26/10/2022
If the British public want better public services they have to pay more tax. Listening to politicians skirting around that simple fact and talking about improving public services with efficiency savings is nauseating.
So let me explain how Labour should be explaining this, There is a Labour shortage, wages are low so there is not a great incentive for comfortably off middle classes to return to work.
So you do two things, you increase the minimum wage to £15 an hour and raise the lowest rate of tax to 33%. If you do that the take home pay of a worker would be £10 an hour, £2 more than they are getting now and £5 would go to treasury instead of the current £2. People have more disposable incomes to spend in the business that have to pay higher wages and the country has better public services.
When I lived in Denmark the lowest rate of tax was 52%, you still had way more money in your pocket than you got in UK. In 12 years in Denmark, I never owned or needed to own a car. You could see a GP or chiropractor on same day. My son was full time in Day car and I am giving serious consideration to moving back, the standard of living for the middle class is so much higher than Uk and they don’t have an underclass living below poverty line as we have in US and UK
Scandinavian countries are well-known for their broad social safety net and their public funding of services such as universal healthcare, higher education, parental leave, and child and elderly care. So how do Scandinavian countries raise their tax revenues?