For all those who said things couldn't get worse.....

..... I told you so.

 

What has got worse and what did you tell "us"?

 

Where we told that xenophobes and racists had gone away?

 

The responses are interesting. Possibly showing up personal prejudices of the posters rather than anything else. My comment was actually referring to certain statements made by those currently in power and their immediate breaking of pledges previously made.

 

In power where and which pledges?
I also admit to predjudice against vagueness, wooliness and general airyfairyness.

 

Never been good a riddles.

 

I believe Reeves has said there will be tax rises in October ... which is the direct opposite of what was said in the GE campaign.

Now, all parties say they will do things and then don't or redefine their manifesto commitments as having been "aspirations", eg Cameron campaigning in 2010 said they would get rid of Inheritance Tax and then backtracked.

But "we will not raise taxes" to "taxes will need to be raised very soon" is quite a U-turn within the first month.

 

Question. Why are you surprised?

 

I don't believe she said that they would not raise any taxes, just certain taxes. She may regret even that statement.

 

I think she said she would not raise taxes on working people. That leaves children, pensioners, those not working, and the wealthy who make money without working, ie through assets. We can rule out the first and probably the last on that list.

I suppose it also depends on your definition of "tax".

 

It's not great. However, Labour have, to my knowledge, never particularly pretended to be a low-tax party, whereas the tories have.

 

I don't have a problem with the concept of tax, just the execution of our system.

Full transparency and a level playing field is all I ask for. No loopholes, no wheezes for the wealthy, no get-out clauses or relief schemes. I'd even be happy with one flat rate so there were no cliff edges and everyone felt it was equitable.

In a country where the rich are allowed to continually get richer, the result is a lot of people at the other end of the financial scale are unable to manage, so welfare fills the gap. If pensions were enough to live in, pension credit need not exist. If wages were enough to live on, top-up schemes would cost a lot less. If money was not siphoned out of the NHS (by PFI, private agencies, Big Pharma, etc), fewer people would be off sick. Benefits are inevitable in a very unbalanced economy. So, to then allow the rich to carry on getting richer (at a truly breathtaking rate) whilst cutting the safety net that is required as a direct result of this is just unethical.