Rob Bee @RobBeetweets

@ASI @andyburnham This is going to be the worst 3 years for any of us that has made it to vaguely middle class ...little bit of money saved for emergencies, some sort of poor pension pot, etc, trying to become independent of the state....we're going to get machine gunned down

Since you mentioned the 1980s, @andyburnham, here’s a reminder of what was achieved: • Top rate of income tax: 83% → 40% • Savings income taxed at up to 98% in 1979 — surcharge abolished • Basic rate: 33% → 25% • Inflation: 21.9% peak (1980) → 2.4% (1986) • Days lost to strikes: 29.5 million (1979) → 1.9 million (1990) • Real take-home pay for the average earner: up by a third • Right to Buy: over a million council tenants became homeowners • Home ownership: 55% → 67% • Individual shareholders: 3 million → 11 million — one in four adults • Foreign holidays: roughly doubled • Homes with a telephone: two-thirds → nearly nine in ten • Pensioners’ average incomes: up around 30% in real terms • Infant mortality: down almost 40% • Real GDP: up by almost a third • GDP per head outgrew France, Germany and Italy in the 1980s • Manufacturing productivity: slowest growth in the G7 in the 1970s → fastest in the 1980s • Self-employed: 1.9 million → 3.5 million • Nissan to Sunderland, Toyota to Derby, Honda to Swindon • Britain became a net oil exporter • London restored as the world’s financial capital in 1986 • Budget surpluses three years running — Britain repaid debt, 1987–90 • National debt: 47% of GDP → 28% • State spending: ~45% of GDP → ~39% • The civil service: 732,000 → 565,000 • Corporation tax: 52% → 35%; the small firms’ rate: 42% → 25% • Personal tax allowances: up more than 25% in real terms • Higher rates of income tax: nine → one • Death duties: fourteen rates → one • Exchange controls scrapped after 40 years • 40+ nationalised businesses privatised — 600,000 employees moved to the private sector • The 33 big state industries: took ~£500m from taxpayers in 1980 → paid £8.4bn to the Exchequer by 1987 • British Steel: world-record loss-maker (1980/81) → £733m profit (1989/90) • BT, 1984: the largest share offer the world had ever seen • “Tell Sid” broke the record again in 1986 • British Airways: nationalised loss-maker → profitable, private, “the world’s favourite airline” • The Channel Tunnel launched and entirely privately financed Over to you.

Andy Burnham is trying to argue things were great until 1979 then turned bad. It’s just completely out of whack with all comparative data. The period of relative decline was clearly 45-79. We received more than twice as much Marshall Aid as West Germany and just had just half the rate of economic growth to show for it. By the mid 1980s and beyond Britain was growing faster than West Germany. Post war we had all the advantages of a victorious and generously funded country and threw them all away on nationalisation and trade union ransoms. West Germany developed a social market economy instead and (with less than half the aid) became richer than socialist Britain as a result. The reforms of the 1980s saved this country. And the policy response to 2008 has thrown it back in the dirt.

@ArchRose90 Do as I say not as I do !! They’re all as bad as each other, he’s no exception

A reminder, Andy, of the Thatcher era: •⁠ ⁠Income tax: 83% → 40% •⁠ ⁠Basic rate: 33% → 25% •⁠ ⁠Inflation: 21.9% peak (1980) → 2.4% (1986) •⁠ ⁠Days lost to strikes: 29.5 million (1979) → 1.9 million (1990) •⁠ ⁠Real pay for the average earner: up by a third

“We should abolish the House of Lords,” said Sadiq Khan during a London Assembly session in December 2022. So the obnoxious scumbag will be declining his peerage… right?

Keir Starmer a man with so little integrity he called to abolish the Monarchy then accepted a Knighthood. Pledged never to appoint a peer, makes Sadiq Khan a peer. The most disingenuous PM in living memory.

One gem from Rachel Reeves's final Mansion House speech. She says she was shocked to inherit a debt interest bill of £100 billion a year. But she failed to mention it is now £125 billion a year.

@FT Hope this is true, would be a sensible move

@MerrynSW How about we just significantly reduce government spending instead….???

