“If people only live here because they pay less tax, they should f— off,” said Mr Vince, who donated £5m to Labour before July’s general election. “This is a brilliant country. There’s no way people won’t live here because of a fairer tax system.”
The thing is we’ve tried this before and the result was the brain drain. So objective reality disagrees, right?
Donated £5m to Labour rather than write a cheque to HM Treasury? I know who can take their hypocrisy and f–k off.
On Social Media the other day, I was looking at a TV nostalgia channel. They showed the beginning of Terry and June from 1979, with the pair of them wandering around the Whitgift Centre in Croydon.
The general timbre of comments was “these two middle aged peopl managed to go for a full 90 seconds in Croydon without getting mugged !”
That’s the brilliant country we live in Dale, you berk. See how long you last in today’s Croydon.
Dale Vince has made statements agreeing with the complete nationalisation of the electricity sector. This would include his company. To me, it sounds like he wants shot of his company but seems to be waiting to sell it to the state, But why wait? Why not float the company and sell all your shares over time or sell to private equity?
Could it be that his company is not in as a good shape as he lets on and would rather not have the scrutiny that a floatation or private equity deal would bring?
The man who’s company would be bankrupt without billions of subsidies from taxpayers demands more taxes. Of course!
@Rupert Yes, and of course a man who got rich leaching off the public purse wouldn’t want other rich people to leave and leave the country with less money for him to leach on.
It’s as though the 1970s never happened.
Vance doesn’t fear a brain drain because the circle he moves in won’t be affected.
Having none to speak of.
I wasn’t around at the time, but weren’t the tax rates in the 1970s a lot higher? I see references to 83% and 98%. For all Labour’s horrors, it sounds like they’re mainly proposing to add 2% to National Insurance (restoring half the Tories’ 4% cut).
Conversely, the population today is far more mobile. Not least since we have millions of dual-nationals living here, who might be enticed into returning to Poland etc.
It makes me think that he’s been promised more tens of millions by Mad Ed, so he will increase his wealth regardless of the tax rates and he’ll still be able to afford his bribes. Oops, sorry, DONATIONS TO THE LABOUR PARTY is the right phrase, isn’t it? Just like Lord Alli’s bribes are called new specs and jockstraps and such…
Mind you, whoever’s funding Lord Alli to control the UK government probably has a few more quid than DV…
Dale Vince claims it’s ‘profoundly stupid’ to think higher taxes will hurt entrepreneurialism
Dale Vince’s idea of “entrepreneurialism” is being a tax-guzzling parasite.
“There’s no way people won’t live here because of a fairer tax system”
And who defines “fair” comrade?
I wasn’t around at the time, but weren’t the tax rates in the 1970s a lot higher? I see references to 83% and 98%. For all Labour’s horrors, it sounds like they’re mainly proposing to add 2% to National Insurance (restoring half the Tories’ 4% cut).
Yes, those were the top rates of tax for ‘earned/unearned’ income under Labour in the 70s. But there was significantly less indirect taxation (no VAT until we joined the EU, though there was Sales Tax on some items). You needed to earn over £10,000 (I think, memory is a little hazy) – the equivalent of over £200,000 today – to attract those rates.
“Brain drain” was also a thing back then. That whole Rolling Stones thing of recording in France etc. Anyone who had a big selling album – even a decent TV show – would take “a year out of the country” to avoid such tax rates.
@ Andrew M
I *was* around at the time and I do *not* want to see a repetition of 1974-9 Britain.
“I do *not* want to see a repetition of 1974-9 Britain”
I fear you may be disappointed, even some of the energy companies can see the writing on the wall:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/10/26/prepare-for-blackouts-say-energy-networks/
It’s a bit rich of them to say “Unexpected outages” though. If people like Ed Millibrain keep shutting down reliable power stations, “Outages” are exactly the result you would expect…
Escaping from Britain to ‘low tax’ France – how times change!