I recognise that if we turn the screw on the wealthy and successful, many of whom create jobs and wealth in the UK, we end up with less.
I think this is another narrative that has gone unchallenged for too long.
There are very few 100% self-made multi-millionaires and billionaires and there are fewer and fewer all the time as a greater and greater percentage of the uber-wealthy simply inherit their wealth rather than build it from scratch.
Almost every company could survive if its owners suddenly disappeared. Almost none could survive if its workforce suddenly disappeared. The companies the uber-wealthy own rely on a sufficiently healthy and educated workforce to survive. Without them there is no company.
Admittedly the UK is in a more vulnerable position than most given that so much of its economic activity centres around the City of London, and with these kind of institutions they can always threaten to move to Dubai to get what they want.
They question is, how long is the UK going to put up with being held hostage by these scumbags?
I recognise that if we turn the screw on the wealthy and successful, many of whom create jobs and wealth in the UK, we end up with less
Other than they don't create wealth as such. They can borrow money and push up private debt and employee people for sure. There is some value in that for certain sectors of course.
But the fact they have access to money in the first place tells your the transfer of wealth is already skewed in their favour.
That's why public spending needs to rise to redress the fact that private debt crowds it out - and nearly always private debt is more of a problem for society - and is always part of the the big economic slumps.
The government simply needs to become a bigger employer - and has the funds, and access to resources to do it. This doesn't drive private debt - and workers can benefit because they don't need to generate a profit.
Wealth creation is more akin to wealth extraction.
FFS the very first two sentences in that article completely put me off Polanski
How the **** is he going to sort out the country when he can't even dress himself?
Wait... this isn't sarcasm..?
Hard to figure out?
Here's a clue.........I will definitely be voting for the Greens in next May's local elections, as I have been for years.
I temporarily suspended my support for the Greens when Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader because I thought there was a possibility that I might be wrong and that the Labour Party could be saved after all.
For the record my support for the Greens predates when Zack Polanski decided to join the LibDems, at a time when they were propping up to Tory Prime Minister and enthusiastically helping to implement austerity, and stand as a LibDem candidate.
Edit : It is worth noting that the left in the UK has a record of poor wardrobe choices, from Michael Foot to Jeremy Corbyn.
Some good debate here on Ch4.
Pre budget debate.
(I'm not totally crazy on the implementation of wealth taxes for lots of technical reasons but it's the correct argument to have which is more important at the moment. The numbers are poor and the wealthy can easily jump through the hoops.)
The debate is hugely flawed- as wealth taxes won't translate to money for other people to spend. Doesn't work like that.
Zack knows plenty about the monetary system but can't go in too crazy on these neoclassical arguments. They just won't get it.
Polanski yet again looking more knowledgeable and convincing than any of them.
The Labour MP is talking shite - she keeps saying the economy has been put back on its footing. It's absolutely hasn't.
Also the reason high earners pay the most tax % is because they have the most money.
P.s there is no such thing as an independent economic expert, especially when they're from the George Osborne mob. They all frame it though the same absurd household lens.
The current system has had decades to work and they keep going around in circles with ever damaging results - expecting it to get better.
Some good debate here on Ch4.
Pre budget debate.
(I'm not totally crazy on the implementation of wealth taxes for lots of technical reasons but it's the correct argument to have which is more important at the moment. The numbers are poor and the wealthy can easily jump through the hoops.)
The debate is hugely flawed- as wealth taxes won't translate to money for other people to spend. Doesn't work like that.
Zack knows plenty about the monetary system but can't go in too crazy on these neoclassical arguments. They just won't get it.
Polanski yet again looking more knowledgeable and convincing than any of them.
The Labour MP is talking shite - she keeps saying the economy has been put back on its footing. It's absolutely hasn't.
Also the reason high earners pay the most tax % is because they have the most money.
P.s there is no such thing as an independent economic expert, especially when they're from the George Osborne mob. They all frame it though the same absurd household lens. This guy is one of the architects of austerity. He's in no position to lecture people about what is good or bad for them.
The current system has had decades to work and they keep going around in circles with ever damaging results - expecting it to get better.
