Theresa May calls General Election on 8th June.

[meridian2]

Politicians should have the courage to say balls to the referendum.

The reason we had a referendum was because politicians have no balls and the public had to show theirs.

 

[me123]

Two SNP MPs facing police investigations have been deselected - Michelle Thomson and Natalie McGarry. Ms Thomson (Edinburgh West MP) will not stand for election as an Independent.

Coming back to this, Ms McGarry will also step down. So there will be no complicating factors here to dilute the SNP vote - both SNP candidates will be standing on their own feet and will win or lose the seat based on their own merit.

 

[AlterEgo]

If 'Generation Parasite' means people in their later years then you really do have a problem.

We do have a problem, because the younger generation are forced to pay ever more for the care of older people with less hope of becoming as wealthy as that generation. Perhaps "parasite" is a bit much, but it's a serious problem.

 

[Barn]

(incidentally itself making a mockery of the idea that the referendum vote was truly democratic.)

I agree with the morality of most of your post and wish that the situation had already been resolved.

I don't understand this sentence though. Is it really such an unusual thing for referendums (or indeed general elections) to be restricted only to citizens? Constitutional referendums are for citizens only even in Ireland, which allows Britons to vote in general elections.

Isn't that, after all, one of the defining features and benefits of citizenship versus other forms of lawful residence?

I appreciate that the system can be a bureaucratic mess, but citizenship is open to Europeans who have made the UK their long-term home. To my mind, citizenship is the natural and proper status for someone who now considers themselves a permanent part of British society and who wishes to avail of democratic rights. It is up to them whether or not they take it up. If their country of birth prohibits dual citizenship (which is not our fault), then they clearly have a choice to make.

 

[Bromley boy]

The simple solution to that is to revoke non-domiciliary rules. If they want to move their money to Bermuda then fine, they can go live there with their money. Tax it at 90% if they try and bring it back into the country, in any form.

Of course they won't do that, the hedge fund fraudsters would never agree to paying as much tax as their cleaner. So that puts the burden on us plebs. I see my council tax had gone up by 6% this year to pay for the "adult social care precept" that Generation Parasite should be paying for.

In fairness the headlines about hedge fund bosses paying "less tax than their cleaners" are a little old hat, and were never factually correct in the first place. In any case quite a bit of tightening-up has been done in this area over the last few years. For instance anti-avoidance legislation was introduced to tax gains arising from disposals of shareholdings as income in certain circumstances, and to restrict the circumstances in which taper relief, entrepreneurs relief etc. apply.

Non-doms (and it's not at all easy to establish that you are one) already face remittance rules and are required to pay an annual fee to HMRC ranging from £30-90k to enjoy the benefits of non-dom status.

As has been pointed out and supported by figures earlier in the thread the personal tax system in the UK is already very progressive in that the highest few percent of earners account for the overwhelming majority of the tax take. I think it's a bit of a straw-man argument to blame council tax rises on non-doms and "hedge fund fraudsters". A large proportion of council tax receipts go towards paying for the pensions of the long retired. The ageing population is a far, far bigger financial time bomb than tax avoidance.

 

[Bromley boy]

I appreciate that the system can be a bureaucratic mess, but citizenship is open to Europeans who have made the UK their long-term home. To my mind, citizenship is the natural and proper status for someone who now considers themselves a permanent part of British society and who wishes to avail of democratic rights. It is up to them whether or not they take it up. If their country of birth prohibits dual citizenship (which is not our fault), then they clearly have a choice to make.

I agree wholeheartedly. This is the usual position in most countries around the world. The fact it is seen by some in the U.K. as radical is strange, in my view.

As a quid pro quo I'm also in favour of U.K. citizens who choose to live abroad permenantly facing restrictions on their rights to participate in U.K. referendums and elections.

 

[AM9]

We do have a problem, because the younger generation are forced to pay ever more for the care of older people with less hope of becoming as wealthy as that generation. Perhaps "parasite" is a bit much, but it's a serious problem.

There's nothing that the 'parasites' can do about that. The solution is in the hands of younger voters. As long as they do nothing and say that they are ignored by politicians, the longer they will be ignored.

 

[pemma]

That makes 10 and puts us in line with most of the EU.

