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According to the BBC it’s because it’s jumping from £800 to £2k,
I'm sure he still says hi to Liz and Kwasi when he sees them wandering about though. And I bet it's given him zero insight into the lives of the hundreds of thousands of other people who are falling out of fixed-rate mortgages into a similar situation, but without the option of staying in a 85K job, and just taking on a couple of directorships to make up the difference.
Sounds like his ex-missus has taken him to the cleaners though, which is funny.
He was left with financial overheads after a divorce from his wife, a lawyer from whom he separated in 2014. He is paying maintenance costs for his two children and their educational costs.
Quite easy to get yourself in a situation where most of your £100k is spoken for, especially if you have a big mortgage and you are on a single income i.e not living with someone earning a comparable sum. It's not necessarily a wise thing to have done, but it's easy. The difference is that it's probably your fault.
You can however be a supporter of freedom and anti-authoritarianism and stil think the fruits of labour should be shared rather than concentrated in the top few percent
There's a fundamental dichotomy there because people who make money, given freedom, will want to keep it to themselves. If you want to prevent that, you need some kind of authority in the picture.
If you want to prevent that, you need some kind of authority in the picture.
If you look at historical examples where economic equality was implemented by force they were obviously less than successful. Power and wealth go together, take one away and people exercise the other. So back in the old soviet days the guys at the top didn't have enormous wealth (initially at least) so they did everything they could to protect their power, and this resulted in gulags, famines, executions etc. Socialism in it's traditional form simply doesn't work. It isn't the only method of creating economic justice though, there are others.
If you ask me the solution to a lot of problems is to break the link between power and money. You could come up with all sorts of creative ways of doing this. Hand more power back to local people by empowering local authorities and delegating decisions as far down as possible via local forums and cooperatives. At the other extreme end you could even remove the vote from anyone who has wealth beyond a certain level, or weight the number of votes you have to income/wealth so the less you have the more votes you posess. Give people a choice, power or money, but not both.
I like it. Now remind which which party to vote for that is pushing this power or money thing?
He is paying maintenance costs for his two children and their educational costs.
And he needs to get ready for those private schooling costs going up after his party lose the next election. 🤞🏻
Or, you know, they could mix it in mixed school with our kids. Save more money than cancelling Sky.
Pretty sure that the ones with the power will then use it to get all the money.
Like so many Tory MP's, self-awareness doesn't seem to be something that overly bothers him.
He didn't stop to weigh up the optics of how it would look to the average voter of coming out and saying you can't get by on 120 grand a year in the economy that you have been instrumental in creating?
I was just about to post what binners said, there are many reasons to stand down, Tory MPs are the most practiced of practiced liars, why tell the truth about this, given the optics of it?
Isn't this why Sunak fasts? Feeling the pinch?
I've heard he can only heat his swimming pool 6 days a week now.
delegating decisions as far down as possible via local forums and cooperatives.
Yeah, no, bit of a flaw in your thinking there, look what happened last time when the decision making was pushed all the way down to the population, Brexit, the majority actively voted to make themselves poorer without stopping to think.
If you think national level politics is a storm of self interest and corruption it's way worse as you go down the political scale to the local level.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1752281504728707076
Labour now beating Tory (although not Tory+reform) in every age demographic except 70+ . And yet there was talk of abolishing the triple lock to fund tax cuts before an election.
At the other extreme end you could even remove the vote from anyone who has wealth beyond a certain level,
I've raised the point on here before. I like the idea, you can have money or a say in how things are run, but you can't have both, simply as your money insulates you from decisions and priorities others need to make
the solution to a lot of problems is to break the link between power and money.
Now remind which which party to vote for that is pushing this power or money thing
breaking the link between money and power is a means (not a very feasible one in my view). The aim of doing this is a fairer society. There are other means to achieve this, possibly more feasible, that starmer amongst others talks about. Sorry. Sorry.
interesting point through. A strong cohesive society with respect for law and societal structures (be they statutory or religious or whatever) is a way to contain the power of individuals (which they'll tend to use in their self interest making other's lives harder whether it's straightforwardly knicking their stuff or exploiting their work in a factory). It's a bit more nuanced than a simple authoritarian/libertarian continuum.
