Charlotte Church would pay more taxes to save public services – who’s next?
Who’d have thought the former ‘voice of an angel’ child star would grow up to become an angel of a more down-to-Earth nature?
She is leading by example with an offer to pay a top tax rate of as much as 70 per cent if it will protect public services.
Her stance shows she feels very strongly that the Conservative Government is completely wrong to say the richest should pay less.
The attitude of ministers such as George Osborne and David Cameron has always been that business leaders and investors would selfishly quit the UK if they were asked to pay their fare share in tax.
Clearly, the amounts suggested would not affect their standard of living so one has to ask why they need the astronomical amounts of money they take home?
Perhaps somebody in the top tax bracket would care to come here and explain.
Charlotte Church has hit back at the ‘vitriol’ directed at her for saying she’d be happy to pay a 70% rate of tax – saying the government have made her “angry as the Hulk.”
At a press conference ahead of an anti-austerity march in London, the singer said she would pay more tax if it helped protect public services.
But critics online said there was nothing stopping her paying more tax – and if she felt that strongly about it, she should.
She took to Twitter to slam her critics – and took aim at the government, too.
She said: “I’m disappointed at the vitriol directed my way.
“If I gave 70% of my earnings to HMRC voluntarily, not only would it not last long as our public services cost 100s of billions to fund but I doubt it would encourage the richest in this country to get a conscience and follow suit.”
Source: Charlotte Church hits back at ‘vitriol’ over 70% tax comments – Mirror Online
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Well done Charlotte!
good for you Charlotte. i cant see if you have a nice home you would need more then 10 million pounds for the rest of your life to live on as just at a 3% interest rate would give you a nice monthly income of £25000 so you could have a nice time out and about
for those who have more then 10 million that’s just being selfish and wasteful
look at bill gates worth billions and yet he gives millions away each year to many projects so he says
a bit odd tho in that his bank balance increase every year despite him giving millions away ?
maybe he works magic ?
Charlotte Church is a hypocrit. There is a video of her complaining some time ago of having to pay 40% tax. She loudly said recently that she would pay 70% tax but when it was suggested that she writes out a cheque for the extra for charity, she backed down. She is just a self publicist.
If your claim is true, then she has clearly had a change of heart and come out on the right side.
You seem to have misunderstood what she said. She hasn’t backed down at all. The point she was making was that other people in her financial position might not be willing to make voluntary payments – and paying charities won’t help keep government public services open – so the top rate of tax should be raised.
It should also be pointed out that she was saying she would find it perfectly reasonable if the top rate was raised. She wasn’t trying to speak for anybody else.
You really shouldn’t try twisting other people’s words. You’re not very good at it.
There will always be a few mike that will see badly on someone like Charlotte Church if not her it would be someone else that tries to do good
The trouble with these people is that they have had no good in their life just Tory parents who have given them everything while they themselves no nothing
i live on a Tory estate which serves 400 adults and my god there a selfish bunch in every way possible. The odd thing thou they come to see me for a whole rafter of things and I’m a liberal and have nothing yet they have Audis and all the trimmings how crazy is that
They treat me like a servant and I am foolish enough to look after their pets etc free and run the estate free for their benefit and in return they don’t even say thanks
I am sure am a fool but at least I can speak as I find which is more than they can do
She made the comment on Have I got News for you in 2003. She said, “why should I pay 40% tax to a government that I don’t support”. The government at that time was Labour. So has her view has become more worthwhile because she has changed her mind to an opinion that you like? What will happen when she changes back again?
Have a think about what you wrote here, and see if you can work out where you went wrong.
Mike, “hayfords” is a Tory shill probably paid by Conservative Central Office, check his other posts.
Yes. I am a Tory, but not paid. I am very happy that we now have a Conservative government with little chance of that changing for several general selections to come.
Definitely a troll.
And a bad one.
conservatives = self-serving sub-humans,!!!!
Don’t forget that 36.9% of voters voted Conservative. So to style almost 40% of the population as self serving sub-humans is a bit strong. I might point out that the bulk of the MPs that went to prison over MPs expenses were Labour. Local government politicians found guilty of corruption over the last 50 years have almost all been Labour. The parties have different approaches. The Conservatives are just as concerned about the disadvantaged, the NHS remaining free and improving lives. The money to pay for these things comes from only from one source and that is taxes on business. The government has no money of its own so successful businesses are the only route to better lives for people. The Conservatives believe that creating an environment conducive to business will benefit everyone. The profit motive is essential as the spur for innovation and growth. You only have to look at all the socialist countries to see that inventions, innovations, discoveries and improvement in people’s lives just doesn’t happen there. Developed capitalist countries are where everyone wants to live.