Where we differ is we have national Bank Holidays and no local Bank Holidays. For instance, predominately Catholic Bavaria has religious holidays that predominately Lutheran areas of Germany do no observe and vice versa.

2017 Bank Holidays in Bavaria:
01.01.2017 New Year’s Day
06.01.2017 Epiphany
14.04.2017 Good Friday
17.04.2017 Easter Monday
01.05.2017 May Day & Labour Day
25.05.2017 Ascension Thursday
05.06.2017 Whit Monday
15.06.2017 Corpus Christi
15.08.2017 The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
03.10.2017 German Unity Day
01.11.2017 All Saints' Day
25.12.2017 Christmas Day
26.12.2017 St Stephen's Day

Total = 13 Bank Holidays.

 

[Geezertronic]

We do have a problem, because the younger generation are forced to pay ever more for the care of older people with less hope of becoming as wealthy as that generation. Perhaps "parasite" is a bit much, but it's a serious problem.

The older generation paid in for the younger generation of the time. Quite frankly the "parasite" comment made me feel sick. Don't know how old you are but all being well you will be a "parasite" one day, maybe you should think about that

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I agree with the morality of most of your post and wish that the situation had already been resolved.

I don't understand this sentence though. Is it really such an unusual thing for referendums (or indeed general elections) to be restricted only to citizens? Constitutional referendums are for citizens only even in Ireland, which allows Britons to vote in general elections.

Isn't that, after all, one of the defining features and benefits of citizenship versus other forms of lawful residence?

A fair question. I would say that the fair test for whether someone who has the franchise is that that person has legitimately made a country their permanent home (and perhaps you could also apply some criteria about accepting the rule of law and the way of life in that country). And the problem is that citizenship doesn't always capture that - indeed, in many cases, citizenship can be quite arbitrary in nature.

Looking at the principles of the argument, consider as an example the Rohingya in Burma. They are, by any reasonable criteria, Burmese. They are not immigrants, they have lived in the country for generations. But for reasons that appear to be entirely racist in origin, the Burmese Government has long denied the Rohingya citizenship - which of course means they can't vote in Burmese elections (special arrangements were made in 2010 but subsequently revoked). That's clearly wrong and to my mind shows up the inadequacy in principle of regarding citizenship as the exclusive criteria for voting rights.

Of course, if citizenship was easy to obtain for anyone who was legitimately a permanent resident, then that wouldn't be a problem, and it might then be reasonable to use the citizenship test for voting rights. But, sadly that's not the case in the UK.

I appreciate that the system can be a bureaucratic mess, but citizenship is open to Europeans who have made the UK their long-term home. To my mind, citizenship is the natural and proper status for someone who now considers themselves a permanent part of British society and who wishes to avail of democratic rights. It is up to them whether or not they take it up. If their country of birth prohibits dual citizenship (which is not our fault), then they clearly have a choice to make.

I would say that 'bureaucratic mess' is an understatement. It's not just a mess, but even applying for citizenship is so expensive as to be almost certainly beyond the means of many people (over £1200). And a particular problem with EU citizens is that we've long had a system in which EU citizenship is recognized in its own right (albeit in a more restricted way than national citizenship), in a way that would quite reasonably have given many EU citizens in the UK the impression that their EU citizenship was perfectly adequate for being part of the UK, and so there was no need to go through the expensive bureaucratic nightmare of applying for UK citizenship. To that extent I would say that it was entirely unreasonable to deny EU citizens the right to vote in the referendum - especially when the result would impact their lives far more than the lives of most of those who were allowed to vote. To that extent I would stand by saying that this was a democratic deficit in the conduct of the referendum (although possibly the language in my previous post was too strong given that the numbers aren't huge as a % of the population, though they are significant given the small margin of victory in the referendum). For the sake of clarity, I certainly do NOT think that someone who arrives in the UK 2 weeks before the referendum should be able to vote - I'm talking about those EU citizens who have been living here for many years and have no intention of leaving the UK.

