New Prime Minister/Politics Thread

It’s my view-not popular, that all governments should get together in a room, hold hands, take a deep breath, and write all government debt off.Then reset with new rules

There is zero chance of any of it being repaid-the lend and pretend brigade hold sway eg Germany with Greece

Christ on a bike. Everytime I hear her speak, I have no idea how her Leeds comprehensive got her into Oxford.

Starting off on a good track saying she doesn't care if she is popular!

Quoted from whytakemypostcode on Wednesday, 21 September 2025

Christ on a bike. Everytime I hear her speak, I have no idea how her Leeds comprehensive got her into Oxford.

Starting off on a good track saying she doesn't care if she is popular!

She's not in the job to be popular, she's there to run the country and sort out the many problems. Mostly caused by her own party.

For me, the announcement on removing the salary cap for bankers is breath-taking.
I'm no expert on financial matters, but as I understand it, the banking crash of 2008 was caused by banks excessively lending.
Taking more risk, loaning more money and creating more debt, which eventually became unpayable.
Bankers caused this and were incentivised and rewarded with huge bonuses.
I understand the finance sector pays enormous levels of tax but is this more than the 1 trillion pounds it cost for us to bail out the banks for their reckless behaviour, in part caused by a culture of sky high bonuses?
I'm all for people doing well but do already very highly rewarded and incentivised people need a helping hand particularly given the events of just a few years ago?
For me, it's an obscene and heartless announcement when people up and down the country are struggling to heat their homes.

Couldn't agree more NCF.

I think its a good decision-otherwise top bankers just go to Paris or Germany and we lose the business.We know crap salaries attract crap employees-eg MPs.

They will also be paying a shed load of tax.

So the issue is keeping an eye on them

Another point-we didn’t lose any money propping up the banks.I read we have had it all back

Yep, I'm sure those already overpaid *ankers are paying every little bit of tax due!!!!

Have we had it all paid back?
And how many years of austerity have we had, supposedly as a result of their incompetence?

More like looking them after their own I feel.

As a qualified tax accountant, I can assure you it’s very difficult, almost impossible to avoid tax and nic on salary-unless you commit to spend £1 for £1 in qualifying investments such as fledgling companies.That’s how I largely invest.

The days of dodgy Wayne Rooney/Jimmy Carr tax schemes, immoral throughout,were knocked on the head in 2013.Osborne blocked it all with one clever piece of legislation.

At the end of the day, the banks should be regulating salaries and bonuses, not the government.The government should however regulate the banks—which they do.

Otherwise, why not attack the EPL player salaries and anyone else who earns big money?Where do you stop?An EPL footballer and his club will be contributing at least 60pc of gross salary in tax and NICs-that’s pretty good for the country.

Usual seedy politics of greed and envy for me.If someone is successful AND pays his taxes, what’s the issue other than envy?

Socialists just don’t get it-lowering taxes actually results in higher tax collection.

On the one hand you say that high earners normally pay the tax that is due and on the other that lowering tax increases revenue.
I fail to understand that logic????

What he means is that high earners won't give up the second house/third car/4 holidays a year for noone.

So if you tax them more they will simply spend less and screw the rest of you.

Lower taxes and when they've returned from the world cruise they might throw down some scraps from the table.

No champions-it’s called the Laffer Curve.Read and digest

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

All the Laffy curve tells you that if the tax rate is 0% you won't collect anything and if you tax 100% noone will bother working (not for money anyways) so you won't collect anything either.

In between it's all vague as to what the optimum setting is though (there might be multiple Maxima)

Quoted from Laffy on Wednesday, 21 September 2025

As a qualified tax accountant, I can assure you it’s very difficult, almost impossible to avoid tax and nic on salary-unless you commit to spend £1 for £1 in qualifying investments such as fledgling companies.That’s how I largely invest.

The days of dodgy Wayne Rooney/Jimmy Carr tax schemes, immoral throughout,were knocked on the head in 2013.Osborne blocked it all with one clever piece of legislation.

At the end of the day, the banks should be regulating salaries and bonuses, not the government.The government should however regulate the banks—which they do.

Otherwise, why not attack the EPL player salaries and anyone else who earns big money?Where do you stop?An EPL footballer and his club will be contributing at least 60pc of gross salary in tax and NICs-that’s pretty good for the country.

Usual seedy politics of greed and envy for me.If someone is successful AND pays his taxes, what’s the issue other than envy?

Socialists just don’t get it-lowering taxes actually results in higher tax collection.

I can't believe you write this rubbish. The doors are wider open than ever before.

You are due to pay £200k in tax. You buy an apartment in Spain for >Eu100000. That enables you to get Spanish residency on investment, which means no UK tax under the double tax treaty. Bill your fees through a Cyprus company and they neither arise in Britain or Spain and your income becomes tax free in both countries. Bingo, you've spent Eu100k to save £200k pa in tax. Every consultant on the circuit does it and all perfectly legal as long as you are out of the UK 6 months a year. You submit an SA109 and its immediately binding with Spain, 10 minutes it takes.

