Rutherglen and Hamilton West UK Labour candidate Michael Shanks is keeping his head down, dreaming of that £85K salary and hanging on to his seat belt, aided by the media, as his UK Labour keeps steering right.

Remember when he, a man who resigned from Labour over Brexit, said he was ‘not against’ re-joining? That’s the kind of guy you don’t want in your corner.

Today, as we hear that Treasury officials are discussing a one-off break from the pensions triple lock that could save £1bn by preventing a bumper 8.5% increase in the state pension next year, UK Labour Deputy Leader, Angela Raynor, refused to commit to maintaining the pension triple lock on one of the lowest state pensions in Europe.

Richard Murphy offers an alternative to punishing pensioners that I feel sure many of you are more than familiar with – tax the rich!

Today he has this:

An investment income surcharge in the UK could raise up to £18 billion of extra tax revenue a year

I have this morning published the sixth of my recommendations for reform of the UK tax system. Together with the further recommendations yet to be published, these will make up the Taxing Wealth Report 2024 in due course.

This recommendation proposes the reintroduction of an investment income surcharge in the UK tax system of the sort that we had until 1984. This charged an additional 15% income tax on income from unearned sources above an agreed annual limit to compensate for the fact that national insurance was not paid on that income. The current proposal is innovative by adding capital gains into this charge, which assumes that they will, as previously recommended, be taxed as the top part of income.

More at: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/09/13/an-investment-income-surcharge-in-the-uk-could-raise-up-to-18-billion-of-extra-tax-revenue-a-year-for-the-uk/

Michael! Michael!!! Wake up!!!!