Vince Cable: Lib Dem star falling back to earth?

Trying to apply the old crow bar my son, to open up the wedge, and catering to the readership eh? The exceses of the 1,000 families that owned Britian is a disgustingly obscene picture of who we are ( see nobel prize winner Tuchman). Taxing mansions is the least of what we should have done/and can do if we had any cohones (unlike the Russians who knew exactly what to do).

On the other hand the UK tax system is he sole reason why the UK economy is slipping gently into that goodnight. In the USA influential politicians such as Steve Forbes have proposed a federal sales tax to replace income taxes; here in the uk you have both and the govt is still poor on a £3billion economy. Govt. is a foolish expense of our labour. A complete reform of our govt. and tax system is now the top priority of govt.

Could never understand why Cable was taken that seriously anyway. For a tax and spend party to criticise a tax (borrow) and spend is somewhat hypocritical.
I wrote to Cable after he sounded off about banker’s bonuses asking whether he thought it was poor loan decisions/takeovers or risky trading that brought RBS and HBOS down (because traders only get their bonuses if their trades are profitable). Too dificult for Vince, no reply.
bembaboy good to see you embracing Thatcherism with a tax on consumption rather than income but I am not sure she was too keen on taxes on capital, that’s for those nasty socialists.

Handle Vince with care: I like him, BUT there’s nobody else in the Lib Dems with his calibre worth listening to. Sadly for British politics the 3rd party is so dreadfully “dim” and unimaginative.

Isn’t it strange.

Only a tiny minority of people have a house, or an estate, worth in excess of a million pounds.

Yet when George Osborne announces a rise in the IHT threshold to £1m, national nespaper editors - who probably are worth more than a million quid - literally cream themselves, and their sheep-like readers, worth much less than £1m, follow suit.

Then when Cable announces a tax on houses over £1m, these same newspaper editors bleat loudly, and their readers follow suit.

It just shows what a cringing, grovelling, cap-doffing bunch of masochistic boot-lickers a great number of British people are.

“It just shows what a cringing, grovelling, cap-doffing bunch of masochistic boot-lickers a great number of British people are.”

On the other hand it might just show that the British see that taxing people because of an unrealised increase in the value of their property is unjust?

alhamilton

I once would have had sympathy with this position. I’ve known several people who bought large houses in the 50s and early 60s for relatively little money (it was possible for working class people to buy five bedroom houses in London in those days - unlike the Thatcher/Blair economic golden age) which are now worth in excess of £1m.

But these large houses nearly always get sold off, either when the grandparents downsize, or when they die. They seldom get passed on so that descendants can continue to live in the community.

Instead, often comfortable children, or grandchildren, get a sizeable windfall.

Nothing innately wrong with this, but in the current climate, if it’s a choice between public services being cut to the bone and low earners taxed into the ground, and people giving up a small part of a large inheritance, or having to release equity in their property, then the latter is the lesser of two evils.

Beaton

If its a choice between public services and increased taxes put me firmly in the former category. You are talking of extra taxes on the old, retired, those whose rates & council taxes have funded the public services for decades. Those whose pensions Brown destroyed. The only reason these peoples houses have increased so much is because Brown cased the housing bubble. Has it not occurred to you that these people have not received a windfall, if they sell their house they have to buy another at a similarly inflated price.