So tell me, Mrs. Lincoln, aside from that how was the play?
There is probably a great saving to be had simply by bringing some services in house rather than dubious oursourcing contracts.
The problem with that is that it would take someone to challenge the status quo for how government delivers services.
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I hesitate to reply but here goes the rantā¦
Part of the issue is that people are not just on different pages of a book but on entirely different books in libraries in different cities - when it comes to values of Britain and what it is to be British. Iām pretty sure most people do not know of the constitution and lay/common law. There is a lack of common culture and knowledge of how to access British culture - because the definition is either hijacked or hidden at different levels.
The cost of having supermarkets open all hours every day has consequences.
Wait, are you classing people who earn over Ā£123k as rich?
Seems like itās between the 90th and 99th percentile of PAYE income: Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK - Office for National Statistics
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As he pointed out, they arenāt the ones that make Labour policy, she really should be putting those questions to the candidate, not the general members that give up their time to convase the local areas
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Very wealthy people will have money that is flexible, and will park it offshore easily in order to avoid taxes. Itās a lot of financial sector stuff, and moving money around is par for the course. Very difficult for the taxman to get his claws into.
After that there are higher earners, certainly in comparison to the national average, but they will not see themselves as rich, at all. They will see themselves as middle class. If you tax them excessively it will shrink the middle class, and will exacerbate the problem in the longer term.
I canāt imagine many people would be happy to pay 50% of their earnings to the government, plus NI, plus numerous other taxes. It would accelerate a brain drain, whereby people with marketable skills that might open up emigration options will choose to take the plunge and leave the country.
Itās a tough problem, and in some ways a philosophical one.
If I am a reasonable citizen, and I donāt mind doing my fair bit and paying my taxes to build a better country, the question is, how much of my total income am I willing to hand over to the public purse? Add up all the taxes, not just income tax.
What is the %?
And how does it compare to other similar countries with a similar standard of life and decent public services?
If itās in the range, great. If the government wants too much in exchange for too little, it will be counterproductive.
This is the right wing answer to any attempt to reduce the gap between rich and poor.
In Denmark people in similar bracket pay up to 52%, and everyone Iāve spoken to there is happy to do so because they have excellent services, great public transport so most donāt need cars (in cities anyway), young people can get grants up to masters level education (rather than paying fees) etc.
They invest in early years, preventative health, high quality teachers etc, all of which has a massive long-term cost benefit. Where thereās a will thereās a way.
All indications from Starmer Labour so far is continuation of the same neoliberal financial approach. We need new thinking, and a government willing to take a long-term approach rather than just focussing on getting to power and then a 5 year term
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Your thoughts above on a Labour government feel like nihilism. Corbyn created a movement because, for the first time in a generation, he gave a sense of hope that things can get better. Not slightly better than the Tories. Properly better, for the many not the few.
He clearly couldnāt finish the job (or wasnāt allowed to depending on your view) but I would love someone else to come along that could inspire people to hope again
How long were they there? How do you know it doesnāt suit the area? It takes a long time for behavioural change to settle in.
So, anecdotes and not any actual evidence?
I donāt want to minimise this, but how often does it actually happen? Becauseā¦
If they do not drive or have given up driving, how do they have use of a private car? What is wrong with sitting on a bus for an hourās journey?
And for that matter, has it ever occurred to you that if the LTNs are left in, and all those people who are driving around in single-occupancy vehicles are disincentivised from using the roads, then it would be easier for the people you speak of to get taxis?
Weāre talking specifically about LTNs in London, are we not?
Denmark is clearly well managed country while the UK is an utter shit show by comparison. Our taxes disappear into black holes which is one reason (of many) why people are so against paying tax.
Yes, thatās my point
It is an interesting comparison, because by government share of GDP, there is almost no difference between the UK and Denmark. Their excellent services etc., donāt collectively cost anything more. But there are huge institutional differences (and barriers) to the Nordic model in the UK, and a great deal of them could be said to be on the left wing as well as the traditional economic centers of power
Fair and valid points Mascot 
On the contrary, in the long-term they bring huge savings.
SureStart is a great Labour example of this. Check the research on cost benefits of investing in early years
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Up to 52% total taxation?
If it is 52% total taxation, and we received the public services they do in Denmark, people would sign up for that. I would. (Hypothetically, as I left the country at the end of 2008 - not for tax reasons, but for personal family reasons, as our daughter was sick and my American wife wanted to be nearer to her family).
