Indeed the Reith lectures have been good - especially in highlighting the concern of the (european) law taking over politics…
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And by an amazing quirk of fate, an MP’s salary happens to be £79k.
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Less than a headteacher of an inner London school 
But in seriousness, for the front benchers, the MP salary is beer money.
A public servant number cruncher would’ve come to the £80k figure, I assume.
Yes, appreciate that for some MPs this salary is virtually loose change.
Think I saw somewhere that since 2010, MP salaries have gone up £11000 taking into account inflation, while doctors, nurses and other civil servants’ wages have basically remained stagnant.
Anyway, this move by Boris is aimed at no one other than the 120,000 Conservative party members who might elect him PM.
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A tax cut seems fair, it’s not like public services are collapsing and having a wider effect on society in general.
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I can’t believe I’m defending our pi$$ poor politicians, but by London standards £79k isn’t that great. Obviously, if your constituency is outside of London and you get a 2nd house allowance that helps, as does the way you play the expenses game.
People keep bemoaning the fact that we have so many career politicians in government and not enough people with real-world, business experience, but if you had a successful career in the private sector, why would you give it up for a lower paid job that you could lose at short notice every 5 years? I don’t think it would get much support, but there’s an argument for paying MPs more to encourage the brightest people to go into government.
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Certainly i would consider paying MPs more, but would be expecting a higher standard of ethics and ultimately behaviour. I would also like to see reform of the house of lords (and the many layers of EU extravagance - although it may be too late for that).
We seem to have swapped the Tony Benns of this world for the likes of Nadine Dorries…
Not sure that we need the brightest people per se, they need to be leading innovation, but we need decent, articulate, honest and capable MPs…
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You mean that after a decade or more yet more and more ordinary people being dragged into the high tax bracket, they might reset the clock ?
Too many middle income earners pay high tax band and this is how you undo the damage.
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A lot of people here seem to be labouring under the false impression that taxation is, or is even meant to be, fair.
It’s not. And it’s fundamentally unfair.
Taxation is about what people will put up with, not about what’s right or wrong.
Totally. See how many contractors stop working as they approach the 100k mark so they dont pay 60% tax.
Or how small employers don’t increase the size of their businesses as the rewards are taxed at 47% whilst the risk is that the new employee just costs them loads of money.
High taxes are stiffling growth and productivity. Meanwhile huge swathes of the population have representation without any taxation. Those that pay least tax demand that those that do pay more.
It was ever thus. Just it used to be the other way round with the rich taking from the poor.
The super rich still avoid tax, the aspiring middle / ordinary high earners pay in excess of 65% of all they earn. Whilst those on more modest incomes pay very little.
Lower taxes have been shown time and again to stimulate growth and increased tax revenue. For instance when CGT for company sales was dropped by labour to 10% from 40% the tax take quadrupled. When thy raised it again the tax take dropped through the floor and within a year or two it was returned to 10%. Hey presto tax take increased.
People would rather earn less money than pay more tax. They see their time as more valuable.
I hear the clamour as people will say the wel off should be grateful to be in that position, and maybe they should, but human nature is human nature.
Keep total taxes below 40% and history suggests economy will function better.
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LOL!!! Contractors should pay nowhere near that amount of tax, especially one man bands set up as a company director…If any contractor is paying 40% tax on anything, then they need to change accountants 
True if not working for any one related to government for working for firms working for government.
The new rules on service companies will really curtail the options in the future.
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This move would favour me, but tbh in practice, it wouldn’t be a full tank of Unleaded a month. I’d be more interested to hear what the 2nd/3rd order effect is, and the plan to cover that gap. Simply saying the economy will be stimulated is not a real plan based on tangible numbers.
ETA - okay it’ll be more than a tank of fuel I guess, but that will just vaporise anyway!
When tax rates fluctuate for things like CGT it’s easy to moving the timing of realising the gains to be more efficient.
I know people in that band will never get much sympathy from the general population, but the £100k-£120kish band is a pretty crappy place to be with a marginal tax rate of 62%
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by historic comparison, top rate income tax is low…
but SB20 is pretty much spot on…
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by historic comparison, top rate income tax is low…
Completely correct, but that high rate of income tax destroyed the British manufacturing sector as nobody in their right mind would work in the UK if they had any sense.
By historic comparison, we have less rickets, plague and childhood deaths so going backwards is not always a good thing to do.
that was neither implied, not i think could it be inferred…
Yes, it can.
In your response to a suggestion that taxes should be lowered you stated that they had been much higher previously. It is entirely reasonable to infer that you think they have dropped enough - why else would you say they had been higher ?
Because it was in response to SB20s comment…
I have neither stated an opinion for or against a specific change in taxation…thus, it is entirely unreasonable to make any suggestion of the sort…