couldn't ask for better care for him, which to me is the most important thing not that I'll inherit £300k less.
Noting @Rob7Lee 's estimates of the cost of care homes, that seems to me an example of how yet again so few people in Britain are interested in asking the questions behind the key issues. By which I mean:
1.Why is good residential care in the UK so damn expensive? because in countries like Germany and Norway (I recently visited a care home in Oslo) they are largely State provided and very good. How come these countries can afford them through the State budget and we allegedly cannot?
2.Whyis that Germany, with a bigger population, and recently flooded with impoverished immigrants, has a state based healthcare system where there is a place for anyone in a clean well run hospital when they need it, without a wait on a trolley in a corridor (source, my niece who works in one such hospital and found the tenet of my question bizarre)
3. Why is that all across the EU students can go to their own universities (or in the Nordics to any Nordic uni) and pay little or nothing in fees, yet we are told that there is an economic crisis in our unis which requires us to saddle students with prohibitive levels of debt?
4. Whyis it that we bicker endlessly about whether we should build HS2 or concentrate on improving the rest of the network, yet no one questions the actual cost estimate for HS2, despite the known fact that it will cost at least 10 times more per km to build than a French TGV line?
5.Why is it that when it comes to tax, it's all about hitting/ not hitting the taxpayer, but nobody stops to ask whether we are correctly collecting the taxes as agreed and intended by successive Parliaments. At both ends of the tax bill spectrum those in the know say HMRC is not fit for purpose, yet what do we hear about this at election time? Not a dickie.
This is the thing about living on the Continent and then returning regularly. Listening to friends and family, and then opening your wallet and getting the feeling some one has nicked half of what you thought you had - you just keep asking yourself, why is everythingso damn expensive, and why does the mass of the population on the streets look in worse shape (certainly, not more affluent) than those in the big cities of Northern Europe? Of course not many have the chance to make that personal comparison regularly, I appreciate that, but benchmarking these questions internationally is possible, and some organisations do it. Why don't we listen to them, why don't we ask, WHY is Britain so damn expensive?
The cost of housing has completely fucked our economy and pauperised most of the population.
I don't care how much I inherit, but I do want to leave my son a meaningful amount. I accept social care has to be paid for, but people in residential care currently are subsidising council funded residents. Not by a little bit, but by a lot. Who on here - Conservative, Labour or UKIP wants the goverment to nick money, saved and worked for, from theri kids? If I had Alzheimers, I would rather die than live the life of confusion and bewilderment. The state won't let me do that, but will happily keep an echo of my former self alive and steal the money I want my son to have to make his life a little better, if he needs it.
When he is old enough, we plan to give our house to our son. After a few years the state can't take the asset from our family that way.
I don't care how much I inherit, but I do want to leave my son a meaningful amount. I accept social care has to be paid for, but people in residential care currently are subsidising council funded residents. Not by a little bit, but by a lot. Who on here - Conservative, Labour or UKIP wants the goverment to nick money, saved and worked for, from theri kids? If I had Alzheimers, I would rather die than live the life of confusion and bewilderment. The state won't let me do that, but will happily keep an echo of my former self alive and steal the money I want my son to have to make his life a little better, if he needs it.
When he is old enough, we plan to give our house to our son. After a few years the state can't take the asset from our family that way.
Muttley I'm not a financial advisor and I'm sure others on here will be able to inform you better but my understanding is that if you fall ill in the future and need residential care the council can reverse your property transfer if it feels you engaged in a 'deliberate deprivation of assets'. It's something I'd explore before you make any decisions.
Noting @Rob7Lee 's estimates of the cost of care homes, that seems to me an example of how yet again so few people in Britain are interested in asking the questions behind the key issues. By which I mean:
1.Why is good residential care in the UK so damn expensive? because in countries like Germany and Norway (I recently visited a care home in Oslo) they are largely State provided and very good. How come these countries can afford them through the State budget and we allegedly cannot?
