How much Poll tax did you pay?

[RonnyRaygun]

But it didn't work that way !

In most cases it did.
Working class people living alone generally ended up paying less than they did in rates, most working class (and many middle class I expect) families of two adults ended up paying more, more than two adults in the house and it was considerably more.

However, once your house was beyond a certain size, even with many adults in the house you were better off under the poll tax system.

There will always be the argument that a large house doesn't necessarily mean you are well off, but generally property size/value is reasonably proportional to income.

Yes, some will always argue that everyone should pay the same for public services, but a large community bill hits people on lower incomes hard, while people on high income barely notice it.

The idea of modern society is that people are looked after, although as said, that wasn't the idea of Thatcherism...no such thing as society...

 

[Whitespirit66]

The Irony is of course that people decided not to register as voters on the electoral roll to avoid being chased for poll tax.

This subsequently meant the detractors could not vote in the next election . . .

Which Maggie won by a landslide.

Wouldn't that have been Johnny Major? Maggie was out of office during the Poll Tax's introduction.

 

[chapeau]

The idea of modern society is that people are looked after, although as said, that wasn't the idea of Thatcherism...no such thing as society...

Yet more misunderstandings.

What Thatcher actually said was:

I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand “I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!” or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first… There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.’

At the time, quite remarkable. Nowadays most people would wonder what is wrong with that?