Next Conservative leader

Social care is probably the biggest problem the country faces, but only a minority of the country has to deal with it and so politicians (including the last Labour government) have decided that it’s easier to do nothing about it. However it has become steadily worse over the last decade and has now reached crisis point. The problems with social care are also heavily impacting the NHS (as people can’t be discharged from hospitals as there are no carers available), and contributing to the shocking waiting list and A&E response times. While money won’t solve everything it’s blindingly obvious that enough of it will solve most problems (if carers are paid less than Amazon workers why would someone become a carer). There’s a real debate to be had about if it’s fair to tax the young more to fund the social care of the elderly, or if some type of inheritance / wealth tax, or higher taxes on private pensions, are fairer (and realistic) ways of paying for it. However to pretend that tax cuts is what we need is absurd. We need tax rises to fund increased social care - what taxes need to rise is what Sunak and Truss should be debating. 

It should also be noted that while the Tories talk about tax cuts growing the economy, sorting social care would probably have a much greater economic impact. How many hours of work are lost each year because people (mostly women) have to care for their elderly parents? Getting carers to care, and allowing the children of elderly people to work would have a much greater economic impact than any tax cuts. And yet this government won’t do a thing because of ‘small state’. The unbelievable thing however is that Labour has no real alternative plan (or at least haven’t actually said what their plan is). 

I’ll reply to your points in the order you made them:

1 - absolutely agree that carers pay needs to increase (that’s why I made the point about them being able to earn more at Amazon), but to do that you have to have either more money in the system, or less carers. Clearly there’s already too few carers so more money needs to be poured into the care system. Of course allowing immigration is part of the solution, but we can’t rely on just that. 

2 - I’ve explained in point 1 why I think more money needs to go into the care system, but to do that you either need more government borrowing or higher taxes. I think government borrowing should only be done either to invest, or for one off events (such as covid). Therefore the only other way to achieve a pay rise for carers would be increasing taxes. Clearly they should be increased in a way that targets high earners, and not those who are struggling with increased energy bills. 

3 - Absolutely that should be done, and should’ve been done over the last decade. However training doctors and nurses takes time, and won’t solve the current backlog. Training care workers takes a lot less time, and could make a substantial difference to the amount of time it takes to clear the current NHS backlog. 

4 - Completely agree. 

I have asked friends how cutting taxes (AKA giving working people more money per month) would help limit impact inflation and no one can give me a good explanation how it would - anyone on here want to help me out?

I get the sense that Liz Truss is a nutter and one of those really annoying Tories who can rile up her crowd and her base but is actually a bit of a moron.

I tend to disagree with posters on here as to what the biggest problem is and I’d say it’s U.K. wide productivity - and I think the biggest barriers to that are Housing supply, specifically in the South East of England, and low fertility/population growth. 

I don’t think the country wants more mass migration (at least enough of the population that votes doesn’t) and fertility policies don’t seem to work without a mass rediscovery of an old religion.

What I’m saying is Sunak or Truss need to build some houses in Surrey or everyone will have to become Mormons.

So thinking there is that with everyone having to spend a decent chunk of their money on energy soon, they then won’t be able to spend that on other parts of the economy cause it’s going on a fixed cost - so reducing VAT would help people continue spending money out and about and offset the reduction that will likely happen anyway. 

Sounds plausible. 

I guess the definition of VAT is that these things aren’t essential so would be a weird place to start but I sort of understand the logic.

the majority of food that we buy in supermarkets is VAT free. but the process of production and delivery isn't so the prices go up because of this.

By making an overall cut of 5% on VAT it will reduce overheads, thus reducing the cost of foods.

To beat inflation we need to have more money in our pockets to stave off recession. 

I can't stand Truss (or Sunak for that matter), but she is right on this. we need to spend our way out of recession. There's been that old age line of thinking, the best time to invest is when growth is slowing as it produces more growth.