If you can manage financially - would you pay more tax, for better public services?

I wonder if you speak from experience? There is pressure to earn enough to pay the bills and look after the family. The last thing you want is a bad review from someone who you have refused to work for. Word gets around. It doesn’t pay to be complacent - there’s always a competitor waiting to poach your customers.

katie590 I think you have a very rosy view of being a white van man. Quite often how much business you get is dependent on things outside your control - like the state of the economy and pandemics..

We had an extension built during 2021. Just as we were coming out of COVID, during which time many building sites had closed down and many potential domestic clients were unwilling to let strangers in the house because of the fear of infection.

White van men had a very bad time, many had little or no work for months on end and the kitchen fitter who did our kitchen in December 2020, said our contract had come like manna from heaven, just in time to save his family Christmas.

For half the time we were building, our building contractor could get any tradesman he wanted with a snap of his fingers, they were begging for work. By June 2021, all the building sites were active again and building developers on big projects offer long term employment for six months or more and when it got to second fit, our builder could not get soe craftsmen. Ours was a small job and who wants to lay flooring in a small area of kitchen when a contract to lay 200 floors in a housing dvelopment can be had.

We spent a lot of time in various hospitals last year while my husband battled cancer and without exception the nurses said it’s not more money the NHS needs it’s less managers who have no idea how a ward is run, people who have never worked in a hospital and reorganise everything at great expense as soon as they arrive only for it to all change back again a few months later.