2.Whyis that Germany, with a bigger population, and recently flooded with impoverished immigrants, has a state based healthcare system where there is a place for anyone in a clean well run hospital when they need it, without a wait on a trolley in a corridor (source, my niece who works in one such hospital and found the tenet of my question bizarre)
3. Why is that all across the EU students can go to their own universities (or in the Nordics to any Nordic uni) and pay little or nothing in fees, yet we are told that there is an economic crisis in our unis which requires us to saddle students with prohibitive levels of debt?
4. Whyis it that we bicker endlessly about whether we should build HS2 or concentrate on improving the rest of the network, yet no one questions the actual cost estimate for HS2, despite the known fact that it will cost at least 10 times more per km to build than a French TGV line?
5.Why is it that when it comes to tax, it's all about hitting/ not hitting the taxpayer, but nobody stops to ask whether we are correctly collecting the taxes as agreed and intended by successive Parliaments. At both ends of the tax bill spectrum those in the know say HMRC is not fit for purpose, yet what do we hear about this at election time? Not a dickie.
This is the thing about living on the Continent and then returning regularly. Listening to friends and family, and then opening your wallet and getting the feeling some one has nicked half of what you thought you had - you just keep asking yourself, why is everythingso damn expensive, and why does the mass of the population on the streets look in worse shape (certainly, not more affluent) than those in the big cities of Northern Europe? Of course not many have the chance to make that personal comparison regularly, I appreciate that, but benchmarking these questions internationally is possible, and some organisations do it. Why don't we listen to them, why don't we ask, WHY is Britain so damn expensive?
The cost of housing has completely fucked our economy and pauperised most of the population.
Not often we agree 100% on something but this is one of them.
Noting @Rob7Lee 's estimates of the cost of care homes, that seems to me an example of how yet again so few people in Britain are interested in asking the questions behind the key issues. By which I mean:
1.Why is good residential care in the UK so damn expensive? because in countries like Germany and Norway (I recently visited a care home in Oslo) they are largely State provided and very good. How come these countries can afford them through the State budget and we allegedly cannot?
2.Whyis that Germany, with a bigger population, and recently flooded with impoverished immigrants, has a state based healthcare system where there is a place for anyone in a clean well run hospital when they need it, without a wait on a trolley in a corridor (source, my niece who works in one such hospital and found the tenet of my question bizarre)
3. Why is that all across the EU students can go to their own universities (or in the Nordics to any Nordic uni) and pay little or nothing in fees, yet we are told that there is an economic crisis in our unis which requires us to saddle students with prohibitive levels of debt?
4. Whyis it that we bicker endlessly about whether we should build HS2 or concentrate on improving the rest of the network, yet no one questions the actual cost estimate for HS2, despite the known fact that it will cost at least 10 times more per km to build than a French TGV line?
5.Why is it that when it comes to tax, it's all about hitting/ not hitting the taxpayer, but nobody stops to ask whether we are correctly collecting the taxes as agreed and intended by successive Parliaments. At both ends of the tax bill spectrum those in the know say HMRC is not fit for purpose, yet what do we hear about this at election time? Not a dickie.
This is the thing about living on the Continent and then returning regularly. Listening to friends and family, and then opening your wallet and getting the feeling some one has nicked half of what you thought you had - you just keep asking yourself, why is everythingso damn expensive, and why does the mass of the population on the streets look in worse shape (certainly, not more affluent) than those in the big cities of Northern Europe? Of course not many have the chance to make that personal comparison regularly, I appreciate that, but benchmarking these questions internationally is possible, and some organisations do it. Why don't we listen to them, why don't we ask, WHY is Britain so damn expensive?
The cost of housing has completely fucked our economy and pauperised most of the population.
Not often we agree 100% on something but this is one of them.
I don't know the answers to most, on Nordic in particular the only insight I have is my father in laws partner who is Norwegian...... she visits about once every 2 months and spends most of her time shopping and parcelling up stuff to send back to Norway as things are so much cheaper over here!!
Some years back when I bought a ne Honda Civic for £15k she was shocked as one in Norway was 30,000 Euros which I assumed at the time was tax.
On care homes maybe I've been lucky where my dad is but in the main it's excellent and I couldn't ask for better care for him, which to me is the most important thing not that I'll inherit £300k less.
