The myths about Truss's tax cuts and Levelling up

[Omegstrat6]

I don't know which angers me most, the Tories claiming that "levelling up" is a cornerstone of their policy or Starmer's inability to capitalize on the continuing empty rhetoric.

Polly Toynbee is a longstanding contributor to the Guardian with Leftist leanings but it is very hard to disagree with her when she points out that Truss's proposed tax cuts will overwhelmingly benefit the richer. Toynbee claims that the bottom half earners will benefit from about 15% of the total savings in tax whilst the top half will take 85% of it. Of course the top half earn a lot more so will clearly pay a lot more in taxation but Truss's argument that her tax cut policies will help the lower income bracket particularly is rubbish. In fact, the lower earners don't earn enough to pay much in the way of tax in the first place-and this is the problem.

The Resolution Foundation have stated for some time now that the lower income bracket in the UK are considerably worse off than the majority of their Western counterparts (eg around 20% worse off than those in France or Germany). Meanwhile the HMRC recently stated that some 68,000 individuals avoid paying tax due to Non Dom status. This "missing" tax reportedly runs to several billion. Doubtless, if claimed, this money would not solve current issues in itself but to take action to get it back would at least signal an intent that the government would at least be aiming to create a fairer society. The Tories though are never going to financially help the lesser off without similarly supporting the rich, regardless of whether they are in need of it. They will never consider any real redistribution of wealth to fund financial assistance for the poorer off or "levelling up".

Starmer is missing a great opportunity here to make far more of a point about the intentions of the Conservative government and the hypocrisy of their "levelling up" mantra but continually fails to do so-why? He is hampered by the far Leftists and divisions within the Labour Party and is quick to criticise both Truss and Sunak but I have not once heard him say what his solutions to the current issues would be and-as Mick says-I really do not know what he stands for or what he would do. 2025 is going to feel like a very long time a way and unless some kind of miracle happens I sadly cannot see a viable opposition being able to challenge a Conservative government anytime soon.

[mickd1961]

Polly Toynbee is a bit more than “Left Leaning”......she has a pathological hatred of the Right.

The “levelling up” argument is an interesting one.

Watching the news a couple of days ago and they were visiting various northern towns.

The general consensus from the average voter was that they were very conscious of infrastructure improvements in their area under Boris and were concerned that this would stop now he’d been forced out.


I never took “levelling up” to mean that my fellow northerners were going to each be given a load of extra personal money.


Improvements in infrastructure are where improving people’s life chances start unfortunately.

[kettering_baggie]

Polly Toynbee, ghastly woman, only ever spouts biased cr@p.

[mickd1961]

Polly Toynbee, ghastly woman, only ever spouts biased cr@p.

Yes Kets.

For every hater of The Daily Mail the scales are evened up by the rabidly Leftist Guardian and this old hag!

[Omegstrat6]

I did not mean that "levelling up" means simply giving more money to the lower paid. It of course also mean investments in poorer areas across a range of sectors whether that be transport, education, housing or welfare. Thatcher style tax breaks for "enterprise zones" might also be a good thing to develop business growth as the intent should be to generate more jobs and create better opportunities within these communities. I was just saying that the growing gap between richer and poorer is something the Tories will not do much about and until more people are able to earn more then this will not change.

Sunak keeps going on about the Tories being the party that rewards hard work and this sounds good on the face of it but the reality is that many people in this country work bloody hard for c rap wages. Hard work in itself very clearly does not mean you are necessarily rewarded. There really does need to be a meaningful "living wage" in this country but the moot point is how this would be funded. Most small businesses would need state help to afford to pay it and there would need to be something in place to ensure that those bigger businesses that could afford to do so pay it out of their profits rather than passing the costs on. In the meantime, most Tories are happy to see increasing numbers of zero hour and part time contracts because it does not directly impact on them (other than perhaps to increase the profits of their own businesses) and cannot see the difficulties this poses to so many.

The Conservatives will continue to be happy to avoid criticism of the rich and super rich by feeding the generally hard working masses stories about benefit scroungers/single mothers/illegal immigrants etc in order to deflect them from questioning the inequalites of the country too much.

Hey ho
Power to the People and all that!:D