Politics Census: Lockdown Edition feat. Drumstick [Final results p.11]

aayl1 wrote:Thanks Karl! Really enjoyed reading your analysis and appreciate the work you've put into this!

So me and Lex are the most politically compatible forumite pair out of everyone eh? Interesting

Best friends for life.

These other chumps don't know the meaning of friendship.

The RichardUK datapoint is interesting. He can be thought of as his own singlet cluster, or equivalently as an outlier to the rest of the dataset.

I wonder if my views are extreme compared to the general population or it’s just because this is a very left leaning place, I would class myself as being right wing but definitely not far right, obviously from that me and Karl are about as opposite as you can get but I am sure we would even agree on certain subjects

Late to this but thought I'd do it anyway



https://8values.github.io/results.html? ... 9.4&s=87.2

RichardUK wrote:I am curious however to understand what type of government the left would want in terms of the model, are there any countries governments you would want to copy? What would be the main policies or changes you would like to see? I think a lot of the time some people like to campaign against things and feel like a rebel pushing against the system and the status quo, I thought this about Jeremy Corbyn and his followers especially at the point when he had a cult like student following

I speak only for myself, a small fraction of things I would like are:

- A PM that is a decent, respectable human being, not one that wants to cater to a base of xenophobes and racists and legitimises the opinions of those people. Also, somebody that has a philosophy and believes in it as opposed to Boris who does and says whatever he thinks will benefit him personally.

- A government that doesn't victimise the vulnerable people in our society, i.e. the disabled, the homeless, the poor. One that at least tries to treat all people with dignity and respect.

- A government that will redress the Landlord culture in this country and prevent the wealthy hoovering up properties and freeholds for their own personal gain at the expense of others.

- A government that doesn't sell off pieces of our health service in secret, and one that doesn't deliberately underfund the NHS. The same for the police and other publicly funded services.

- A government that does not trade or negotiate with rogue nations.

Drumstick wrote:- A government that doesn't victimise the vulnerable people in our society, i.e. the disabled, the homeless, the poor. One that at least tries to treat all people with dignity and respect.

Compared with the Cameron govt, the administration we have now is kind and fluffy.

There's still much room for improvement though.

Vermilion wrote:

Drumstick wrote:- A government that doesn't victimise the vulnerable people in our society, i.e. the disabled, the homeless, the poor. One that at least tries to treat all people with dignity and respect.

Compared with the Cameron govt, the administration we have now is kind and fluffy.

There's still much room for improvement though.

Meh, i know what we have now isn't great, but as far as i'm concerned, the Cameron government was far worse.

Vermilion wrote:Meh, i know what we have now isn't great, but as far as i'm concerned, the Cameron government was far worse.

Judge them after 5 years not 6 months. I think it's safe to say a combination of Boris, Brexit and coronavirus will lead to a worse outcome than anything the pig strawberry floater did.

One thing we can all agree on, Raab would be fit as strawberry float if he was a woman.

twitter.com/defencedailyuk/status/1272978318577541120

Johnson not so much.

Drumstick wrote:- A government that will redress the Landlord culture in this country and prevent the wealthy hoovering up properties and freeholds for their own personal gain at the expense of others.

This is something that the Tories actually have made serious changes to.

https://www.stampdutycalculator.org.uk/

Compare a 300k purchase for a first time buyer vs home mover vs landlord.

Additionally the mortgage interest can't be offset against costs so landlords pay tax on revenues rather than profit if their personal income plus rental income makes them a higher rate taxpayer. You can check the tax relief calculator here to see the impact it has:

https://www.themortgageworks.co.uk/calculators

And then on top of that the rental stress tests were increased too. Used to be the case that the expected rent needed to exceed 5% of the mortgage balance divided by 12 multipled by 1.25. For most BTL mortgages you'll now need anywhere from 5%/5.5% at 1.40/1.45 or opt for a 5 year fixed rate with an easier stress test to meet but a higher interest rate than the 2 year fixed option Landlords overwhelmingly used to choose.

Plus there is Capital Gains Tax changes and other tax changes such as furniture / furnishings being offset that were changed now.

It's become a terrible financial investment with high tax on entry, high tax on ownership and high tax on exit. Far better to make use of tax efficient options like stock and shares ISAs and pensions before considering tax inefficient options and highly concentrated risk options like investment property.