@MerrynSW Even worse, who exactly here is "rich". £2m house - £1m mortgage or £1.5m house, no mortgage. All this will do is penalise younger people who have mortgages. PS just like every other "mansion tax" such as the AEDT etc I guarantee the threshold will be £500k within in 5 years.

The UK's 10 year bond yield has punched through 5% this morning. Seems like a good week to appoint a PM who thinks the bond markets don't matter, and make Ed Miliband Chancellor. What could pssibly go wrong.

When it comes to tax in the UK, a lot of people are deluding themselves, thinking the government will just go after the wealthy to pay for the ballooning commitments they’ve made. The truth is, the real target is the middle class. And the reason is simple. The middle class is the only viable option for the kind of revenue the government wants. Start with who’s off the table. A third of British adults pay no income tax at all. The bottom half of earners take home about a quarter of the income in this country and pay roughly a tenth of the tax. There’s no pot of gold buried down there, and every party has spent years promising to protect “working people.” Squeezing them is politically radioactive and would raise next to nothing anyway. The rich are off the table too, whatever the Channel 4 documentaries say. The top 1% already pay 28% of all income tax. Their money is capital, dividends and gains, so they’re mobile, and they’ve already started leaving. One widely quoted forecast has Britain losing half a million millionaires by 2028. Push the rate on these people much higher and you collect less, not more. Threatening them polls brilliantly, but relying on them for a tax bonanza is pure fantasy. Which leaves the middle class, and the middle class can’t run. Most are on PAYE, taxed at source before the money touches their account. They can’t turn a salary into a capital gain. They can’t declare residency in Monaco, because the job, the kids’ school and the mortgage are all here. Their wealth is a house they can’t hide under the mattress and a pension they can’t reach. Numerous, visible and immobile. The perfect target, and in some ways the only one. And here’s how it’s already being done. They won’t raise your headline rate of income tax, because they promised not to. But the threshold freeze, the one that sounds like a non-event on Budget day, is quietly hammering you, and it’s now been extended to 2031. Took out a student loan since 2012? You’ve been paying the graduate tax in all but name. Hold investments outside an ISA? You’ve watched CGT climb to 24%, and it’s likely to be equalised with income tax next. Sent your kids to private school? That’s the VAT charge. Saving into a cash ISA? That shelter just shrank from £20,000 to £12,000. And from 2027, your pension gets pulled into inheritance tax, so the pot you spent a career building can be taxed again on the way out. There’s more coming. Mansion taxes, higher CGT, property levies, dividends. Most of the taxes we’re told will hit the ultra wealthy will actually land on the middle class. And in most cases they’re not sat on fortunes, they’re sat on assets they spent a working life building. What’s worse, the burden grows with every Budget, because of the compounding commitments this government keeps making, and that nearly every other party has pledged too. So who pays for the past, present and future spending of the UK government? The middle class. And there’s not a thing they can do about it. Debt-trapped, stuck in place, with nowhere to turn, and the government knows it. If any of this resonated, you’re likely in the taxation crosshairs. I wish you luck.

@wakenbake1138 @tag4UK You might want to check that !!?

Just watched Rachel Reeves’ interview with Laura Kuenssberg. Not a shred of acknowledgment of the devastation she’s caused to the economy since becoming Chancellor. Just reels off all her imaginary “achievements”. Delusional. No wonder we’re in such a mess.

Black footballer stands there while tens of thousands of England flag bearing white far-right racists sing his name. Look and learn @Keir_Starmer and @MayorofLondon you dumb fucking morons. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Norway just lost to England and not a single Norwegian will be burning down London tonight because Norwegians are civilized individuals from a civilized culture. Now, about the Moroccans the other night…

@JohnRentoul So much more impressive than the last few Tory leaders.

For Lineker to refer to The Falklands as 'Las Malvinas' is utterly disgraceful. He should never work on TV again. It's so disrespectful to those that lost their lives defending them. He knew what he was doing. Vile man.

@MarkDampier It’s outrageous- it’s not fairness it’s a kick in the teeth for people who had spent a lifetime working paying tax and NI along the way then vat & duties when you spend it to provide for your family - then some profligate gives it to someone else who has contributed nothing 💩