My great mate lives in Oslo, though he himself is Swedish/German. He is a successful corporate biz guy and loves to moan to me about Norway, and especially the high cost of having fun (good food and drink to go with it). Consumer items are bloody expensive, no question. However, housing, relative to what you get, is reasonably priced. Then the health and social care is second to none. He himself moans (although he is having a laugh most of the time), but the Norwegians themselves consistently rank themselves near the top of the Global quality of living surveys. They presumably conclude that while £8 for piss poor beer is a pain, they can be sure that together as a nation they have collectively got themselves sorted when it comes to health and social care. And I have not even mentioned the Sovereign Wealth Fund (what they created with their oil when Thatcher created a property "boom" with hers).
I take your last point, absolutely, but in other European countries ordinary people don't have to make such a stark choice. You have done well for yourself but my sister and her husband have not been able to go into high paying work, and she now has two kids and wonders where on earth they will live. Our Mum's modest inheritance would at least help to get them on the ladder - but it may well vanish under Tory proposals.
I don't care how much I inherit, but I do want to leave my son a meaningful amount. I accept social care has to be paid for, but people in residential care currently are subsidising council funded residents. Not by a little bit, but by a lot. Who on here - Conservative, Labour or UKIP wants the goverment to nick money, saved and worked for, from theri kids? If I had Alzheimers, I would rather die than live the life of confusion and bewilderment. The state won't let me do that, but will happily keep an echo of my former self alive and steal the money I want my son to have to make his life a little better, if he needs it.
When he is old enough, we plan to give our house to our son. After a few years the state can't take the asset from our family that way.
Muttley I'm not a financial advisor and I'm sure others on here will be able to inform you better but my understanding is that if you fall ill in the future and need residential care the council can reverse your property transfer if it feels you engaged in a 'deliberate deprivation of assets'. It's something I'd explore before you make any decisions.
It is a bit of a minefield, but if you plan far enough in advance you can. Another option that i'll probably do is downsize long before old age and give the kids some money then, they'll need it more at 30 than when they are 60.
Inheritance is often becoming a second generation thing. If you live to a ripe old age, by then your children are pensioners themselves (or getting towards that) so more people are skipping a generation and passing into grandchildren.
I don't care how much I inherit, but I do want to leave my son a meaningful amount. I accept social care has to be paid for, but people in residential care currently are subsidising council funded residents. Not by a little bit, but by a lot. Who on here - Conservative, Labour or UKIP wants the goverment to nick money, saved and worked for, from theri kids? If I had Alzheimers, I would rather die than live the life of confusion and bewilderment. The state won't let me do that, but will happily keep an echo of my former self alive and steal the money I want my son to have to make his life a little better, if he needs it.
When he is old enough, we plan to give our house to our son. After a few years the state can't take the asset from our family that way.
There is no time limit for a Local Authority to claim the disposal of an asset as a deliberate deprivation - the seven year rule that applies to inheritance tax does not apply in this scenario.
Clearly if the transfer took place a substantial time ago and it was not foreseen at that time that you would need care then it might be fine. However, if you plan to continue living in the house after you gift it to your son then a court may side with the LA and view it as a sham.
As Santa Claus has said, you should take expert advice.
Noting @Rob7Lee 's estimates of the cost of care homes, that seems to me an example of how yet again so few people in Britain are interested in asking the questions behind the key issues. By which I mean:
1.Why is good residential care in the UK so damn expensive? because in countries like Germany and Norway (I recently visited a care home in Oslo) they are largely State provided and very good. How come these countries can afford them through the State budget and we allegedly cannot?
2.Whyis that Germany, with a bigger population, and recently flooded with impoverished immigrants, has a state based healthcare system where there is a place for anyone in a clean well run hospital when they need it, without a wait on a trolley in a corridor (source, my niece who works in one such hospital and found the tenet of my question bizarre)
3. Why is that all across the EU students can go to their own universities (or in the Nordics to any Nordic uni) and pay little or nothing in fees, yet we are told that there is an economic crisis in our unis which requires us to saddle students with prohibitive levels of debt?
