Annual tax summary

[Dembe]

I remember noticing how much of the UK's budget was spent on welfare a few years ago. Rather than just make up where that money was spent, I decided to look it up. Quite often, when someone quotes something they regard as "fact", I'll check it out. Usually they're wrong. Immigration numbers was another. When that is broken down, the number of "illegals" (as some incorrectly call them) is pretty low, but people believe there are loads of them coming over.

People should try and be a bit more educated in their opinions. It doesn't help that all political parties don't give you the full picture, just what suits their agenda. Divide and conquer.

As for your bit about being in control of your money as you see fit, that's basically you saying that you hate the thought of feckless wasters having any of it. Now, we could destroy that argument in moments, but when you're opinions are as ingrained as they are, there's little point.

Not one to shy away from admitting when they're wrong, I had breakfast with my cousin Friday and mentioned this very subject and he absolutely schooled me and set me right on a load of figures and a bit more detail about what falls under the Welfare umbrella.
One thing he did agree with me on though, was wanting to have more control on where/how your money is spent.

[goats]

6/20 threads on the front page are non football related, its quite obvious what you are doing replying to mine

Let’s face it the football is hardly something to talk about…..this message board would never have lasted so long if it was just purely football.

[HiVis]

£1 in every £8 is spent on servicing the debt. just my first thought.

And whilst discussing tax, I'm of the opinion Starmer needs to be more radical. Its time we had a paradigm shift in UK politics and now is the time to invest heavily in infrastructure (trains, trams, cycle networks), green energy, education, hospitals, housing (private and council). If the government can raise billions if not trillions and this can be paid back over 50 years, then the UK has a real good opportunity to transform itself. Capitalism, social justice and equity don't have to be strangers - the big infrastructure projects would be delivered by the private sector fuelling economic growth, paying taxes, creating jobs and the end result is a much improved UK. The only gripe would be we need to learn the lesson of HS2 - we were once world beaters in industry, innovation and making things happen, and somehow we have lost that skill. My view is we have too many civil servants - the MoD has more workers than we have sailors in the Navy - that is just nuts.