5 ms·

Labour lost because of Brexit, not because of policies. Populism won.

pjc50 6y ago
It's really over-determined; while Corbyn wasn't particularly impressive, I've never seen quite such a set of media smears against a single person. They were really laying on the "communist spy / IRA supporter / anti-semitic" nonsense. Factional infighting was also a factor. It was clear that the right wing of the Labour party would prefer losing to allowing Corbyn to win, because that would lose their personal control over the party. From their point of view, the tens of thousands of new labour party members were just entryists. How do we know that the concerns were insincere? Well, Claire Fox spent twenty years in the Revolutionary Communist Party and supported IRA bombing of Warrington in the 90s, but has now been made a member of the UK's permanent unelected legislature, the House of Lords. People will hate socialism if they're told to do so. Whereas Revolutionary Communist Party members can be promoted to baronetcy once they fall in line. Welcome to Britain.
aries1980 6y ago
...and because instead of lowering the govn't expenditure, they planned to increase the tax for the middle class: https://www.ifs.org.uk/election/2019/article/labour-s-proposed-income-tax-rises-for-high-income-individuals https://www.ifs.org.uk/election/2019/article/labour-s-propos...
- silveroriole 6y ago
  As the page says, this would affect 4% of people in the country. Seems like an issue HN will assign disproportionate importance to but would not really have been a decisive issue for the country.
  - aries1980 6y ago
    We are talking about 1.6M employee/small business owner, who has families as well. So Labour supposed to punish the most ambitious, hard-working people and their families with even higher taxes (40+20+13.8+... percent) they already pay.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      That's a lot of rhetoric. Where is this 40+20+13.8 coming from? Employer NI is 13.8%, but rarely counted as a tax on the worker (crazilly) Of course plenty of people earning big bucks don't do it via PAYE, just take their money as far lower capital gains, split income amongst multiple people, leave income in businesses for longer, etc. 2017-2018 figures [0] and taxes [1] Someone on 90%ile 45,500 pre tax, has a cost (including employer NI) of £50,616, and a net wage of £34,322, total tax of 32% Someone on 95%ile 59,300 pre tax, has a cost (including employer NI) of £66,320, and a net wage of £42,413, total tax of 36% Someone on 99%ile 116,000 pre tax, has a cost (including employer NI) of £130,845, and a net wage of £72,099, total tax of 45% I believe Corbyn's income tax proposals were to increase the rate for 80k-150k to 45%. That would only affect the top 2.5% of income tax payers, but the person on the 99%ile above would pay an extra £1800 a year in tax. Their tax rate would change from 45% to 46%, hardly an earth shattering change. That £1800 a year extra is about what the tories took off single mothers earning £60k when they introduced the child tax [2] [0] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-f... [1] https://listentotaxman.com/ https://listentotaxman.com/ [2] high income child benefit tax charge".
      - michaelt 6y ago
        The 20% aries1980 refers to is almost certainly VAT which is charged on a great many goods. I agree with your point that your effective tax rate is always lower than your marginal tax rate - but anyone earning £100,000 who has asked themselves "How much of a bonus do I need to earn to pay for a £20,000 loft conversion" will have done a calculation like aries1980 has and winced.
        iso1631 6y ago
        That's less than 2% of the country, not going to swing an election. Besides 100k income in 2009/10 (when Labour were last in power): Net income £65,312. 120k income in 2009/10: Net income £77,112. Marginal tax 41% 100k income in 2019/20: Net income £66,539. 120k income in 2019/20: Net income £74,139 Marginal tax 62% That's not even the top level. If you're a masters graduate on £50k with 2 kids your marginal tax is 75%. There are many myths, that conservatives are good for the economy, that they don't have boom and bust, that the stock market does better, than employment does better, that taxes are lower for everyone, that taxes are lower for "rich" workers, that the country has less debt. They're all myths, but they all seem to stick in the national psyche.
dspillett 6y ago
That and the party eating itself from the inside, significantly (but far from only) due to bad handling of the anti-Semitism issue. Also not really having a policy on brexit, and letting it be one of the issues the party fought inwardly about, made brexit a policy issue so it is hard to make the distinction that you do above: there are people who would have voted if a more direct stance against was taken. (context: remain and Labour voter in all the key national polls in recent years, but they never managed to make themselves look better than "vaguely better one from a terrible set of options" even to the likes of me so convincing floating voters to swing that way was not going to happen)