So in the end, I would say your argument would be reasonable if citizenship status did accurately reflect the reality of which country a person is committed to being a part of, but too often, even in the UK, regulations can mean that citizenship becomes little more than an arbitrary test of whether someone has jumped through certain bureaucratic hoops - and that's not a fair test for a moral right to participate in democracy. And in other countries (fortunately not in the UK) it can be even worse, as citizenship can actually end up more like a means of implementing racial or ethnic persecution of minorities.

 

[Bromley boy]

The older generation paid in for the younger generation of the time. Quite frankly the "parasite" comment made me feel sick. Don't know how old you are but all being well you will be a "parasite" one day, maybe you should think about that

In fairness, that poster you quoted didn't call them parasites and was using a term introduced by somebody else.

I suspect many of us on the thread have parents in the baby boomer generation. I certainly don't begrudge them their standard of living, they've worked hard throughout their lives, but the fact remains that our ageing population is a huge problem which is rapidly getting worse.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Regarding the older generation, I think the problem a lot of younger people have is that benefits for pensioners have generally been protected (and currently pensions are guaranteed to increase every year) whereas those for young people have been cut or axed.

Of course it is part of Tory policy to divide the population and set people against each other (like they have done with the working population when it comes to benefits in general) but we cannot let them succeed in that.

I don't begrudge the elderly or blame them for the current situation (again that is the fault of the Tories). But it cannot be fair that the cuts have not been evenly spread out across generations.

And that is ignoring the issue we have with the increasing costs of health care and social care for an aging population.

And you also have the situation where many elderly people own their own houses and have plenty of free space, spare rooms etc, but many young people can't even afford a shoebox flat. You can easily see where the resentment would come from.

 

[AlterEgo]

The older generation paid in for the younger generation of the time. Quite frankly the "parasite" comment made me feel sick. Don't know how old you are but all being well you will be a "parasite" one day, maybe you should think about that

I didn't use the word parasite. It isn't a word I'd use.

I highlighted the increasing cost burden of social care, particularly with our ageing population, which I consider to be a crisis with no clear solution outside of a serious reappraisal of what we can afford and what we find to be justifiable. The issue of social care isn't just "old people in homes", it is much broader than that.

If you live to be 85 or 90 it's entirely conceivable you've spent less than 50% of your life in productive work - what is the solution?

Don't ask me, but don't deny it's a problem.

 

[WelshBluebird]

The older generation paid in for the younger generation of the time

Not sure what you mean by that? With the elderly, it is always the case that the current working population pays for the older populations pensions and benefits. Sure the elderly may have "paid in" whilst they were working, but that money just went to support the elderly of that time. I don't believe there has ever been a time when the older population paid in to support the younger working population!

 

[DarloRich]

The older generation paid in for the younger generation of the time. Quite frankly the "parasite" comment made me feel sick. Don't know how old you are but all being well you will be a "parasite" one day, maybe you should think about that

but for many of us in the younger generation an enjoyable retirement will be a myth. Many of us wont even get a retirement at all although death in service benefits might be of use to our survivours.

 

[Barn]

And a particular problem with EU citizens is that we've long had a system in which EU citizenship is recognized in its own right (albeit in a more restricted way than national citizenship), in a way that would quite reasonably have given many EU citizens in the UK the impression that their EU citizenship was perfectly adequate for being part of the UK, and so there was no need to go through the expensive bureaucratic nightmare of applying for UK citizenship. To that extent I would say that it was entirely unreasonable to deny EU citizens the right to vote in the referendum

I'd agree with you if we had arbitrarily decided to have a different franchise to general elections (in the absence of an Irish-style constitution). But EU citizens who decided not to seek citizenship had already been consciously living in a situation whereby they had opted out of national democracy. It would have been stranger to widen the franchise on an ad hoc basis.

 

[Tetchytyke]

If 'Generation Parasite' means people in their later years then you really do have a problem.

Damn right I have a problem, I'm paying top dollar for a gold-plated pension and adult social care system that I'll never see the benefit of. All because the idea of making OAPs with equity in their homes pay for their own care is seen as a "tax on death".

Don't even get me started on free bus passes, free TV licences and the winter fuel allowance.

Pensioners are better off than working age people, on average, to the tune of £20 a week. That isn't magic money: that £20 a week is coming out of the pockets of working age people.

