Can Andy Burnham Stand Up To Trump?

Comments · 896

• CO

  @cofidy · 2 months ago

  Imagine the NHS hadn't been created in 1948, there'd be absolutely no chance the "treasury orthodoxy" would allow it to happen today. So many politicians and wealthy businessmen are detached from the lived reality of the common person, a government is meant to provide the best life for its people and keep its people safe - not just facilitate infinite corporate profit and greed.

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• AN

  @anodynecommentbro · 2 months ago

  "I've got a magic bullet that's going to fix everything." And this is the whole problem isn't it? Because Zucman said nothing of the kind.

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• PE

  @peter9162 · 2 months ago

  I think it's very unfair to say that wealth tax spokespeople like Zucman are claiming that it's a silver bullet. They're claiming that it's a necessary step for slowing rapidly growing inequality. It's not intended to fix every problem in the economy

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• KI

  @kiskaloo6843 · 2 months ago

  All I would like Burnham to do is not head off to DC but to call on Carney, Macron or Merz first. That was Starmer's biggest mistake.

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• MA

  @Manmadepack · 2 months ago (edited)

  Rorys problem is that every time he gets cornered by inequality he retreats to business voices rather than listening to the people in poverty whos numbers are increasing exponentially. Dan Needle is a confident and outspoken and he refuses, like rory to accept that if you do the leg work you might actually be able to make a wealth tax policy work, like every other piece of new legislation that has ever occured. just because something is hard doesnt mean you should give up and tell everyone else they are dumb for trying to fix it.

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• AL

  @alexanderbaines-buffery7563 · 2 months ago

  I think if Rory doesn't like the solutions proposed by Gary Stevenson, Kate Raworth, Gabriel Zucman, then I think it would be great if he could have another conversation with each of them, and say what solution he prefers based on his own research and allow them to critique his ideas. Cos after a while it just seems that really, it's not that he is a boring centrist, rather that he just doesn't want to shake the apple cart and upset the incumbent powers. Because we have to keep coming back to the issue that inequality and climate change do need addressing. Otherwise all you are doing is maintaining the status quo at the expense of the broader population. Doing nothing has catastrophic down sides.

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• JA

  @jamesldowns · 2 months ago

  It’s wilful ignorance to say Gabriel Zucman presents his proposal as a silver bullet.

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• GR

  @greendaytomd96 · 2 months ago

  The point that Rory misses is while personal taxes in regards to holding companies are "deferred" in principle. In practice, billionaires never have to pay themselves from the holding company or liquidate shares they can just take loans, using the shares in the holding company as collateral. So they have almost NO TAXIBLE INCOME and often are ludicrously entitled to tax credits!!! This is LEGAL and it needs to change.

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• JI

  @jim08945 · 2 months ago

  Putting the Caroline Lucas series behind a paywall is a shame. No one who needs persuading will see it.

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• RE

  @ReeceBland · 2 months ago

  Gabriel Zucmans 7 nobel prize winning economists endorsed proposal is NEEDED

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• JN

  @jnielson1121 · 2 months ago

  Rory really is stuck isn't he. The fact that a wealth tax won't cure cancer and reverse climate change in the blink of an eye isn't a reason not to do it. The point is that the social contract has broken down and wealth is being hoarded- and we know that inequality leads to social deprivation, violence and crime. The reason we have the far right on the rise (in the UK at least) seems to me to be the perfect storm of Tory austerity (results in crime and anger at the establishment) and algorithm driven social media (another mechanism for maintaining the billionaire class). The billions we'd get from a wealth tax might be enough to fix our defence committments or start a National Social Serivce or give all the disaffected NEETs who'll vote reform a clubhouse and apprenticeships. It could start the ball rolling. The fact that someone being a billionaire is fundamentally morally obscene and this would go some way to correcting it  is a bonus.

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• PA

  @pauljones5620 · 2 months ago (edited)

  Zucman at no point said his wealth tax will fix everything. Also a 2% tax on on individuals worth over £100m is not the least bit radical. I&apos;ve really went off Rory over this.<br><br>To cite the &apos;politics of envy&apos; argument when you yourself said it&apos;s disgusting that people hold on to such absurd wealth, and said it is a problem, is disingenuous at best.

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