It's really over-determined; while Corbyn wasn't particularly impressive, I've never seen quite such a set of media smears against a single person. They were really laying on the "communist spy / IRA supporter / anti-semitic" nonsense. Factional infighting was also a factor. It was clear that the right wing of the Labour party would prefer losing to allowing Corbyn to win, because that would lose their personal control over the party. From their point of view, the tens of thousands of new labour party members were just entryists. How do we know that the concerns were insincere? Well, Claire Fox spent twenty years in the Revolutionary Communist Party and supported IRA bombing of Warrington in the 90s, but has now been made a member of the UK's permanent unelected legislature, the House of Lords. People will hate socialism if they're told to do so. Whereas Revolutionary Communist Party members can be promoted to baronetcy once they fall in line. Welcome to Britain.

aries1980 6y ago

...and because instead of lowering the govn't expenditure, they planned to increase the tax for the middle class: https://www.ifs.org.uk/election/2019/article/labour-s-proposed-income-tax-rises-for-high-income-individuals https://www.ifs.org.uk/election/2019/article/labour-s-propos...

silveroriole 6y ago
As the page says, this would affect 4% of people in the country. Seems like an issue HN will assign disproportionate importance to but would not really have been a decisive issue for the country.
- aries1980 6y ago
  We are talking about 1.6M employee/small business owner, who has families as well. So Labour supposed to punish the most ambitious, hard-working people and their families with even higher taxes (40+20+13.8+... percent) they already pay.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    That's a lot of rhetoric. Where is this 40+20+13.8 coming from? Employer NI is 13.8%, but rarely counted as a tax on the worker (crazilly) Of course plenty of people earning big bucks don't do it via PAYE, just take their money as far lower capital gains, split income amongst multiple people, leave income in businesses for longer, etc. 2017-2018 figures [0] and taxes [1] Someone on 90%ile 45,500 pre tax, has a cost (including employer NI) of £50,616, and a net wage of £34,322, total tax of 32% Someone on 95%ile 59,300 pre tax, has a cost (including employer NI) of £66,320, and a net wage of £42,413, total tax of 36% Someone on 99%ile 116,000 pre tax, has a cost (including employer NI) of £130,845, and a net wage of £72,099, total tax of 45% I believe Corbyn's income tax proposals were to increase the rate for 80k-150k to 45%. That would only affect the top 2.5% of income tax payers, but the person on the 99%ile above would pay an extra £1800 a year in tax. Their tax rate would change from 45% to 46%, hardly an earth shattering change. That £1800 a year extra is about what the tories took off single mothers earning £60k when they introduced the child tax [2] [0] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-f... [1] https://listentotaxman.com/ https://listentotaxman.com/ [2] high income child benefit tax charge".
    - michaelt 6y ago
      The 20% aries1980 refers to is almost certainly VAT which is charged on a great many goods. I agree with your point that your effective tax rate is always lower than your marginal tax rate - but anyone earning £100,000 who has asked themselves "How much of a bonus do I need to earn to pay for a £20,000 loft conversion" will have done a calculation like aries1980 has and winced.
      - iso1631 6y ago
        That's less than 2% of the country, not going to swing an election. Besides 100k income in 2009/10 (when Labour were last in power): Net income £65,312. 120k income in 2009/10: Net income £77,112. Marginal tax 41% 100k income in 2019/20: Net income £66,539. 120k income in 2019/20: Net income £74,139 Marginal tax 62% That's not even the top level. If you're a masters graduate on £50k with 2 kids your marginal tax is 75%. There are many myths, that conservatives are good for the economy, that they don't have boom and bust, that the stock market does better, than employment does better, that taxes are lower for everyone, that taxes are lower for "rich" workers, that the country has less debt. They're all myths, but they all seem to stick in the national psyche.

dspillett 6y ago

That and the party eating itself from the inside, significantly (but far from only) due to bad handling of the anti-Semitism issue. Also not really having a policy on brexit, and letting it be one of the issues the party fought inwardly about, made brexit a policy issue so it is hard to make the distinction that you do above: there are people who would have voted if a more direct stance against was taken. (context: remain and Labour voter in all the key national polls in recent years, but they never managed to make themselves look better than "vaguely better one from a terrible set of options" even to the likes of me so convincing floating voters to swing that way was not going to happen)