If you put fluoride in the water then adults will take evasive actions against it such as buying plastic bottles of water or setting up water wasting RO systems and I say that as someone who gave their young kids fluoride tablets (after checking the levels in the tap water and taking advice). Most people think the GP service has deteriorated beyond recognition over their lifetimes. It is wrong to use them as 'gatekeepers' preventing hospital access. It is wrong for them to not see patients on the day they need to be seen and it is wrong for them to rely on telephone diagnosis (it is a misnomer). If there is no such thing as a family doctor any more then there should be walk in GP polyclinics because most experiences of GP services feel like that today anyway. General practice will go private like the dentists anyway without change and the 'poor' will get a substandard service as they do in dentistry and optometry.

I agree with you.

The above comments are worth reading and show how complicated individual taxes are. Stamp duty just seizes up the property market with consequences for employment mobility and the functioning of the economy. I wouldn't be shocked if stamp duty gains are offset in unemployment costs. Do we know? Similarly stamp duty will cause more demand for state social care because people cannot move near to their relatives and friends who may help. Do we know? Get rid of it completely. Council tax is fraught with horrors such as the little old lady with very low income living in a valuable home and this intersects with inheritance tax and all the horrors there. Deferring tax to the point of sale will stop sales. Deferring tax to the point of death may placate the dead but it will rile the inheritors who may be impoverished themselves (or not). I recall the dementia tax was not popular. Local taxes should also have some relation to local democracy or we might as well abolish the latter. All in all it is a monumental mess and government seems incapable of understanding the human behavioural consequences of changes to tax. We need the psychologists to study the behaviour of tax (for real) rather than just politicians gaming it themselves. I've already written about how costs have stopped my Aged P from moving and the impact on the quality of life. I suggest we bring in thew boffins and forget about the policy wonks and advisers who will all want what their own life experiences tell them which will hardly represent the electorate as a whole. Council tax is most people's largest monthly direct debit. It is noticed, but only to those who have to pay it.

Not necessarily if the CGT on all home sales is only applied to the gain from, say Budget March 2021? In essence that would require a revaluation first and that would represent the nil rate for future CGT on that property. If house values drop then that could be forwarded as an exemption, again compared to the March 2021 date. I don't like it either because homes are bought with taxed income but it would be better to ditch stamp duty which just seizes up the market and limits job opportunity.

This is what I wrote on this site 47 weeks ago,
"There will also be a lack of understanding that governments allowed globalization to continue to such a degree that economic free fall was risked in such a scenario. I cannot understand why air travel wasn't shut off sooner except that it was government complacency and fear of offending other countries. Face masks might just be a useless placebo but even there the government could make them available to those who want them at a fair price. At half term I sat in a cafe where a teenage boy sneezed all over the place and his mum didn't even tell him off. There's a lot of basic ignorance to correct."
Many comments called for the borders to be shut early but governments delayed. Potus Trump banned flights from China early on but he missed Europe as a vector of transmission to the USA. I do remember Prof Whitty saying early on that it was pointless to stop air travel because the virus could not be kept out. Perhaps he already knew it was too late. Early on there was talk of herd immunity which is one of the classic ways for epidemics to end. I think Jeremy Hunt would have done better than Boris but he wouldn't have taken us out of the EU and he wouldn't have given us an 80 seat majority. We are where we are. Of note, Boris, Hancock, Hunt and every politician connected to the Department of Health have NO scientific background in Medicine. Now I couldn't grapple with the classics but I know how to diagnose pneumonia. There's a lack of understanding at the top. Health needs a doctor at the top. It's basic.

Not for a rant.

Yes of course I mean that. All pensions should be honoured to date but public sector pensions are disassociated from the general economy and are set by government rules and laws. It would be better for everyone to have a private pension.

Sound money versus the magic money tree. The right versus the left. Both are painful in this situation but politicians everywhere, when faced with economic failure and insurmountable debt, will go for inflation so you will get your magic money tree and the consequences that arise from it which will be a fall in the real value of wages (really awful on the poor), rising prices of essential goods (really awful on the poor), loss of high value skilled workers to abroad leading to increased wage disparity (really awful on the poor) and last but most serious, loss of savings (really awful on the old, ill and poor). I have not advocated that government stops spending, just that it manages it's budget as prudent households would. Brown's favourite word should be brought back but this time it should mean something other than a mirage of prudence. We had a brain drain in the 1970s due to high taxation. We have unaffordable house prices now due to QE etc. Government action always hurts someone somewhere and that in turn hurts others down the line. It's a difficult path to get off but I do think it is time for government to concentrate on the simple things. Instead of obsessing with gender and long past nasty history we need a health service that works, education that educates, an economy that earns decent wages for the majority and finally that a £ will still be worth a £ after a period of some time.

Scorched earth is coming whatever government does. In case you haven't noticed it's scorched earth out there for very many at present. Just printing money and borrowing excessively will transfer the heat deeper and deeper in to the ground and kill the seeds and roots as well as the above ground canopy. This piece is about radical measures and I responded in kind. The left always wants to spend more on their chosen groups. They live for it and the country suffers because of it. Why not put forward your own suggestions rather than just rant off the same well trodden ground of the left.

My radical ones are abolish public sector pensions and tax free gains on the principal residence but importantly there should be a start over date set as of now so that past provision and gains are respected prior to the change. If property prices fall in real terms then the government may even want to go back to RPI instead of CPI inflation indexation. We also need to do something about the universities and student fees such as limiting the number of loans and number of subjects. Student loans are in reality government spending and should be cut back. Everyone should get a tax free personal allowance and it should be transferable to those who 'keep' us. This might be more popular now after the schools shutting because parents will be reevaluating their ability to have it all. Child benefit should be paid in food vouchers only that can be used anywhere for the child (ie not on booze). I can't see how my Aged P could cope with a cashless society. They will not be the only one. It would also be a mistake for government to concentrate only on science and technological advances because this county used to be good at the arts. The 1960s and 1970s were fabulous eras for our fashion and music. You can't choose for the people so free them to do what they are best at and what they enjoy the most. Pay per GP/A&E visit might be another earner whose time has come but firstly sack all the GPs and give them a new contract and tell them to go private if they don't like it. Pay doctors and teachers more to work in unpopular areas of the country even if the living costs there are cheaper because it will help to 'level up'. Pay the public sector on genuine performance and productivity to weed out the useless. yes to abolishing Quangos but also yes to abolishing the acres of rules and regs that facilitate their existence. Let individuals be accountable by widening legal reforms if necessary. MPs pensions should be the first to be changed. Last but not least get rid of the BBC and all who sail within her.