Replace the House of Lords with a Sortition based assembly.
breaking the link between money and power is a means (not a very feasible one in my view)
There are some things that very easy to do, such as banning lobbying or regulating it tightly to make it transparent. That would put a large dent in the power of the very rich and corporations. Another one is massively increasing the power of local authorities. Yes there is still corruption but councillors are much closer to their constituents than MPs and the level of corporate influence at local levels is less than national. Also I've mentioned it before but removing the vote from the over 70s is not entirely undoable (if unlikely right now). I'm sure there's plenty other stuff, it doesn't need a revolution, just some leadership, vision and courage amongst politicians and voters receptive to some change.
Another one is massively increasing the power of local authorities. Yes there is still corruption...
Corruption? Do you not read 'Rotten Boroughs' in Private Eye? Have you been paying attention to whats presently going on with the freeport in Teeside?
Its all-party too, not just the Tories. If you want to see endemic corruption then just look at somewhere like Liverpool. Talk to anyone who has any dealing with the mafia that run the council there. You'd be hard pushed to find a more bent administration in a South American backwater.
If you think that devolving more power and money to people like them will lead to more accountability then you're absolutely delusional
If you think that devolving more power and money to people like them will lead to more accountability then you’re absolutely delusional
It would need reform obviously to make it much more accountable and transparent. Something that shouldn't be too difficult to do I would have thought in this age of the internet. Honestly if we can't stamp out corrutption in organisations such as councils then we might as well give up now. 🤔
Not that you surprise me with your defeatist outlook. Most of the party you go out canvassing for are currently engaged in an exercise of telling voters that everything is way too difficult or too expensive to change much so they really shouldn't expect a lot.
such as banning lobbying or regulating it tightly to make it transparent
Of course, depending on who is in power this will be done in different ways. See Cameron/Greensill. New legal restrictions on lobbying were framed to make things harder for genuine not for profits to lobby, but created loopholes for Cameron and his mates to earn their dirty money. And his reward for his corruption is to be back in the government. Nice one Sunak... rub our faces in it.
Give people a choice, power or money, but not both.
Mate - money IS power.
Mate – money IS power.
Exactly. You have identified the problem.
It doesn't follow though that this must always be the case. We could easily start to break the links in any number of ways. As with most things related to politics and economics, they are only the way they are because we have designed them that way, and they can easily be designed differently.
We could easily start to break the links in any number of ways.
Don't be daft. As long as there's democracy, political power depends on voters and anyone with money can influence voters as much as they like. You can put rules in to prevent rich people gaining power but they won't work.
I'm not saying money gets you power, I'm saying that money IS power - they are just different words for the exact same thing.
But its not an all or nothing choice. It's degrees, I'm pretty sure everyone on here is aware that that organisations like Taxpayers Alliance are funded entirely covertly, no one has any idea where the money comes from. So, change the rules, you want to lobby MPs? Fine, you can, but you have agree to be totally transparent about your sources of funding and submit to annual audits that'll be made public.
It's admitting that money has an undue influence and committing to do something about it to balance the scales.
Yes, we can do things to balance the scales but the more we do that the more that tends towards authoritarianism - telling people what they can and can't do with their own money - and that's something dazh is also against, paradoxically.
I am in favour of strict rules on what people can do with their money, but I realise that this is not compatible with libertarianism. The issue is that you can't force this on people in a democracy - and it doesn't even work well elsewhere - you have to get people to WANT these rules in place. The reason that Scandinavian countries are more social democracies is that they were always more equal. In other words, they aren't more equal because of their politics; they have those politics because they're more equal.
The UK was very unequal several centuries ago, and it slowly moved towards real democracy. For the past 40 years that democratic trend has been reveresed as the extremely wealthy have exerted more background control over polotics.
Having rules and transparancy about the funding and access the mega wealthy have to polotivs is libertarian, it frees the majority to have a political impacts with their votes, currently we only get to vote on the choices the wealthy want us to be offered.
they are just different words for the exact same thing.
Nonsense. Power is the ability to coerce someone else to do something (or not do it), or think a certain way. Yes money provides people/organisations with the means to exercise power, but if the people they're trying to influence refuse then they have no power. In that obvious case the two are not the same. The task in front of politicians is/should be to exercise that ability to say no to power when the only basis for that power is money. In any number of ways our political system could be based on this simple principle, and almost everything would be much better for working people.
Having rules and transparancy about the funding and access the mega wealthy have to polotics is libertarian
Sure. But politics isn't the only way to have power, and precisely because money is the same as power, rich people will still be able to influence things. Perhaps by preventing such laws from being passed...
