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Well said Richard but also as someone who has also worked in the drug industry I find it incredibly perverse taxing someone who may be at one of their lowest points in life because they had to go private.
We could start making the extractors in our society actually pay up for all the infrastructure and resources they use instead of subsidising them. Just a wild and crazy thought.
Have you got a link to that analysis which shows that private healthcare is consumed by people on low incomes in a greater proportion to their income than those on high incomes?
The NHS must be in a right state if true
No, but does it matter? Regression is measured overall.
Here is a link which may be helpful:
https://assets.kingsfund.org.uk/f/256914/x/5e4aed4284/independent_health_care_and_nhs_2023.pdf
Independent health care and the NHS – King’s Fund
This is what happens when you have swallowed Thatcherism. You literally run out of ideas………………………..
The advent of Thatcherism marks the point when the country became Dunce Land allowing a greedy elite to takeover!
Oh Pilgrim, I had to swim in that water from my teens, it was hard not to swallow some inadvertently! It seeped in despite my resistance. That’s why it’s so good for me, to have found this blog, not being a party animal. It’s had to think about all this stuff with no-one to talk to, while juggling life. Approaching superannuation = back to school for me!
Thanks.
Think how weird it is to realise that somehow I created this. I never knew it would happen, and it was not planned.
Anne, I was fortunate that I didn’t imbibe any of the Thatcher Kool Aid. She was ‘Thatcher the milk snatcher’ and absolutely despised my father. By the time I was of voting age, the fact that I realised she was influenced by Hayek, Friedman and other neoliberal promoters puts the ‘milk snatcher’ epithet in a very polite space compared to my views ever since. She even exceeded my own views – but not in a good way – of how much damage she would wreak on the country…and, even worse, her lunatic legacy lingers on (and some Tories still revere her)
Too many lords and ladies and too many MPs are very wealthy. Perhaps we need a true commons, although social media and Change org and 38 Degrees and sites like this constitute a kind of unofficial plebian chamber really.
Our politics for the most part are completely unrepresentative of the majority, in fact those in any kind of power seem to be diametrically opposed to what most of us in the real world want or think. Starmer seems to be determined to either destroy the LP or make it into a slightly less insane version of the Tories. But only slightly less. When millions are crying out for real change in the so called mother of all parliament ‘Double Down Derek’ aka Sir Keir is twiddling his thumbs and tinkering around the edges.
350,000 people died as a result of the last round of austerity. I think Sir Keir wants to make that 450,000 or perhaps half a million. Maybe 600,000. Who knows? He and the political establishment and establishment certainly don’t seem to care. A small elite of people govern completely in their own interests, they do not care a jot for the rest of us. I call that ungodly, vile, unjust and basically evil. There are no other negative words I can use to describe the whole sorry and stinking mess.
The Kool-aid doesn’t even need to be drunk — it just seems to have seemed into every aspect of society (it does exist) …. (nearly) every interview, article, story is based on the seeds planted by Thatcher and her backers – but it is now the constant backdrop for everything we do. Even unacceptable tories (like Heath) seem cuddly and ‘oh, not so bad’, compared to the turbo-charged diehards of today…. I know that Kinnock was also part of trying to dismantle parts of opposition to Thatcher. Despite this, when I ‘met’ him once, I left feeling fondness for him and his now late wife. He often seemed to be depicted in the media as a pompous, impractical fool (the long sentences, the scissors cutting the string allowing him to fall into the sea at party conference).
Late 1990’s / early 2000’s. Waiting to board flight from city airport to Brussels. I’m sitting reading/writing. There had been an article featured on Today in The Mail fiercely critical of Kinnock (I now know not what about). Opposite me sit down Kinnock and Glenys, with a huge stack of newspapers. They begin to read through their pile, briefly commenting to the other about something they’ve seen. They processed all of them extremely quickly, apparently thoroughly and then discussed key highlights, sharing and identifying priority articles. They seemed to function as a super highly effective and coordinated team. Flight called. I say something along the lines of ‘I’m sure the Daily Mail headline is entirely in your and the country’s interest’. There was a definite twinkle as he looked up and we shared a smile. Enough said. They packed their things efficiently and left.
I don’t meet politicians – but recent leaders don’t give me any vibes of competence!
[…] Richard Murphy, a tax blogger and campaigner at Tax Research UK, has torn Kinnock’s proposal to […]
[…] Richard Murphy, a tax blogger and campaigner at Tax Research UK, has torn Kinnock’s proposal to […]
Currently – voluntarily given blood is sold at cost by the NHS to both NHS services & private hospitals. At cost. Which means our blood is subsidising private health care. They should be paying a commercial rate – which would bring money into the NHS.
VAT is charged on glasses.
But not eye tests, I think.
Thought this might give you a smile?
https://bsky.app/profile/leonardlloyd.bsky.social/post/3lvmbiwr4zc2o
NOTE: This is on BlueSky and can only be seen by logged in users.
The really positive thing is that tax is being talked about in non-corrosive way by plenty in the media/political circus.
So I guess we can expect some movement on taxation.
My concerns here are not really tax but that Reeves approach to budgeting national finances means she has condemned herself and HMT to be scraping around for savings of a billion here or there to constantly be in some kind of desired to balance.
There’s never enough head room there is always cuts little is properly funded.
The bigger picture of the economy and wider society is lost.
Time for a change to role of Chancellor and HMT/OBR and BoE.
You can’t cut to growth is the old adage. I think its true.