Very much this. I recognise that if we turn the screw on the wealthy and successful,
It's vanishingly unlikely that they'll up-stcks and disappear. All that free time and no proper culture to be seen at in the Carribbean (other warm and sunny seaside places also apply) leads to bored rich people who are unable to boast abouth their "support" for the arts and charitable works.
Hard to figure out?
Impossible. Try consistently posting what you actually think and mean. And using these things 😮 😎 😏 if you aren't being entirely serious, they're free. 🤗 ❤️
Impossible. Try consistently posting what you actually think and mean.
If you know what I consistently post then you will know that I am far-left, who the **** am I going to vote for in London if it isn't the Greens? I have never made any secret that I have supported the Greens ever since Charles Kennedy died and the LibDems ceased being a social-democratic party.
Obviously when YP are up and running and are on ballot papers things might change but right now I will not hesitate to vote Green in next May's local elections. I certainly won't be voting for a Reform-Lite party whose moral compass includes backing for a far-right genocidal and criminal regime. How the **** could I expect them to make any local moral-based decisions on my behalf?
I was actually taking the piss out of the article which was linked. I will remind you what the first two sentences of that article were :
Zack Polanski is a former hypnotherapist and actor who is gay, Jewish and vegan, with crooked teeth. He is wearing secondhand clothes – an old Uniqlo suit that he bought on Vinted – and turquoise fake leather Dr Martens.
I am interested in reading an informative article about Zack Polanski but I have zero interest in whether his teeth are crooked or not and where he got his Uniqlo suit from. I didn't even know that Uniqlo made suits.
Now I understand that some people might need to be "entertained" whilst reading a political profile but I generally don't. And since it was clearly a long article I decided that I couldn't be arsed if it was going to be padded out with shite like that. So I didn't bother reading beyond the first paragraph.
For the record I am perfectly relaxed if anyone thinks that I make decisions on who to vote for based on wardrobe choices, but thanks for the tip anyway 😊😉♥️🧐🙃😮
I thought it was fairly obvious Ernie was being very sarcastic about the clothing.
He's made a point of being positive about ZP since day one.
That said stuff does get lost on threads such as these.
No need for you two to be annoyed at each other really
I'm not totally crazy on the implementation of wealth taxes for lots of technical reasons but it's the correct argument to have which is more important at the moment. The numbers are poor and the wealthy can easily jump through the hoops.
If only there were some sort of single method of identifying an individual for the purpose of ownership, income, and taxation. Some sort of Digital ID perhaps. The proper kind, obviously. Not the Labour version where it's a Digital ID that somehow stops small boats.
Seems to work fine in Norway. To the extent that there are several ultra-wealthy individuals who would have paid 0 kroner in tax last year had it not been for the wealth tax.
Obviously the rich still manage to avoid paying taxes to an embarrassing degree in Norway, and if they can't some of them will leave. Which to me is a pretty clear indication of just how effective it is.
https://www.reuters.com/business/norways-wealth-tax-trades-millionaires-equality-2025-11-24/
The debate is hugely flawed- as wealth taxes won't translate to money for other people to spend. Doesn't work like that.
Yes it does.
I'm pleased to read all that, Ernie. You've given up your extreme left union leader heroes for someone a bit more mainstream. I've taken a while to warm to Zack. I voted green in the last GE and found the choice of a boob expanding con man counter productive initially but he's doing well now.
You'll understand that I wasn't sure about your views on him given that your early contributions on him were almost identical to your opening quote from the Observer apart from the bent teeth bit.
Anyway Zack Polanski is a northern lefty gay vegan cyclist, and Jewish, the best possible antidote for the poison that is Reform UK. So just that should be sufficient reason to back him.
How was I to know that wasn't sarcasm? Or was it? Anyhow, message recieved and understood, you'll be voting Green in the elections you can participate in (still not applied for nationality? Go on, then I can stop nagging you) and you like the guy, I'm sure we can still find things to argue about though. 😉
No need for you two to be annoyed at each other really
So it would appear.
I'm pleased to read all that, Ernie. You've given up your extreme left union leader heroes for someone a bit more mainstream.
