Ah, but I think you missed the point about the voucher setup. Ignore pupils already in the private sector, for the moment.

Lets say the voucher is set at 50% of the state cost. If that increase the number of children leaving the state for the private sector, then the state sector is better off by 3,000 pounds for each one that leaves. Now, the question is different. Can the state produce the same quality as the private sector when it has more money etc? Somehow I doubt it. Too many vested interests. ie. Councils taking 10% of the education budget.

On the pension issue, this is my personal plan.

1. Avoid as much NI as possible. After all why pay lots of NI when I do not have to. e.g. Dividends.
2. Give most of the money to the wife, and she offshores it.
3. I've some foreign pensions. I'm not repatriating that.
4. Taxes will rise in the UK. So I won't go for UK companies as much as I will for offshore.
5. If I go for a company that some friends and I are looking to set up, we will offshore that too. After all when 1/2 out of 4 people involved are British, why not? Its IP related, so Ireland looks attractive. Lower taxes, means lower risk.
6. No pensions. After all, you are locked in, and a wealth tax is on the cards.
7. Property. Look at the Greeks. Property tax collected via the electricity bills. Again a sitting duck. I can see the same in the UK. However, BLT is looking increasingly like a good bet. After all, lots of migrants from the PIIGS will be moving to the UK to get work, any work.
8. Gold. The Greek crisis is just the start. You can't solve a solvency crisis with more debt. The problem is that for Greece, they have tipped over the edge. Portugal I think will go, as will Italy. Spain and Ireland might get away with it. However, Portugal and Spain will put on a second home tax. One way of getting money out of the Germans.

Denmark has done one interesting thing. State retirement age is set to average life expectancy. You only get bailed out if you live too long.

Now, none of that helps anyone but me and my family. Doesn't help the UK. But that's what you get if you treat richer (lower middle class and above) as cash cows. ie. We're not going to pay you your state pension. We're going to tax the hell out of you. We will treat you as a pariah. What do you mean, you would like a thank you for all the tax you pay? ....

What's needed in the UK is this.

1. Cuts to spending on just core items
2. No more accruals to any state pension system
3. Mandatory savings.
4. In retirement, you go into drawdown.
5. If, and only if, the money runs out, do you get help from the rest of us.
6. If you die young, the fund goes to your heirs. So the poor in Glasgow who die at 50, leave the fund to their children. The rich who live a long time, leave little.
7. Investment results in pensions 4 times larger than the state gives. So there is likely to be very little help under point 5 in reality.
8. Investment results in growth, and that growth results in more jobs for poorer people.
9. Someone who is well off when young, latter on in life, doesn't get help because they will be over the threshold. ie. It's optimal help. No state contributions when working.
10. Poor people get to build up capital.
...

I worry about cuts in services because many of those services are valuable.

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This raises an interesting point.

Why don't we give the poor the money to afford 'services'. They can then go and spend money on these valuable services. The providers can now charge, and the poor have the money to pay for them.

Do you think the poor will choose them?

Do you think the true cost of those services, once exposed, will be so high that the poor will say, no, that's too much, I'll allocate my money to something else?

Or will they choose a private sector alternative that's cheaper?

The poor and services:

Given their share of the budget to allocate as they saw fit, many of those with no responsibilities (or no sense of responsibility) would doubtless choose to spend their cash on booze and bingo. That is because the individual is going to act for himself and the short term rather than the whole of society and the long term. That is why who politicians who represent large numbers of people actually make better and less selfish decisions than individuals. There are collective needs such as education, health, social security and defence which need collective funding and collective oversight.

The corporation tax main rate is 26 per cent, not 50 per cent. Are you talking about the higher rate paid by individuals, possibly the owners of unincorporated businesses?

Deficit spending does have to be repaid with interest later. The idea is that the stimulus will create more jobs and more profitable businesses and the extra revenue will exceed the interest cost. If I borrow at 5 per cent and earn 10 per cent I am winning. Also government debt can be long term which has the same advantages as a 30 year mortgage over a 15 year mortgage. The benefits are enjoyed immediately and the costs are more affordable each month.

The NHS is a good example of misdirected investment and bad government. Reorganisation followed reorganisation with such regularity that most managers were coping with imposed change rather than running their organisations on a day to day basis. Some of the changes were ideological, some a response to changing medicine, some a response to changing demographics. Attempts to optimise care on a central planning system were doomed. The needs of the service change too quickly for politicians and planners to cope. A more evolutionary change is better in a system where no one really knows how treatments are going to change, how staffing needs are going to change, how building requirements are going to change over more than the very short term. The best you can say is that we are an ageing population, that some areas are younger than others and will need more paediatric services followed in due course by maternity services. The lessons to be learned are the need for stability (not ossification) and flexibility / adaptability (not anarchy).

The political motive behind the extent and speed of the cuts is an attempt by the Tories to return government to its role in the 18th century: running the armed forces, the legal system and international relations including trade and border taxes. They are using the debt crisis as cover for this.

I prefer the modern world with all its frustrations to a squirearchy. I like the NHS, state schooling, accountable policing, maintained roads and railways. I prefer civilisation to Toryism.

Inflation is high but will decline. There is nothing that can be done about imported inflation. Much of it is due to our floating exchange rate being deliberately devalued to promote exports. Which is not working as well as usual because our problems are not entirely country specific - every other country is doing the same thing. Beggar my neighbour is a good card game but not a way to run the world economy. Inflation from tax rises on consumption (VAT and excise duties) is voluntary and unnecessary at this time.

Deficit financing is fine as a way to get through recession. In growth phases we should pay down debt. We are not in a growth phase.

If we reach the stage where issuing more debt becomes unaffordable we should stop. We are not there and nowhere near being there.

We have plenty of room to get the economy going by shifting wealth and income from rich to poor. The poor being more likely to spend it. We should also aim for more investment and less consumption.

There is currently a transfer of wealth from savers and investors which is hard on the thrifty and elderly - like you and me! But the main problem with the economy is lack of demand and demand can only come from those who have either: higher than subsistence level and secure incomes, or from savers.

Get demand back in the economy - get people spending - and employers will invest and recruit. Tax revenues will grow as we earn and spend, and - if government does its job - public borrowing and debt will decline. I am not calling for a permanent increase in the proportion of debt to GDP. I am calling for a counter cyclical increase in the amount and proportion of debt now to be followed by a decrease in the proportion in good times. Debt may reasonably increase in amount (not as a proportion) in future as the economy grows. A person with an income of £20,000 a year should worry about owing £5,000 in short term debts. A person with an income of £100,000 a year can easily afford to owe £10,000.

You are calling for policies which will inevitably lead to mass unemployment as a way to cut public and private debt. Unemployed people and governments with no tax revenues do not get out of debt, they sink deeper into it.

At the end of the day, its the total tax is both corporate and for individuals.

So on your debt but. If you think a person on 20K should worry about a debt of 5K (25% of income), shouldn't the same person be shitting bricks over their share of the government debts. 225K rising with inflation.

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Unemployed people and governments with no tax revenues do not get out of debt, they sink deeper into it.
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No. It's people and governments who spend more than they earn (or tax). Subtle difference.

The government is hell bent on spending more than its earns.