And if you go to a Spanish hospital you get free, no wait treatment and they bill the NHS!

There isn't anyone earning over £100k a year who isn't doing something like this, even putting USD fees into US bank accounts and keeping them off the books. It's so easy. HMRC has fired all of its decent staff, so no-one will ever challenge any tax planning schemes. What's the top rate of tax? 40% plus 2% NIC, who is going to pay 42% for what we get in return? So it can end up in some Ukrainian oligarch's bank account? Not much of a moral argument, is it?

Exactly right Marko.
If the local plumber, hairdresser and taxi driver can easily avoid paying their full amount of tax due (and we all know they can and do), you know full well that those earning bigger money and who can therefore afford to pay top dollar to those in the know, will be doing the same.

He’s talking absolute rubbish-I know very few people who own a Spanish house(me excluded)Also most bankers are employees and subject to PAYE and taxes at source -they don’t issue fee notes.Their employers do of course.

As for the allegation that our defence spending isn’t going to where it’s supposed to, prove it.Just usual rumour.

You’re mixing in the wrong circles Marko-where do you stand on Putin playing with nuclear weapons?For or against?

Laffy is right. Marko is confusing residency with tax residency. It is possible to get a Spanish residency permit by spending €500k on a property but it is much more difficult to lose your UK tax residency especially if you have lived your life in the UK and also own UK property. Some Russians obtained Spanish residency by laundering their ill-gotten gains through Spain and no doubt also use offshore companies in Cyprus. Quite amusing that flights to Istanbul apparently were costing up to €10,000 from Russian cities after Putin decided to call up reservists. There's hardly any support for Putin's war among the Russian middle class. Russian mothers don't want their sons coming back from Ukraine in a body bag.

O the use of nuclear weapons by Russia.

I thought they said they invaded Ukraine to liberate the people living there rather than creating a nuclear wasteland in Ukraine.

Marko is fundamentally wrong-I’ve applied for a Spanish visa under the 500k plus House rule.Not to avoid tax, more to mitigate the 90 day Brexit rule.

Tax residency is a completely different thing.It’s based on where you habitually reside and it’s very difficult to shed U.K. residency.The utter crap he spouts about tax treaties blah blah is just that-total crap.

This country needs high earners paying tax-they pay most of it.In Marko’s world, it’s the opposite.The way to generate more tax is to tax less, encourage people to be more productive.I speak from experience-not from a Russian propaganda sheet which is looking rather tenuous given Putin’s appalling war

45% tax rate gone for over £150,000, they'll pay 40% now

So that's less than 2% saving 5% whilst the Tories look like they only give a shit about the rich. Foot-bullet interface to me

And don't forget that they will pay 19%, with the 1% reduction on the first £37,700 they earn, along with the rest of us.

Words fail me. How out of touch can they be?

We need out of the box thinking in our current predicament, not a budget designed to appeal to ideologues.

Shambolic.

I rather like it-less is more

Seems like the markets are agreeing , 2%+ fall in the FTSE 100 this morning , pound dropped again the dollar to 1.11 think that may be the lowest since decimalisation.

With most major commodities being based around the dollar , this will cause inflation to increase.

All this for the "trickle down" myth which has been been practically proven to be a myth and it just sprouted by those who are either gullible to the Torry party mantra or are so greedy they would happly screw over everyone else in the pursuit of greed.

A 20 year study in trickle down economics (
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/how-bad-is-inequality-trickle-down-economics-thomas-piketty-economists-2021-12%3famp
Impact on the current markets
https://www.standard.co.uk/business/ftse-100-live-23-september-kwasi-kwarteng-minibudget-gfk-consumer-confidence-uk-economy-b1027593.html


Onto Fracking
Some articles explains why in the UK Fracking does not work. (Based around factual science and not a posh bloke who read history with little to no scientific knowledge )
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/21/fracking-wont-work-uk-founder-chris-cornelius-cuadrill

https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-why-fracking-is-not-the-answer-to-the-uks-energy-crisis/

https://www.energymanagermagazine.co.uk/the-u ks-geology-wont-support-uk-fracking-claims-expert/

Quoted from Laffy on Friday, 23 September 2025

I rather like it-less is more

Wow brilliant analysis. You may care about your Ukrainian family and your wealthy self, but what about the rest of us and our kids and grandkids. This is totally wreckless.

Dont suppose our lovely PM has even heard of Tony Barber MP former Tory chancellor who attempted to jump start a flatlining economy in the early 70s. Tax cuts and borrowing were the answer said he. They led to rocketing inflation, interest rate hikes, strikes and a giant balance of payments deficit with the extra money being spent on imports. Then a run on sterling and a financial crisis complete with a bank of England lifeboat for the lenders led to his dismissal. A miners strike and the 3 day week ended with the PMs demise and a Labour government tasked with job of repairing the Tory damage in the middle of an energy crisis(the Sheiks not Vlad responsible).
Been there before.

Right on que, here come the Cumbrians.net socialist workers members party members. Up the train drivers.