"Everyone should fund public services not just higher earners who probably use public services less!"How do you work that out? Do the rich benefit less from defence spending, roads and infrastructure, police and security, or receive lower old age state pensions (one of the biggest costs of all)? I think that there is a reasonable argument that they benefit considerably more.The counter argument is that the more you own / earn, the more you benefit from an orderly, structured and safe society - i.e. benefit more, not less, from public spending.Unless of course you believe that sharing and supporting each other, for the benefit of society as a whole, is wrong and believe in a "dog eat dog" "every man for himself" society. If that's your conservative philosophy, just say so. Then people can make the choice who to vote for on the facts.The nub of it is that production and growth is made up of various factors - traditionally, land labour capital and entrepreneurship - but let's look at primarily labour and capital. Profit generated from enterprise can then be apportioned between the contribution of labour and the contribution of capital. The problem is that over the last 10 years the reward for labour has declined (direct reward, in wages, and also indirect decline in the form of social benefits such as investment into education, healthcare, police and security, etc.) but the share of profits allocated to capital has increased. So bigger and bigger pools of capital have been built up in fewer and fewer hands, distorting the economy, making it less productive, and resulting in a decline in quality of life in the UK (and life expectancy)."It's the same the whole world over: It's the poor what gets the blame. It's the rich what gets the pleasure; Ain't it all a bloomin' shame". But particularly in the UK, over the last decade and the political (not economic) policy of austerity (or, if it was an economic policy, it has demonstrably failed miserably).Real wages have been flat for the last decade. If the pre-conservative trajectory had been maintained, real average wages would be 25% higher than they are now.Government debt as a percentage of GDP under the conservatives (taken pre 2008 credit crises, and pre 2020 covid crisis, to iron out those exceptional events) increased from about 40% to over 80%. It can be misleading to look at a country in isolation, because this may not reflect changes in the international economy. So let's compare the UK with Germany. Over the same period, debt as a percentage of GDP in Germany declined from about 64% to about 60%. So we have done a lot worse.So please don't give me that nonsense about the "conservatives manage the economy better". It is objectively and demonstrably untrue. (In fact, the evidence supports the view that prior to 2010, there was little to choose between the two as to growth, the choice was about the equitable distribution of the benefits of that growth – but since 2010, the conservative government has done worse on both counts).
T P Howell ● 890d