If it is 52% income tax, plus numerous other taxes, so I find I am only pocketing a small part of my total earnings, perhaps a third or less, and then I look around and see the public services in England lag miles behind what we see in places like Denmark, then it breaks down.
It would be disheartening, and I could see myself looking to leave the country in those circumstances. Or if that wasnāt a move I was willing to make, I would be open to changing my working circumstances to working less, or part time, especially if I was in a good place with my mortgage, in order to have a less stressful life.
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I used to be international coordinator at a university. Some interesting discussions with international students. A huge spectrum of financial experience with US and Denmark/Norway at opposite extremes. US students paying $60k plus for uni while the Scandinavian students had fees paid plus government maintenance grants. Ours were somewhere round the middle.
Edit: obv referring to high income countries here
I canāt remember how long the LTNs were here for, but they were there for a good 6 months or more. What annoyed the residents in South and West Ealing, they were not consulted and they were installed without warning. The residents were up in arms about this. The roads they put LTNs created more chaos. For example my auntās road would take 2 minutes from my house by car, but it took 20 minutes because you had to go all the way round to another main round into another side road to get there. It is hard to explain the layout of Ealing roads. You have never lived there. Even Sadiq Khan admitted LTNs were a problem
With regards to buses, they are pretty packed at certain times of the day, there are times, I had to miss the buses as I couldnāt get on as a passenger and I am waiting 15 -20 minutes for the next bus.
With regards to elderly disabled people especially with dementia, who do not drive, they rely on relatives, friends, carers who have cars. There is special taxicard service for disabled people, where they can driven to places they need to get to.
It is okay if you are mobile person. I have lived with elderly people, it is not that easy to get them out of the house and just put them on a bus, they find it hard waiting in the cold, wind and rain for a bus. Some people can only do short journeys, they just want be back in their homes as soon as possible. You think it is easy for them to use public transport, it is not. My mum couldnāt use public transport when she had mobility issues, it was much easier to take her in the car, especially for medical appointments. It is not easy pushing a wheelchair on steep gradient to get somewhere either.
You say, i was just using anecdotes, I have seen it myself down my auntās road, the ambulance was stuck in a one way system on the side road, who was trying to get to someone who needed medical assistance, my Auntās GP complained she could not get through to her road. Rubbish collectors with their trucks were having problems on a weekly basis on my road. My colleagues who travel from afar said their travel time to my school was taking twice as long, this was not the case with LTNS.
What I am saying where the LTNs were put in Ealing created more congestion, the council put too many in. They ended up removing most of them. Ealing Council realised it wasnāt working in the area.
Given that you said prior to this that itās a 7 minute walk from your aunt, Iām wondering why the 2 minutes to your house was even relevant? Surely it would have made more sense to just walk, which is your point about the 20 minutes it takes actually promotes the use of the LTN. I donāt need to have lived in Ealing to know that you cannot on the one hand complain about congestion, but on the other, contribute to it by driving ridiculously short journeys.
Sounds to me like itās a problem with insufficient buses, not the LTNs.
Which is why itās all the more important to discourage those people who drive needlessly to stop driving, so those people who do need the use of a car can benefit.
What does mobility have to do with the cold, wind, and rain?
Those are precisely anecdotes!
Why was the ambulance āstuck in a one way systemā? Or did you mean that the ambulance driver was unfamiliar with the layout of the road?
Your auntās GP should not have a problem getting through to her road. The point of an LTN is to restrict through-traffic flows. It does not prevent access.
Where were your colleagues travelling from, and why was it longer? Did they drive, or did they take public transport?
And my point is that the studies have shown that LTNs do not actually increase traffic on boundary roads, at least not in the long term. I canāt remember what it says about the short term. The main point is that side streets should not be open to through traffic, and should be for resident access only. Through traffic belongs on the main road, and the way transport systems work as a whole, if drivers find their journeys are increasing in duration, if they can switch, they will switch, evening out transport timings again.
Such changes donāt appear overnight. Just because the measures were removed doesnāt mean itās a positive change. All it takes is a few loud voices to pressure the council into doing so.
You canāt argue that thereās no visionary thinking in politics, if youāre going to argue against one of the few ways to try to manage the volume of traffic in a dense city.