Apologies but I have no idea what you are talking about. What extreme left union leader heroes? I specifically said that I consider myself to be "far-left" and I also said that I switched to the Greens when I felt that the LibDems were no longer a social-democratic party. The single most important priority now imo is to re-establish a social-democratic agenda after 45 years of neoliberal failure.
I am not a social-democratic but I strongly support the Leninist aim of "immediate gains" and the principle of supporting the Labour Party like a rope supports a hanged man. I think we have reached the stage where Labour has been given enough rope to hang itself.
Anyway Zack Polanski is a northern lefty gay vegan cyclist, and Jewish, the best possible antidote for the poison that is Reform UK. So just that should be sufficient reason to back him.
How was I to know that wasn't sarcasm? Or was it?
I have no idea who wrote that but despite the claim it certainly wasn't posted by me. Did you make it up?
I have no idea who wrote that but despite the claim it certainly wasn't posted by me. Did you make it up?
It's the seventh post on this very thread, Ernie. I did not make it up it's a direct quote I made using the quote function with no editing, you wrote it. Everyone one can check very easily.
Care to apolgise?
Some of us have good memories but yours is increasingly selective.
Re. taxing the rich, anyone have any thoughts about this?
The really weird thing is that even amongst multi-millionaires and billionaires wealth taxes are popular.
I think the issue is that the billionaires who own mainstream media and social media are against it and that is what is driving the entire narrative.
Hard to figure out?
For me, well yea. But I'm happy to chalk that up to finding it very hard to infer tone from written words.
The really weird thing is that even amongst multi-millionaires and billionaires wealth taxes are popular.
It's as if blindly accepting the word of a noisy minority distorts the facts.
It's as if blindly accepting the word of a noisy minority distorts the facts.
Yep, but just look how many on here kept repeating the daily mail/torygraph propaganda that the farm inheritance tax was unpopular and a reason that other taxes on the wealth couldn't happen.
A wealth tax is a good moral thing but is not the key to raising money - it's a decent thing to get people in a different frame of mind to make some changes to neoclassical framing.
The main issue currently is there's generally no appetite for raising taxes and arguably because taxation is a draining exercise it will simply remove money from the economy - it doesn't hand it anyone.
So the economy will not improve.
They have to fix stuff with a bigger deficit - there is no other technical way currently. (And that's not happening with totally hopeless OBR making stuff up.) They cannot fix the current economic problems with taxation alone. (They can reclaim resources and reduce power - go for it.)
There is no way Labour are getting anything good out of this budget I reckon.
The more they try to move *towards* a surplus the more the economy tanks and people become unemployed.
Increasing unemployment is the measure of too small a deficit.
The neoclassical framing at the moment is "no taxation, reduce spending, don't upset the markets." That's a literal hard-line telling you things will never get better for most of us. Don't fall for any of it.
'They' will never drop this argument until the economy or banking system tanks then there will be no issue with finding the money for them.
Austerity or markets. We always lose in this scenario.
The main issue is currently is there's generally no appetite for raising taxes and arguably because taxation is a draining exercise it will simply remove money from the economy - it doesn't hand to it anyone.
A wealth tax won't remove money from the economy it will in all probability reintroduce it (the government will spend it - whether tax is a withdrawal or simply a part of the circular flow of income is up for debate). The wealthy generally withdraw money from the circular flow of income in that they save a high proportion or spend it on things that withdraw it from the circular flow of income. When someone gets rich and buys a Carribean island owned by a foreigner the money is lost to the UK economy. If instead they pay tax the government will spend it thus driving the economy.
Taxation isn't a "draining exercise"... it is a recovery exercise. Without it (and without making it more progressive and reducing avoidance) the rich will keep getting richer and the poor will keep getting poorer (with poorer access to essential services).
The problem with the government debt = private sector surplus argument is it ignores the fact that not all debt is created equal. And not all government spending is created equal.
Regardless of who holds the debt (yes, even if it is the government) there is an expectation that it will eventually result in an increase in productivity, ie, the debt will be paid back with interest.