4. Whyis it that we bicker endlessly about whether we should build HS2 or concentrate on improving the rest of the network, yet no one questions the actual cost estimate for HS2, despite the known fact that it will cost at least 10 times more per km to build than a French TGV line?
5.Why is it that when it comes to tax, it's all about hitting/ not hitting the taxpayer, but nobody stops to ask whether we are correctly collecting the taxes as agreed and intended by successive Parliaments. At both ends of the tax bill spectrum those in the know say HMRC is not fit for purpose, yet what do we hear about this at election time? Not a dickie.
This is the thing about living on the Continent and then returning regularly. Listening to friends and family, and then opening your wallet and getting the feeling some one has nicked half of what you thought you had - you just keep asking yourself, why is everythingso damn expensive, and why does the mass of the population on the streets look in worse shape (certainly, not more affluent) than those in the big cities of Northern Europe? Of course not many have the chance to make that personal comparison regularly, I appreciate that, but benchmarking these questions internationally is possible, and some organisations do it. Why don't we listen to them, why don't we ask, WHY is Britain so damn expensive?
Prague, points 1,2 and 3 make me glad you contribute to the politics threads. I'm not advocating that Germany or the nordics are some utopian states, but I think on the whole, we have such an insular way of viewing and doing things over here.
We consider ourselves a multicultural society, but that is because people come to us. In the grand scheme of things if we do decide to up sticks and live in another country, it's more often than not English speaking I would imagine. i know of very few people who I've grown up with that have moved abroad, none that have lived in a non English speaking country.
Of course there are plenty of valid reasons why people who are born here will stay here. We're a very rich and prosperous country with plenty of opportunity. However with that, and being an island nation I do think it affects how we think about who we are and what we do, and how the country is run
I remember going over to Germany for the first time with my ex and getting a train from Hanover to her grandparents village in the forests. 2 and a half hour journey, ticket bought on the day for both of us, about €10. That ticket over here from say an equivalent journey bought on the day, possibly £40/50
I think the Tory Social Health policy is a massive own goal. I really think that May has underestimated the feeling that the average homeowner with children has for being able to pass something on.
I'm sure everyone accepts that the money to fund the increasing burden of must be found from somewhere but I really don't think that targeting the elderly and sick in this way is either fair or acceptable in the eyes of the country.
Surely the burden should be spread equally over the tax system in general. Why is it such anathema for the political classes to be honest and tell the electorate that everyone needs to pay and adjust income tax to accommodate what's needed.
I think this will impact on the conservative vote but not enough to prevent a victory.
I can't believe that this policy won't be dropped like a hot spud post election.
At least we know why the media are bending over backwards to support May.
She's agreed to ditch the leveson enquiry and the Conservative manifesto also promises to repeal rules which if enacted would force media organisations to pay the legal costs of both sides in libel and privacy cases.
I think the Tory Social Health policy is a massive own goal. I really think that May has underestimated the feeling that the average homeowner with children has for being able to pass something on.
Under the current scheme if you end up in a home they'll take you down to £23k to leave to your children.......
Under labours policy they haven't said how they'll fund it at all ...... wonder why?
Prague, I wouldn't be able to address all of the points you make but some of the answers (especially when comparing to Norway, and to a lesser extent the other Nordics and Germany) are that they are much richer countries than the UK.
Also whilst this obviously doesn't apply to Germany, I also feel that population size is relevant too just due to simple maths - small country=small problems etc.
Prague, I wouldn't be able to address all of the points you make but some of the answers (especially when comparing to Norway, and to a lesser extent the other Nordics and Germany) are that they are much richer countries than the UK.
Also whilst this obviously doesn't apply to Germany, I also feel that population size is relevant too just due to simple maths - small country=small problems etc.
So by that formula : Small country. Small Ecconomy, small GDP, ?
Comments
Frankly it looks like what it is. People who have plenty of time on their hands to make and dress up in a very bad dalek suit rather than do any actual work. (You'll note the traditional Socialist Worker banners.)
You will have more court cases on the right to die.
You will have more murders/manslaughters from the kids on property owning parents.
