Readers discuss Labour’s uni fee increase and if Kemi will swing further right
Have your say on these MetroTalk topics and more in the comments.
Labour has raised university tuition fees higher
With the advent of Labour’s increase in university tuition fees – up 3.1 per cent to £9,535 from next October (Metro, Tue) – Philip Duval’s comment in MetroTalk, also yesterday, that George Osborne and Nick Clegg saddled ‘an entire generation of almost unrepayable debt by making the fees the highest in the world’ has not aged well. Chris, Watford
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Will Kemi Badenoch lead the Tories further to the right?
The Tory lemmings have chosen Kemi Badenoch as their new leader, so they clearly have a death wish.
Expect them to point to everyone but themselves as the reason for our nation’s decline as they lurch further to the right in their frantic scramble to out-nasty Reform. Guy Wilkins, Richmond
What is a ‘working person’ exactly…?
Primer minister Sir Keir Starmer and chancellor Rachel Reeves repeatedly promised us that the budget would include ‘no tax increases for working people’, despite being unable to clarify what a ‘working person’ was.
Any reasonable person, though, would surely have assumed that those who were working on their own account, risking their own investment to earn a living entirely through their own endeavours, would be included in that group. Yet the almost five million people who are members of partnerships or self-employed through their own limited company will see their taxes rise from next April as a direct result of Reeves’s changes last week.
Employer national insurance contributions are going up and will be paid by company owners on any salary they draw.
These will also be due on virtually all turnover if their business is caught by IR35 – HMRC rules determining whether a contractor is genuinely self-employed (pays less tax) rather than employed (more).
Additionally, and as a result of lowering thresholds, huge numbers of sole traders will be dragged into Making Tax Digital – the government’s new system of digitally entering tax records throughout the year – with associated costs and administrative burdens.
In 2000, Tony Blair’s Labour managed to squeeze IR35 under the radar by making no mention of it in its budget.
Starmer’s government is trying a similar trick by repeating ‘no tax rises for working people’ while raising taxes for some of the most entrepreneurial, hard-working groups in the economy. Derek, Watford
It’s all about balance
With regard to Jimmy and Otto (MetroTalk, Fri) saying the budget was ‘the biggest cash grab’ and Labour ‘hating’ the private sector respectively.
There is a balance to be struck between providing public services without stifling the private sector by levelling up.
Entrepreneurship and innovation will continue under the Labour government as it did under the previous one, with the creation of more jobs in new technological industries, contributing to the wealth of the nation and its public services. Martin Hughes, Coventry
A reader takes issue with the frugal scot stereotype
I am appalled at Martin’s lazy racism with his remark about Scots being ‘careful with money’ (MetroTalk, Mon).
Would he have dared make a similar remark about persons from another race or demographic?
No, because it would have been called out as hate speech and rightly so.
Why is it still deemed acceptable to single out Scottish people in this manner Sandy McPherson, London