Grumpy David wrote:

Drumstick wrote:- A government that will redress the Landlord culture in this country and prevent the wealthy hoovering up properties and freeholds for their own personal gain at the expense of others.

This is something that the Tories actually have made serious changes to.

https://www.stampdutycalculator.org.uk/

Compare a 300k purchase for a first time buyer vs home mover vs landlord.

Additionally the mortgage interest can't be offset against costs so landlords pay tax on revenues rather than profit if their personal income plus rental income makes them a higher rate taxpayer. You can check the tax relief calculator here to see tbf impact it has:

https://www.themortgageworks.co.uk/calculators

And then on top of that the rental stress tests were increased too. Used to be the case that the expected rent needed to exceed 5% of the mortgage balance divided by 12 multipled by 1.25. For most BTL mortgages you'll now need anywhere from 5%/5.5% at 1.40/1.45 or opt for a 5 year fixed rate with an easier stress test to meet but a higher interest rate than the 2 year fixed option Landlords overwhelmingly used to choose.

Plus there is Capital Gains Tax changes and other tax changes such as furniture / furnishings being offset that were changed now.

It's become a terrible financial investment with high tax on entry, high tax on ownership and high tax on exit. Far better to make use of tax efficient options like stock and shares ISAs and pensions before considering tax inefficient options and highly concentrated risk options like investment property.

I appreciate there have been changes but, for me, these are not serious enough. Preventative measures to fundamentally put a stop to the possibility of this happening, for example: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/ ... 0-uk-homes

His like is the exception but there are plenty of folk (at least in Sussex where I live) that own multiple properties when there is no obvious need for doing so. Just greed. I'll just copy-paste what I have said before on here:

Drumstick wrote:If it was up to me, any couple, commercial entity or individual owning more than two domestic properties in this country would be illegal. Citizens with multiple properties would have a certain amount of time (2 years IMO) to sell up or be forced into selling them to the government for 80% of the market value. Said plan would end up lowering house prices to semi-affordable levels at worst without crashing the market or the economy.

Of course, nothing like this will ever come to pass because some of the people that abuse the housing market are MPs and they're making more money off that than their salaries pay them.

You shouldn't be able to own a house you don't personally live in.

Karl_ wrote:You shouldn't be able to own a house you don't personally live in.

Who should be allowed to own them? I’m not disagreeing I’m just interested in your view. Is it that everyone should be able to own their own property or that the government and local authorities should provide more housing?

Return_of_the_STAR wrote:

Karl_ wrote:You shouldn't be able to own a house you don't personally live in.

Who should be allowed to own them? I’m not disagreeing I’m not interested in your view. Is it that everyone should be able to own their own property or that the government and local authorities should provide more housing?

I agree with Karl to an extent. There obviously needs to be a rental market, but that should be taken out of private landlords hands.

Council houses and (not for profit) housing associations should be providing homes for those who can't afford to buy a house or for those that are happy just to rent.

I'd probably allow second homes but they would be very heavily taxed by local authorities. Hopefully that would cut down on winter ghost towns that price out locals and would put some money into local services for the people that live there.

Karl_ wrote:You shouldn't be able to own a house you don't personally live in.

Would that include holiday homes by the coast, for example?

Return_of_the_STAR wrote:

Karl_ wrote:You shouldn't be able to own a house you don't personally live in.

Who should be allowed to own them? I’m not disagreeing I’m not interested in your view. Is it that everyone should be able to own their own property or that the government and local authorities should provide more housing?

It's not who should be allowed to own them, it's who shouldn't be allowed.

Edit: for clarity yes everyone should be able to own their own home, provided they can afford to.

The rental market should be heavily regulated (it isn't) and should be owned and run by the state. People would rent directly from the government. Some of these homes (a percentage) could be used for authorities to house the vulnerable.

Simple.

Preezy wrote:

Karl_ wrote:You shouldn't be able to own a house you don't personally live in.

Would that include holiday homes by the coast, for example?

Yes. If you want a house by the coast, go and live there. Don't hold a property that someone might actually need.

Vermilion wrote:Compared with the Cameron govt, the administration we have now is kind and fluffy.

There's still much room for improvement though.

I forgot the time Cameron tried to openly end British democracy