Separate Moan Thread About The Election

I find it a bit worrying, they say they want to get Britain building again, the amount of building around here in the last 10yrs has pretty much ground the whole road system to a halt.
We have had thousands of houses built in recent years, whole farms swallowed up.
Most of the roadworks every day appears to be where the old services can't cope with all the new housing they keep adding.
It's all green field building around here, but maybe they will classify farming as industrial so that it will fit the grey belt classification.

 

What happens when you retire, for lots of older people modest investment is part of their income, you can't live on state pension.
People save towards retirement, maybe it's best not to bother and just use food banks and claim every government handout you can get.

 

I don't see any reason why any income should be treated as less taxable than any other. If your savings earn interest that should be subject to the same rules as earnings from employment.

A level playing field benefits everyone, not just in terms of HMRC receipts, but also in perceived fairness. Humans are exquisitely sensitive to injustice and very cooperative when things are fair.

 

If investment becomes pointless due to taxation, and people stop investing where would that leave the country.

Until recently interest rates have been so low that we were nearly at that stage anyway.

There seems to be a feeling that because someone has saved some money they need to be penalised for doing it rather than encouraging people to save by giving them a few tax breaks.

 

There is no point having a massive building programme if people can't afford the houses once they have been built. Build quality seems to be extremely poor too. My nephew and his wife purchased their first home, a new build, and had problems from the outset. A toilet which leaked from Day1 and tiles in their shower falling off within weeks because the wrong grout had been used. That was just the start, many more problems since then.
Regarding building on green belt land, there should be a requirement that all available 'brown field' sites be used first.

 

Regarding building standards, we don't have home grown craftsmen anymore and are often relying on foreign labour.

As in all things, some are very good but lots come from places where standards are a lot lower.
Having met some over the years I certainly wouldn't want to be running a site and having to keep some of them in check.

 

I'd support keeping ISAs and pensions contributions via salary sacrifice (before tax) because they encourage people to save for their own future. The annual ISA limit, while more than many of us can save in a year, is very small fry indeed to the rich. Pension contributions, perhaps there should be a maximum, maybe 10% or 20% of earned income (wages/salary) excluding employer contributions, so people can't shovel inherited money or investment income into pensions. Possibly with an annual cap, large enough to allow for most working people (and I'm including doctors/consultants and other high-paid professionals in there) to build a decent pension but not so much that the mega-rich can exploit the system. TBH I haven't given that a lot of thought so it probably wouldn't work....

 

New houses, there are loads appearing around here, mostly 3, 4 or 5 bedrooms but crammed together with only small gardens, and road works building new roundabouts for access to the new houses. No new doctors, dentists, schools etc though.
We had a builder round recently, re-setting our ridge tiles (the house is about 75 years old, so you'd expect a bit of work to be needed now and then) and he was saying he predicts a lot of work once the warranties/guarantees on those new houses run out because of the shoddy build quality.

 

According to official data, it shows that the Blair and Brown governments built 7,870 council houses (local authority tenure) over the course of 13 years. If we don't include 2010 - the year when David Cameron became PM - this number drops to 6,510. Well below the 17,710 council homes built a year under Thatcher's government.

Who caused the UK’s housing crisis? (ft.com)

 

If the government keeps encouraging building on green belt and agricultural land, removes restrictions on planning laws, and permits second-rate homes to be built, this country will not have sufficient land to grow crops for the ever expanding population (partly thanks to many foreigners settling here, and having an increasing number of children).
The remaining land will be suitable only for farming animals - which is counter to the government encouragement of eating less meat and more veg.
A concrete country, with a greater propensity to flood, will be the result.
Plus, with more people living in closer proximity, there is likely to be more disagreement.

 

Effectively, everything is taxed over and over anyway. You earn money and pay tax. You use it to buy something and pay VAT. The person you buy it from pays tax. Etc, etc.

I don't think a tax on savings interest would discourage saving. You would still be quids up by having the investments. When interest rates are low, you would only trickle away pence of your gain.

However, I don't think anyone need worry about my tax plans. The chance of any gov doing anything to peeve the rich is nil. And the tiny allowances made to the rest of us (ISAs and the like) are just a sop to stop us revolting. See, they can say, you benefit too, so no need for change. Thus, you get £20 extra from an ISA and a multi-millionaire gets tens of thousands for offshoring or other convenient wheezes. Nothing to see here. Move along please.

 

Add solar farms, tree planting to offset carbon and I foresee housing creeping into national parks and AONBs, probably wind farms as well.
If it's not housing its industrial units.

It's called prosperity.
And I should be thankful I live in such a prosperous part of the country, I don't think.

As to growing food, well we can always import that, can't we.

 

Oh @shiney...............if only you had offered that Labour candidate a free hair job, you would be a Blue Whale by now Friends in high places and all that