Covid 19 Suspension (H) Mar 13th - Apr 3rd

I get your point and it’s a good one but I think a lot of help will be from receiving early payments which just kicks the can down the road. Clubs that don’t suffer now will just suffer further down the line when they have to cut back.

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I’ve always been a bit put off by a “tax the rich” argument. The concept of “rich” is usually hugely subjective and in most people’s minds it is never them and usually people a bracket or two above themselves. Somebody who earns £25k a year thinks that somebody on £60k is rich. Somebody on £60k thinks somebody on £100k is rich and so on. So then we get into “top 1%” and “top 5%” language. The liberal view is always to tax those folk more. On a global perspective if you live in the U.K. you are probably in the top 5%. So does that mean everyone pays more? The argument from many who tend to promote themselves as having borderless mindsets then retreats to “no I meant the top 5% in this country”. The top 5% who already pay nearly 50% of the total tax burden. That is a huge and potentially risky dependency on a relatively small proportion of the population.

To me, asking more tax from those who already pay loads of tax is the wrong option and potentially pulls drawbridges up on investment. The key to me is that those who avoid tax shouldn’t be tolerated. A lot of very rich people (hello Branson and Lewis Hamilton) pay little or no tax because they’ve taken non Dom status. A lot of organisations trade here and pay a pittance (Google and Starbucks two good examples).

And I know that given trust the British people struggle but public services are not “free”. We all have an obligation to stop pretending the NHS is free. A and E waiting times are at an all time low, partly because folk are fearful of the pandemic but also partly because we’ve decided to use it more responsibly. Funding is an issue but funding is also a function of the demand we place upon it. We ask politicians to cherish it but we all need to cherish and respect it.

And finally, if we’ve racked up a big debt then we need to look at some of the stuff we’re spending loads of cash on. Trident - I’ll take my chance ta and save us billions. And HS2 - I’ll tolerate that extra half an hour to get to London and again save us billions.

Probably over simplifying but I’ll be hugely sceptical if government of any persuasion tells me “we had no choice” whether that is imposing more austerity on the poorest or laying even more tax burden on the top and middle. There are choices if you stop seeing some very expensive cows as sacred.

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Posted in wrong thread. :joy::weary:. Igmc.

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So how’s the 3-week “suspension” going - have the opinions expressed on this site had any sway? :thinking:

Agreed, what a total waste of billions, scrap it now, bugga ‘all the work that has already been done’. All that cost and disruption to save half an hour, use all those billions on improving our current well worn and dated railway ‘infrastructure’ (a bloke from Cyprus could give them some good clues on that meaning!)

Careful…

A spokesperson for the Women’s Premier League said today that they are expecting record attendances next season now that the matches will be played behind closed doors. :grinning:

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