Indeed - the “tax gap” was £35.8bn in 2022-2023.
From the remainder of your post, it’s clear you’ve misunderstood the point I was making.
Which was?
It sounded like the standard wastrels and scroungers take on it to me. But if I’m wrong help me understand your point.
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It would be easier if they went after all the shifty PPE suppliers, that would get a few billions back.
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Dodgy PPE contracts, company subsidies that went out to fake companies, Test & Trace - I think the overall estimate is £58 bilion.
Target the easy choice which makes news headlines and a lot of noise, bury the rest.
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There are over 8 million people of working age who are not in work or seeking work. What do
You suggest because they are currently living on the backs of workers.
This cannot go on.
Women with children or disabled, obviously, are excluded from plans to reduce benefits.
Why is this - what are the reasons that people of working age are “economically inactive”?
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Rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic?
Pitting the underclass against each other. Instead of solving the real grab of resources by the UK-hosted oligarchy, that denies the great mass of the population opportunities and social support?
’ Sanctions’ at least as bad as these are already well practised by the DoE for anybody needing to claim unemployment benefit. And worse refusals of other types of benefit.
It’s tiring to keep seeing the UK leadership stoop this low. Does this Jeremy guy’s surname begin with an ‘H’, or with a ‘C’ ?
@billybutcher Whatever it is, and deplorable at that, it is not fascism:
often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2
: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
early instances of army fascism and brutality
One point David out of interest, was your case dealing with the French system or UK system.
UK in both cases, stepson back in the early '70s and Fran in the '80s and '90s. The latter was the justification to attain ALD status when we came to live here in '99. Didn’t apply for it because we had never heard of it, the kindly neighbour set the ball roliing and the doctor did the rest I think.
Unfortunately Shiba for a very long time now the UK Dept of Employmwnt has imposed far, far tougher measures and controls on the unemployed than you mention.
I know in France they make chômage much tougher to keep now - but in the UK for a very long time now it’s been nasty and vicious with measures such as sanctions unfairly applied. JobCentre staff have to find a certain number of people to sanction regardless - officially it’s denied but practically it’s as good as.
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What about men with children? I’m being slightly glib but it’s a serious point that not all single parents are women. And I’m being generous in assuming that you mean single parents and not just women in general.
The 8 million is a great headline but, without knowing how it’s broken down, it means nothing. It could be those too ill to work, those in education, early retirees etc etc. Like most simple answers, there’s generally a lot of complexity that sits underneath.
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By the definition you quoted, @David_Spardo , and the recent and current behaviour of the UK Government, it looks as if those who control the Tory Party are well on the way to imposing a Fascist regime in the UK.
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I think that the eldest of Germany and Italy’s people would dare to contradict you. Democracy, though not true and complete in Britain, is nowhere near what you say, and I do not expect it to be.
It devalues the case against that awful government to describe it as such. For all its terrible behaviour over many years and especially now, even the government of Israel does not require such description either. Facism is far, far worse than that and should not be treated lightly.
They’re not all claiming though Annej2003. Some paeticularly older people thought through their options during covid and decided not to return to work. Mainly those in a position to retire early or at least use savings or other funds to bridge the gap until they were able to access whatever pension they had.
The ones that are signing on are those who need to as they are not in the position of being able to choose not to work.
Right now we have what is, for all intents, a proto fascist government - certainly one which fits your dictionary definition and I’d argue that this step, small though it is, is on the march to “severe economic and social regimentation”.
The more people say “oh but what the Tories are doing isn’t really fascism” the more they will move towards making it obvious.
Anyway I’m happy to agree to disagree and move on.
@Porridge - sorry, I hope my later post did not come across as too agressive. If I have genuinely missed your point please come back to see if you can get me to understand.
@Annej2003 - I admit my question was somewhat rhetoric. The answer is that the two most common reasons for being economically inactive are being a student (2.86 million) and being long term sick (2.6 million). Other reasons include being a carer and early retirement.
It is quite difficult to get any of these groups back into work in large numbers. Certainly I assume that you’d be happy with the idea that being a student is a good thing, early retirees won’t be drawing a pension so presumably have enough savings and do not need to work, carers effectively already have a full time job & long term sick and disabled are normally incapable of work (notwithstanding arbitrary DWP decisions that they are).
Of course long term sickness has gone up massively post-pandemic but because we never took Covid seriously and have stopped even trying a lot of people are affected by long Covid.
As _Brian says the current government pretty much fits the bill. There are reasons I don’t think they will go as far as the Nazis did but we can see many of the elements present from the 1930’s
Fortunately as long as they do not find some way to avoid an election they will be removed from power fairly soon. In some measure lack of PR might actually protect us in the immediate term from their ambition.
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True not all, but a majority, nevertheless.
I am and have been for years a single parent to my numerous children (whose father doesn’t feel morally or otherwise constrained to contribute anything) but I’ve also had a full-time job the whole time. I don’t think it is possible to live on benefits, not that I have tried.
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This is a great idea in theory - however very often the cost of all the extra admin involved outweighs the potential savings.
Our daughter chose to be a single parent last year via IVF. She has now returned to her work as a secondary school teacher. We are very proud of her and our latest grandchild.
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