Only 24 per cent of voters supported the Conservatives. You’re looking at the percentage of people who bothered to vote, rather than the percentage of the electorate.
This is how Tories influence people – with lies (or at least gross exaggerations of the facts).
The bulk of MPs who went to prison over expenses did so under a Conservative-led Coalition government. Make of that what you will, folks.
Interesting that you say Local Government politicians found guilty of corruption over the last 50 years have almost all been Labour – I’m looking at a report on local government corruption (‘Corruption in UK Local Government’ by Transparency International) that names Conservative Cllr Graham Brown (bribery), Conservative Cllr Jim Speechley (conflict of interest), Liberal Democrat Greg Stone (lobbying), the late Conservative Cllr Sir Simon Milton (revolving door), Conservative Cllr David J Archer (abuse of authority or trading in influence) in its initial rundown of the types of corruption to be found in local government. Nobody named in this typology section was a Labour member of a local authority. If your claim was accurate, then it would have been logical to have seen Labour names all over this part of the report – but by far the most commonly-mentioned names were of Tories.
Using this and your… exaggeration… regarding the percentage of Conservative voters, it is easy to question your claim regarding Tory concern about the disadvantaged – many of whom have suffered serious harm and indeed death under the Tory-led Coalition of the last five years, the NHS – which might remain free at the point of use but is fast becoming a postcode lottery (if you don’t live in the right place, you won’t get the treatment you need), and improving lives – whose lives would these be apart from those of the obscenely rich?
The money to pay for the disadvantaged, the NHS and improving lives does not come solely from taxes on business – and a good thing too, as the UK loses around £120 BILLION per year to tax avoidance by businesses and rich individuals. Individual people are also taxed, on both the money they earn while working for those businesses (people pay tax but their employers don’t – or at least, they avoid paying most of it) and on purchases they make with the money that remains once that tax is removed.
“The Conservatives believe that creating an environment conducive to business will benefit everyone” – would this be the infamous “trickle-down effect” that has been proven to be a falsehood?
In response to your comments about the profit motive being essential and socialist countries failing to come up with the goods, I have just one word for you: China.
Would also be happy to pay a bit more tax to fund public services and welfare. I do not need a tax cut. I know some people need all the money they can get, but at the end of the day good schools, NHS, roads, social services benefit us all.
I don’t think you can hold up China as an example of a socialist state. It is clearly a repressive dictatorship. It also has had to move to an economy based on the profit motive. It attempts to copy capitalism with none of the associated freedoms. Would you be complaining that proportions of voters don’t matter if Labour had won the election. The fact is that more constituencies were won by Conservative than any other party and more than the other parties combined.
What would you define as a socialist state, then?
I don’t think there are any anymore. There have been a number previously that claimed to be, but they were either failures or they have migrated into dictatorships.
In fact, that’s almost a correct answer. The fact is that socialism has never been tried – as intended – anywhere in the world.
You always end up with another version of the same system.
China is a former communist /now conservative dictatorship and that’s where the uk is heading with most of it’s REAL agenda hidden from the public
Good socialists country’s today are rare and in reality most boarder liberal and for tourists that is a blessing
Bad countries like Russia/china/most middle eastern/UK are ultimately out to have some sort of CONTROL of you especially if you are sick or disabled or NOT behaving in a manner that the government wont’s you to behave in
It is very similar to a police state for some groups of people where the police like to make contact with them so that these groups know their boundary
The ultimate agenda thou for countries like the UK is to have a very small police state with everything else privatized lock stock and barrel
It may not even be possible for labour to work around what the conservative’s ultimate dream is as that may also ultimately be what the public wont and will continue to vote conservative to get it
As I keep saying, the world is changing fast and only money is the key with everything else discarded
I always find it amazing that people don’t see that the highest rate of ‘taxation’ is on the low to average earners. The redistribution of wealth is upwards to the rich. It’s not just about the tax that you see coming out of your wages, it’s rent’s that we pay to legalised monopolies such as water and power. If we were to tax fairly in a progressive system then we would have to take almost ALL that the rich “earn” in tax. I think it’s maybe a step in the right direction that Charlotte Church recognises that it would be no great hardship for her to pay 60 or 70% in tax and she also recognises that austerity is a con. You can easily accuse someone who is rich of hypocrisy who speaks out against their perceived class, just because a person held a certain view ten or so years ago means nothing, it shows a level of integrity to admit that you were wrong. Still a slightly heavier burden of tax on the rich may make public services better but in the long run it doesn’t really slow down the rate at which they rob us.