You will have a huge increase of the old suffering in squalid and distressed conditions in order to protect what they have spent a lifetime getting for their children.
You will have a financial services loophole industry taking off.
When I started out you paid your tax and your national insurance.
Insurance.
The idea was the insurance went towards your old age pension (which my father didn't live to collect) and the health service, particularly regarding the illnesses that come with getting older.
The Tories want to plunder quite a fundamental asset that people have struggled to get, to pay for a completely predictable situation.
They don't give a shit anyway as long as they maintain power.
It is the same with climate change. If you all agree how important it is to do something - take it off the political agenda and agree with each other what needs to be done and try to do your bit to save the palnet. And pray everybody else does their bit. America is currently trying its best to destroy it. Corporate interest which rules politics through its power and influence puts money above our survival and if that doesn't scare you it should. It is incredible. Parties need to be pragmatic and work together on these important issues.
I see the excellent posts of Fiish and can't resist a wry smile. I come out of that political questionaire as being more Conservative than him now! He explained perfectly rationally why the blunt tool of a questionaire isn't the best gauge, and also why his scores changed. This got me thinking, that in the space of quite a short time my position has changed, possibly more than Fiish's. I believe that May will win this election easily and I blamed Corbyn for that. I thought he was a disaster and was calling for a new party of the left of the right and the right of the left to get together. I have changed my position massively towards Corbyn. My historic posts have been totally damning of him but I suddenly feel I have got it. I now support him and don't want him ousted in a post election coup.
Corbyn will never be prime minsiter, but he is the man who has started a process that is the only chance of giving the majority of people in this country a voice that they currently don't have. He has to hold on to power and find a charismatic successor to lead the Labour party into the next election. One that can fight the corporations who manipulate and distort. You have your work cut out to beat them, but you have to try. I am not against rich people, I might be one, but the enemy is the elite that control the world. Trump/Brexit are actually signs that people are angry - they are encouraged to channel that anger at those below them who are unfairly rising above them - immigrants/scroungers etc... Not the elite that own/contol more and more of the world. When you have the control they have, you set the agenda, but you can break through. Corbyn is trying to do that. Bernie Saunders is doing similar in America. These are the unlikely heroes paving the way for a better, fairer world.
We have up until this election only had the choice between Neo Liberal with a bit more heart and Neo Liberal with a bit less. I laughed when a question to an uninformed member of the public was answered with 'they are all the same'. That was probably fair in previous elections, but it is a ridiculously ignorant statement in this one. It has clearly been pointed out that the Conservatives, rather than following the economic policies they campaigned on last time, actually followed Ed Milliband's much more closely. This election whether you vote Conservative or Labour or for somebody else, is the first where there is a distinct choice. People won't take it this time, but they may next if Labour hold their nerve.
Seed planting.
Christ no one tell her or I'm in trouble
Must say I am quite upset at the scrapping of free school dinners, this seems a very short sighted action. Been working on a very part time basis back in education, and exam assessment, Regardless of a parents financial background, I cannot see how a young child should have to suffer the stupidity of there parents support for there children at school, and there ability to be able to compete, and participate in lessons properly. One of the reasons when I was a school governor that I encouraged breakfast clubs at primary school, it amazed me how many children did not have any food before lunch, in what was a middle class area like Bexley village was staggering.
This may have been 18 odd years ago, but I am still not convinced that from this weeks exam invigilation that that they are best prepared, either for the questions, or being alert to do themselves justice.
A can of fizzy, and a bag of crisps does not cut it I am afraid.
1.Why is good residential care in the UK so damn expensive? because in countries like Germany and Norway (I recently visited a care home in Oslo) they are largely State provided and very good. How come these countries can afford them through the State budget and we allegedly cannot?
2.Whyis that Germany, with a bigger population, and recently flooded with impoverished immigrants, has a state based healthcare system where there is a place for anyone in a clean well run hospital when they need it, without a wait on a trolley in a corridor (source, my niece who works in one such hospital and found the tenet of my question bizarre)
3. Why is that all across the EU students can go to their own universities (or in the Nordics to any Nordic uni) and pay little or nothing in fees, yet we are told that there is an economic crisis in our unis which requires us to saddle students with prohibitive levels of debt?