As has been pointed out and supported by figures earlier in the thread the personal tax system in the UK is already very progressive in that the highest few percent of earners account for the overwhelming majority of the tax take. I think it's a bit of a straw-man argument to blame council tax rises on non-doms and "hedge fund fraudsters". A large proportion of council tax receipts go towards paying for the pensions of the long retired. The ageing population is a far, far bigger financial time bomb than tax avoidance.

It depends how you look at the tax take. In raw pounds and pence they do pay more, but in terms of proportion of income they pay much less. It depends how you want to define "fair" and "progressive".

It also doesn't cover the vast scale of corporate tax avoidance.

The ageing population is the biggest problem, I quite agree. Or, more accurately, the fact that the Government don't have the balls to make pensioners have some austerity for a change. All this guff about triple-locked pensions means that now, on average, pensioners are better off than working age people. That is neither right nor sustainable.

I am bitter that I've not had a pay rise that matches inflation for a decade, yet my personal tax rates keep climbing ever higher. I get no more money but have to pay more tax out of it, to fund pensioners' care home fees when they have £200,000 equity in their home.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Quite frankly the "parasite" comment made me feel sick. Don't know how old you are but all being well you will be a "parasite" one day, maybe you should think about that

Generation Parasite is not my term, but I used it because of how they have devoured all the resources open to them throughout their entire lives. It isn't just about pensions. And it certainly isn't because they are old.

They got free University education, they got MIRAS. They got subsidised private school places. Heavily subsided prescriptions (and for a while in the 60s they were entirely free). And then they retired: they got final salary pensions, they got a "triple lock" on state pensions, they got increase after increase in the Inheritance Tax threshold. They got free bus travel in the entire country, free TV licenses, free cash when it's cold.

And they got to retire at 60, or 65 for men.

What do I get? No MIRAS, no free university, £8.60 a pop for my prescriptions. I get to retire at 67 (assuming it doesn't go up again...I'm sure it will) and my state pension won't triple-locked and I won't get a final salary pension. And all the while my standard of living is lower than that of people of pension age. It stinks.

I understand why this happens: two thirds of people of voting age are over 40, nearly one third are of retirement age. Young people are outnumbered and, therefore, outvoted.

 

[Geezertronic]

Not sure what you mean by that? With the elderly, it is always the case that the current working population pays for the older populations pensions and benefits. Sure the elderly may have "paid in" whilst they were working, but that money just went to support the elderly of that time. I don't believe there has ever been a time when the older population paid in to support the younger working population!

I misworded my reply, I meant to say that the current Older Generation had paid in for the Older Generation of their time

 

[meridian2]

My father worked 12 hour shifts, alternate weeks of day and night, five and a half days a week for 35 years. He served his country in WW2 and lived off a state pension. He could never afford his own house or a car. My grandmother was amazed when the pension and NHS came in after the war, until then pensioners were forced on the philanthropy (or otherwise) of their families, and doctors were for the middle classes. Working people dreaded a child being ill.

The idea old people are cash rich, house owning leeches is millennial myopia. It's a small subset of the population at one window in time who enjoy those advantages.

 

[WelshBluebird]

The idea old people are cash rich, house owning leeches is millennial myopia.

And yet it is still fact that pensions and other old age related benefits have been protected and are increasing, whilst at the same time benefits for young people have been cut, restricted or totally axed.

As I said in my previous post, we really shouldn't fall for the Tories divide and rule tactic, but you can surely understand why some people feel the way they do?

 

[me123]

It's also worth pointing out that a lot of the benefits enjoyed by the older generation are likely to go by the time I'm old enough to enjoy them. The NHS will almost certainly be privatised, and I expect that social care will be the same. At the moment, the costs of health and social care are massive and are being met by taxpayers to predominantly benefit a segment of the community that does not pay tax; I think that's perfectly reasonable. But the current taxpayers will likely have to fund this off their own back when they need it.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It's a small subset of the population at one window in time who enjoy those advantages.

I've highlighted the relevant bit.

It is a particular generation who are benefiting from the largesse of the welfare state. They benefited as children after the war, they benefited during the 70s and 80s as young adults and they're benefiting now with triple-locked pensions, free bus travel and generous final salary pensions.