That is debt as an investment and everyone is OK with it. The problem comes when debt is being used to pay your costs.
What is a cost and what is an investment is seldom clear cut. Education should be a no brainer, but then of course you could be over-educating your population compared to the level the current level of your economy requires.
Healthcare as well. On the surface keeping your population healthy is a clear case of investment until you realise that much of a society's costs when it comes to healthcare come at the point in people's lives when they are no longer actively participating in the economy (in terms of being both producers and consumers). But then if people know their relatives are taken care of that can be an investment.
The problem is, as more and more of the real value of the economy has been syphoned off to a smaller and smaller number of people, government borrowing has been getting more used to pay for costs, not for investment.
Now that money that has been syphoned off over the past few decades is being used to build massive data centres that will never result in real world productivity. But for now it is buoying the share price of the 'Magnificent 7' companies. That is what happens when you let a smaller and smaller number of people decide what to do with the excess capacity of an economy.
I have no idea who wrote that but despite the claim it certainly wasn't posted by me. Did you make it up?
It's the seventh post on this very thread, Ernie. I did not make it up it's a direct quote I made using the quote function with no editing, you wrote it. Everyone one can check very easily.
Care to apolgise?
Some of us have good memories but yours is increasingly selective.
Blimey, you are quoting what I posted back in July? Wow you take what I post seriously, I feel so honoured !
What do you want me to apologise for...... not remembering exactly what I posted 4 months ago? There is nothing wrong with the quote btw I just assumed that it must have been someone else who said it because of the discussion we are having right now.
Anyway since you asked the question whether what I posted 4 months ago, ie this.....
Anyway Zack Polanski is a northern lefty gay vegan cyclist, and Jewish, the best possible antidote for the poison that is Reform UK.
.....was sarcasm, no, why would it have been? I can't begin to imagine why you thought it might have been sarcasm. Don't you understand what sarcasm is?
It is a distinguishing feature of British humour, you have obviously been living abroad too long mate.
Anyway I apologise for not remembering exactly what I posted 4 months ago 👍
Thank you, Ernie. 👍
you have obviously been living abroad too long mate.
You too. 😉
I still remember some British subtleties such as ending a sentence with "mate" is not as friendly as it appears. 😜
Anyhow on one thing we agree, on current form we'll be voting for Zack's Greens which given all the other things we manage to disagree on is remarkable. 🙂
Vive le Zack !
It's a London subtly and yes it is friendly. If I didn't want to sound friendly I would use the term "pal" in a British ironic way.
🤗 All good then.
OK, buddies.
😉
I've taken a while to warm to Zack. I voted green in the last GE and found the choice of a boob expanding con man counter productive initially
It says something fairly depressing about the current state of UK politics that the boob expanding conman is not, by a long way, the worst party leader (in E&W).
the boob expanding conman
Point of order....... isn't the term "conman" used to describe someone who tricks people out of their money?
Zack Polanski did not get paid for what was actually a hypnotherapy session that was intended to focus on body image self-confidence, not literal breast enlargement.
But the undercover Sun reporter got her story, so someone at least was paid.
Still don't think a "Hypnotherapist" should be given the chance at running the country, like I'd get it if they were an economics professional, a former successful COO/CEO/Director, hell even an astrophysicist.
But an ex hypnotherapist and stage actor from a fee paid grammar school? It still gives worse than "my daddy was a toolmaker" vibes and look how well thats gone, I think the biggest giveaway is the fact he used to be a stage actor, he's certainly acting the role of a Politician well enough that people believe he's not just been planted in as a puppet
Well good luck finding an economics professional, a former successful COO/CEO/Director, hell even an astrophysicist, to run the country but the truth is that it is civil servants who actually run the country.
Starmer's CV won't include what his father did but it will include that he was a barrister. Personally I would trust a lawyer to sell me an argument even less than I would trust an actor.
You do realise that lawyers are paid large sums of money to argue cases that they don't necessarily believe in, don't you?