4. Whyis it that we bicker endlessly about whether we should build HS2 or concentrate on improving the rest of the network, yet no one questions the actual cost estimate for HS2, despite the known fact that it will cost at least 10 times more per km to build than a French TGV line?
5.Why is it that when it comes to tax, it's all about hitting/ not hitting the taxpayer, but nobody stops to ask whether we are correctly collecting the taxes as agreed and intended by successive Parliaments. At both ends of the tax bill spectrum those in the know say HMRC is not fit for purpose, yet what do we hear about this at election time? Not a dickie.
This is the thing about living on the Continent and then returning regularly. Listening to friends and family, and then opening your wallet and getting the feeling some one has nicked half of what you thought you had - you just keep asking yourself, why is everythingso damn expensive, and why does the mass of the population on the streets look in worse shape (certainly, not more affluent) than those in the big cities of Northern Europe? Of course not many have the chance to make that personal comparison regularly, I appreciate that, but benchmarking these questions internationally is possible, and some organisations do it. Why don't we listen to them, why don't we ask, WHY is Britain so damn expensive?
I don't know the answers to most, on Nordic in particular the only insight I have is my father in laws partner who is Norwegian...... she visits about once every 2 months and spends most of her time shopping and parcelling up stuff to send back to Norway as things are so much cheaper over here!!
Some years back when I bought a ne Honda Civic for £15k she was shocked as one in Norway was 30,000 Euros which I assumed at the time was tax.
On care homes maybe I've been lucky where my dad is but in the main it's excellent and I couldn't ask for better care for him, which to me is the most important thing not that I'll inherit £300k less.
When he is old enough, we plan to give our house to our son. After a few years the state can't take the asset from our family that way.
could also be used to avoid the care tax..
I take your last point, absolutely, but in other European countries ordinary people don't have to make such a stark choice. You have done well for yourself but my sister and her husband have not been able to go into high paying work, and she now has two kids and wonders where on earth they will live. Our Mum's modest inheritance would at least help to get them on the ladder - but it may well vanish under Tory proposals.
Inheritance is often becoming a second generation thing. If you live to a ripe old age, by then your children are pensioners themselves (or getting towards that) so more people are skipping a generation and passing into grandchildren.
Clearly if the transfer took place a substantial time ago and it was not foreseen at that time that you would need care then it might be fine. However, if you plan to continue living in the house after you gift it to your son then a court may side with the LA and view it as a sham.
As Santa Claus has said, you should take expert advice.
We consider ourselves a multicultural society, but that is because people come to us. In the grand scheme of things if we do decide to up sticks and live in another country, it's more often than not English speaking I would imagine. i know of very few people who I've grown up with that have moved abroad, none that have lived in a non English speaking country.
Of course there are plenty of valid reasons why people who are born here will stay here. We're a very rich and prosperous country with plenty of opportunity. However with that, and being an island nation I do think it affects how we think about who we are and what we do, and how the country is run
I remember going over to Germany for the first time with my ex and getting a train from Hanover to her grandparents village in the forests. 2 and a half hour journey, ticket bought on the day for both of us, about €10. That ticket over here from say an equivalent journey bought on the day, possibly £40/50
I'm sure everyone accepts that the money to fund the increasing burden of must be found from somewhere but I really don't think that targeting the elderly and sick in this way is either fair or acceptable in the eyes of the country.
Surely the burden should be spread equally over the tax system in general. Why is it such anathema for the political classes to be honest and tell the electorate that everyone needs to pay and adjust income tax to accommodate what's needed.
I think this will impact on the conservative vote but not enough to prevent a victory.
I can't believe that this policy won't be dropped like a hot spud post election.
She's agreed to ditch the leveson enquiry and the Conservative manifesto also promises to repeal rules which if enacted would force media organisations to pay the legal costs of both sides in libel and privacy cases.
Under labours policy they haven't said how they'll fund it at all ...... wonder why?
Also whilst this obviously doesn't apply to Germany, I also feel that population size is relevant too just due to simple maths - small country=small problems etc.