I’ve said this a few times - wealth isn’t about having a few quid in your pocket or money in the bank, it’s about assets. That’s how the super-rich avoid tax, legitimately, whilst seeing the value of their assets grow.
Yet have a conversation on here about inheritance tax and all hell will break loose. Everyone wants the rich to pay their dues but no one wants to pay any more tax or NI whilst grandstanding for doctors and nurses getting pay rises.
Tax all earnings on a sliding scale. 20% on someone who earns millions is a drop in the ocean where as 10% on someone that earns a pittance could be the difference between having the heating on or not.
Just tax the fuck out of everything and plough the money back into infrastructure and nationalising parts of industry. In 20 years time you’ll have a much happier higher taxed Britain.
What a great post, well said.
If the Tories succeeded in anything in their 14 years of misrule, they succeeded in convincing a large proportion of the less intelligent that income tax was bad and cutting tax was good. It was particularly good for the super rich, but they forgot to mention that bit.
Meanwhile, public services went right down the tube. Seven or eight million people on never ending NHS waiting lists, half a day waits for ambulances, impossible to see GPs, the collapse of social care for the elderly and vulnerable, schools falling apart and increasingly asking for parental contributions just to keep operating, no police response to crime due to lack of manpower, the erosion and cutting funds to local authorities leading to increases in council tax and the closure of local services like libraries, swimming pools and toilets, roads not maintained and not fit to drive on. The list goes on, I bet you could add many examples of your own.
The contrast here in Spain couldn't be more stark, and they've had their equivalent of a Labour government in power almost since I got here six years ago. I pay around 18% of my annual income in tax, and I'm GLAD to pay it.
Just to give you a few examples of what public services are like here. I live in a small village, population about 500. We have a GP surgery here open two hours a day, five days a week. We have a health centre with A&E about 3km away in Pego. I can make an appointment to see my GP online and be in to see him within a week. When I go, I can take my time and speak to him, he's not trying to get me out if the door after five minutes, and he asks me at the end if there's anything else he can do for me. If I need to see a specialist, he will arrange for me to be seen at Denia hospital, usually within three or four weeks. We also have a full time pharmacy in the village where I collect my prescription at subsidised prices, e.g. blood pressure tablets, a month's supply for two quid.
The roads here are fantastic, it's the first thing UK visitors remark on. They don't know what potholes are here. The motorways and A roads have surfaces like billiard tables. Local roads are fully maintained too, with regular hedge and grass cutting, drain clearing and sweeping. You regularly see street cleaners with carts and big brooms keeping the Pego streets swept.
The police force responds to calls immediately, and patrol cars are very visible around town and on the main roads. Local police supervise crossings outside schools morning and afternoon.
Pego has just opened a massive new library. My own little village opened a fantastic refurbished communal pool and bar two years ago. The local authority installed solar powered LED lighting on the lane below my house which links the urbanisation to the village, about 800 metres long, to keep people safer at night. Just a local lane! My council tax and waste disposal is the equivalent of £340 per annum. My electricity bill, subsidised by the government courtesy of excess profits tax on the energy companies and banks, is about £70 a month.
I could go on and on; Spain is not a paradise, it has its share of crime, social problems, even a fascist political party like your very own Reform which regularly attracts about 12% of the national vote. But people here understand that the public sector has to be financed by their taxes and they know they have to pay them. People in the UK have to re-learn that lesson, and the Labour party have to find the balls to really get stuck in, and not tinker around the edges.