Older generations to them didn't get those benefits, but most of those generations are now dead. Younger generations will not get those benefits, because there is apparently no money (because it is being spent on the baby-boomers). Both the older and the younger generations work as hard as they ever did.

As I said, it isn't "old people" who are the problem, it is this specific generation of self-entitled freeloaders.

 

[Tetchytyke]

As I said in my previous post, we really shouldn't fall for the Tories divide and rule tactic, but you can surely understand why some people feel the way they do?

A year or two ago, I'd have probably agreed with you.

But Brexit changed my mind. Brexit was overwhelmingly carried through by the votes of the over 50s. And now apparently we have a "mandate" to trash my opportunities and freedom of movement, and get me to pay for the economic damage, because of the votes of people who've made their money and pulled the ladder up behind them.

When almost a third of people eligible to vote are of retirement age, younger people don't stand a chance in elections. It's all well and good to say younger people should vote- and they should- but we're outnumbered.

I'm angry that my opportunities have been trashed, and the economy I have to pay for has been trashed, by a load of people who no longer contribute very much to society.

 

[Howardh]

How can we get people starting work now to pay for their old age? An account they can volunteer, or be forced, to put some of their wage into which gets tax-free interest, only accessible at retirement and not as a lump sum (ie a monthly income like an annuity), and this account topped up by the government to double the interest?
If they die before retirement a spouse or named individual gets half in cash, the other half goes to the government to top up everyone else's interest?
It would be more visible than NI credits and for them personally, not as at present where the tax they pay is towards someone else's retirement?

 

[Domh245]

There's nothing that the 'parasites' can do about that. The solution is in the hands of younger voters. As long as they do nothing and say that they are ignored by politicians, the longer they will be ignored.

Problem is of course that it is a vicious cycle. Politicians know us young people (generally) don't vote, so don't bother having policies that appeal to us*. There is also the issue mentioned above that even if every single young person in the country voted, we'd still be outnumbered by the 65+ group.

*Well, other than the Lib Dems 2010, but we'll overlook that...

 

[me123]

How can we get people starting work now to pay for their old age? An account they can volunteer, or be forced, to put some of their wage into which gets tax-free interest, only accessible at retirement and not as a lump sum (ie a monthly income like an annuity), and this account topped up by the government to double the interest?

Sounds a bit like the Lifetime ISA. Clearly a sign from the government that young people are to expect to fund themselves in retirement.

 

[Howardh]

A year or two ago, I'd have probably agreed with you.

But Brexit changed my mind. Brexit was overwhelmingly carried through by the votes of the over 50s. And now apparently we have a "mandate" to trash my opportunities and freedom of movement, and get me to pay for the economic damage, because of the votes of people who've made their money and pulled the ladder up behind them.

When almost a third of people eligible to vote are of retirement age, younger people don't stand a chance in elections. It's all well and good to say younger people should vote- and they should- but we're outnumbered.

I'm angry that my opportunities have been trashed, and the economy I have to pay for has been trashed, by a load of people who no longer contribute very much to society.

I'd like to *like* that, but in this household we have three adults over 58 who all voted remain partly because (a) we don't want the future prospects for youngsters blocked and mainly (b) my parents who now are unable to travel expressed through their votes that they still want me to have the rights to move and live/retire in the EU when I finish caring for them.

 

[Howardh]

Sounds a bit like the Lifetime ISA. Clearly a sign from the government that young people are to expect to fund themselves in retirement.

Yes, I was trying to think if there was a current arrangement but couldn't put my finger on it. Haven't the time now, but will click on the link later to see what it's all about.

 

[Tetchytyke]

How can we get people starting work now to pay for their old age?

Get the cost of living down.

I can't afford to pay much into a pension. I am not alone. I've not had a pay rise that matches inflation for ten years. What was once a good wage is no longer a good wage.

People are not saving for retirement because they have no spare money. It isn't flippancy or ignorance. You can't save money you don't have.

Pension returns are a big problem too. My pension contribution is 4%, plus another 2% from my employer, into a stakeholder pension. I'm 33 and to get a pension that matches my standard of living today, I'd have to put over 20% of my gross income into the pension scheme. I'd love to have that money lying around: if I did, I probably wouldn't need a bloody pension.