In any number of ways our political system could be based on this simple principle
And yet it's not. Because the rich don't want it to be that way...
The task in front of politicians is/should be to exercise that ability to say no to power when the only basis for that power is money.
Uh huh. Then I invest some money into making sure the hopeful politician who will say yes to money/power gets elected instead of the person with principles.
Because the rich don’t want it to be that way…
Has binners hacked your account? Things might be tipped in the favour of the rich right now but that hasn't always been the case and it won't be in future. By all means shrug your shoulders and say there's nothing that can be done, but don't pretend it's some immutable law because it isn't.
That's because the tories are still better than that Labour who will just take all my money away and give it to scroungers
So over half the +70’s are planning to vote for the very policies that have got the country to a place that they all seem to hate.
Its because the LEFT control the media, schools, civil service etc and so the tories are limited in their ability to save us all from the all powerful left.
That’s because the tories are still better than that Labour who will just take all my money away and give it to scroungers
Who would you rather be given money?
A) Targeted investment in social support, education, infrastructure and health (the idea being the people that benefit from such support will go on to become net contributors to society, or at least not a loss).
B) Offshore all the money via elaborate tax and procurement scams at the expense of the public pocket (the idea being the people who benefit from such support will become more wealthy than they already are).
Who would you rather be given money?
mattyfez - I'm reading kerley's response as satire
Things might be tipped in the favour of the rich right now but that hasn’t always been the case
No? I mean, the Black Death probably tipped the balance a bit but that was a while ago.
By all means shrug your shoulders and say there’s nothing that can be done
I'm not saying nothing can be done. I'm saying that which needs to be done is not particularly compatible with a libertarian viewpoint. You need laws to prevent money leading to exploitation. I'm also saying that you can't simply roll out these laws, because the very power you are seeking to curtail will prevent it. The only way to do this is with permanent popular support for a more egalitarian viewpoint, and that is not simply a case of passing a few laws. I mean it is, but no party will do it without the popular support it needs. It's like saying the solution to being poor is to make more money. The solution isn't to change politicians' minds, you need to change the electorate's minds.
Things might be tipped in the favour of the rich right now but that hasn’t always been the case and it won’t be in future.
When was that then?
intheborders
Free Member
So over half the +70’s are planning to vote for the very policies that have got the country to a place that they all seem to hate.#CouldntMakeItUp
I can only think they love moaning about the NHS as a passtime and would be devastated if that subject was taken off the table?
There's only one subject left then and that's why they're are so many black/ brown people on TV?
On a more serious note, it's bemusing how *some* of the over 70's are so keen to vote for a party that's actively destroying social care and the NHS. Turkeys voting for Christmas.😑
Oh dear.
What I find incomprehensible it that top tier ministers are allowed to conduct business via uncontrolled/private whattsapp groups..in any other profession it would be gross misconduct, and immediate dismissal.
Imagine knowing there is a WhatsApp group known as Evil Plotters that only exists to throw you out of your job?
He's lucky he isn't in Russian politics I suppose?
What's even more absurd is that someone in the 'evil plotters' whatsapp group added someone who subsquently leaked all of the details of the 'evil plotters' dastardly plans!
There's a mole within the sacred circle of evil plooters!
God, it's like a bunch of pissed up 16 year old girls bickering about someone they don't like... it's utterly, utterly pathetic, and these people are 'running' the country?
What I also don’t get is the press referring to their ridiculous carry-on as Machiavellian?
Eh? My cat is considerably more cunning in the way it conducts itself. This lot are so stupid, they telegraph their next move with neon lights and fireworks. All you really need to do is look at who Michael Gove has been seen with lately.
They actually called their own WhatsApp group ‘ Evil Plotters’. Seriously? How very ‘Machiavellian’ of them. I’m presuming the icon for the group is a picture of Dick Dastardly s****ing? Like @Mattyfez says, this really is playground level stuff. And these are people who want to be taken seriously as some kind of government-in-waiting? What a bunch of clowns!
Every day, something else about this government turns up which can only be described using the term 'pathetic'. Or 'infantile'.
I think that reflects the general standard of the 2019 intake of absolute morons that rode in on Johnsons coat-tails
In more positive news, polling in my constituency is presently predicting our useless Tory MP being hoofed out and a hefty labour majority.
I suspect that will be replicated in a lot of constituencies that were quite shocked to discover they now had a Tory MP last time around.