And whatever you think of Zack Polanski no one is talking about him "running the country", he's not even an MP ffs. What people are talking about is the possibility of the Greens having a large parliamentary presence and possibly being a part of a coalition government.
like I'd get it if they were an economics professional, a former successful COO/CEO/Director, hell even an astrophysicist
Business people have no clue how to 'run' a country for the benefit of the population.
The simply run it like a spreadsheet and don't look at other outcomes - which is why we are where we are.
They also try and 'run' the exchequer as a business and in no way shape or form does it operate like that.
Very good, and clear, on Radio4 PM right now.
Mostly economics, but more broad brush than talking about this week’s budget. I can’t say I disagreed with any of it. Knocked back some overly simplistic characterisations of the policies being proposed plainly and simply. No wriggling.
[ a few answers that I felt were glossing over some real problems, eg the recent failing of the home insulation programme, but that’s being very (overly) picky ]
I'm still very impressed by him so far, he's dealt with all the shit that's been thrown at him by the media well. Not overly impressed by the policy of withdrawing from NATO, but thats the only one I really disagree with.
Not overly impressed by the policy of withdrawing from NATO, but thats the only one I really disagree with
I don't think there's a withdrawal policy as I understand it.
He just says over time we need to look a the problems associated with our ties to America / Trump with regard to stronger European 'ties' over time.
He also definitely said it would be crazy to do anything currently.
Seems totally sensible.
This is the age group in which more Jews are turning away from Zionist identification: 25% of non-Zionist Jews and 62% of anti-Zionist Jews now support the Green party. This suggests that it is because of Green policies on Israel and not despite them that the party is appealing to many.
ZP on QT tonight - along with that ridiculous Mike Tapp.
ZP on QT tonight
I missed the beginning but for me the most interesting aspect of tonight's QT was the audience. I was genuinely surprised that none of the three right-wingers, the Tory, Labour, and Reform, seemed to get any applause. And yet Zack Polanski apleared to get applauded every time he spoke.
The Liberal Democrat did get a little applause after her final comment but it seemed to be driven mostly by a British sense of politeness, something which surprisingly wasn't extended to the Tory, Labour, and Reform, guys.
And I thought Zia Yusuf did an excellent job of pissing off the audience. I hope that Reform wheel him out more often. He is obviously highly intelligent, articulate, and knows plenty of facts which he can seamlessly regurgitate is required, but he clearly doesn't tolerate those who don't entirely agree with very well.
Who would have thought that a leading figure in a party of bigots had poor people's skills and a lot of pent up anger?
Edit : Was it my imagination or did Fiona Bruce's boobs look a tad bigger this evening?
Edit : Was it my imagination or did Fiona Bruce's boobs look a tad bigger this evening?
🤣
The electorate has nothing against big boobs fortunately.
And yet Zack Polanski apleared to get applauded every time he spoke.
Yes and he got applauded on the first question which was literally Reform territory.
Zia Yusuf boils my piss.
Just 'cos he went to cocky-ness school...
Seen a few clips from last night's QT, and Polanski seemed to be the only pragmatic adult in the room, which pissed everyone off. Including Fiona Bruce when he asked why they had an immigation special and not a cost of living special. Can't say I noticed anything else about her.
If he can mobilise the younger voters and those wanting "a change but not Reform" to actually turn out, the Greens may surprise at the next election. The risk is they split the votes with the Lib Dems. Especially if there is a Tory/Reform deal.
The risk is they split the votes with the Lib Dems. Especially if there is a Tory/Reform deal.
Nothing personal but I dont like all this splitting the vote nonsence.
We would have said Reform are splitting the Right vote and we should all just stick with the tried and tested Conservatives but now the splitters are leading the polls.
We would have said the Greens are splitting the Left vote and we should all just stick to tried and tested Labour but they got in anyway with a reduced turnout and a masive majority only to spaff it all up the wall.
Was it my imagination or did Fiona Bruce's boobs look a tad bigger this evening?
Maybe ZP hypnotised her?
. dur
The risk is they split the votes with the Lib Dems. Especially if there is a Tory/Reform deal
My take is on this then the old school liberal left need to step out of the way / work with the Greens.
I've no idea how that pans out but we need a strong progressive pushback and the greens are leading that battle.