A lot of people my age (mid 50s) are really, really f****d - no compulsory or employer contributions; plus wildly optimistic estimates of future value even for those who did sign up for a private pension. And lot of them *think* they will be fine. They will not be. It is going to be really bad.

@rafnicholson.bsky.social: Can't you just try different keys until you hit the right one?

Me: Yes… if I had longer than the lifetime of the universe!

Don't get me wrong - I think we need to tax the well-off more, and that includes me; and probably most of the people living in Ormond Avenue, Hampton too.

But this is a crazy way to try and do it, which is ultimately going to end in either failure or chaos and manifest unfairness.

And there are hundreds and hundreds of houses like this in Hampton, where they *might just* be worth £2m if they have been well cared for or extended or have a bigger garden or more off-street parking. Or… they might not be! Who knows? You can't easily tell. And that's the problem!

But what about the house next door? It is superficially very similar, and was almost certainly built to the same original plan, but… is it worth £2m? Maybe it is in terrible condition? Maybe it has much less garden at the back? The point is, you can't tell without doing a significant investigation.

(IMV this is why I think it won't happen, but… if they *are* going to do it, they will have to do a significant valuation exercise.)

They are going to have to revalue all houses anyway, no? Otherwise how will they know which ones are worth £2m? Especially in London where £2m houses sit cheek-by-jowl with definitely-not-£2m ones!

The real problem is that we have a perfectly good way of raising tax from those who can afford to pay - it's called income tax; but we refuse to contemplate raising that, so here we are.

And on EV road pricing...

On the Mansion Tax… how can you possibly value every house in London to see if it is worth over £2m? There are houses in Islington that are palaces, right next door to ones that are hovells… even though they are superficially exactly the same house.

Although I guess the interesting question is HOW the valuations are done? If it is "average for the street" that's going to cause some "interesting" implications across London, where there are very nice houses cheek-by-jowl with some… err… "less nice" ones with theoretically the same spec.

I doubt the first house is either. If she has lived in it for 50 years and has no money, it is probably not in great condition - even if it is in Islington or Chelsea, the house needs to be in good condition to be worth £2m+.

As usual, they just haven't thought about the consequences and implications for the less-well-off and those who live payday-to-payday.

Maybe. Tho there was a certain middle class stigma around big TVs well into the 90s. I think because having a small TV "proved" you didn't watch it much. They didn't get a big TV until around 2000, tho they could certainly have afforded it at any time.

Think it died when it became socially acceptable to have a TV in the "best" room. (Which was definitely *not* socially acceptable in the early 80s.) But once the TV moved (about 1990, I think) then they did.

Yer - this is definitely not just a northern thing - my parents still had this arrangement in London suburbia in the 80s.

I guess the answer may just be: “Who knows?” But that in itself is a problem, I feel.