Why the left should argue for a small state
David Semple thinks the left should join American tea parties, which protest against high taxes. I think I agree. The desire to shrink the state should be a leftist aim. I say so for four reasons.
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Tea parties and high taxes
It’s difficult to be anything but derisive when discussing people like Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity – presenters on USA’s Fox News. Recently these guys have been on television to claim that not only are people right to talk about their taxes being too high, but that by organising ‘tea parties’ in major cities to protest such taxes, they are generating the sort of economic activity that will save America. A large chunk of the tea parties took place yesterday and are specifically aimed at the spending plans of the Obama administration.
Or are they? Fox News and right-wing talk radio hosts have been agitating for something like this for months now. It shouldn’t surprise us that people are willing to get out and protest about high taxes. In fact, it should encourage the Left – because we don’t have a problem with low taxes…for the working class.
But as far as I can see, this is not an argument being made in the US. Liberal commentators like Keith Olbermann have been very swift to denounce the protests as hypocritical, or astroturf groups or whatever.
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Tories have terrible housing ideas
I’ve just read the Conservative Party’s Green Paper on Housing. Housing policy is a vitally important issue, affecting the lives of millions of people. It is arguably nearly as important an issue as one politician sending an e-mail to another politician with gossip about some other politicians. The Paper is also quite stunningly awful.
The green paper says that we need to build more houses. It then lists a range of policies designed to reduce the number of houses which will be built. Councils will no longer be required to build a certain number of houses (because this is central targets and is bad), it will be easier for councils to prevent developments (e.g. by designating land as green belt or stopping eco-towns), and opponents of housing developments will have more opportunities to try to stop housing developments in their backyard.
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Poll: public against tax avoidance
A YouGov poll commissioned by the UK’s centre-left pressure group Compass has demonstrated overwhelming public support for the government to close in on personal tax avoidance which is estimated loses up to £15BN of public money each year.
The results reveal that 77% indicated they agree that the government should do everything it can to close this £15 billion gap lost through personal tax avoidance.
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VAT cut ‘remarkable’ and working
BBC News reports:
The government’s much-criticised cut in VAT is working and has led to a big boost in consumer spending, according to a leading economics consultancy. The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) says that the cut, which took effect on 1 December 2008, has led to £2.1bn of extra sales.
The centre says the growth in retail spending is “remarkable”. It argues that the temporary cut of 2.5%, which expires in January 2010, should be extended for six months.
Japanese take the big plunge
The New York Times reports:
Japan announced its biggest-ever economic stimulus plan Thursday, a $154 billion package of subsidies and tax breaks that aims to stem a deepening recession in the world’s second-largest economy. Prime Minister Taro Aso also outlined an ambitious long-term economic strategy that he said would make Japan a global leader in “green” technology like solar energy and electric cars.
…
The plan announced Thursday is the largest single such effort ever proposed in Japan, dwarfing any of the stimulus measures the country enacted during the 1990s, during its so-called lost decade of economic stagnation.
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By 2020, Japan aims to increase its solar-generating capacities twentyfold, and raise the domestic sales of eco-friendly vehicles to one million vehicles a year. The plan would create four million new jobs in Japan, the prime minister said.
Compass Tax Justice Rally
Did you know that over 15 times as much money is lost through tax avoidance at the top than is lost to benefit fraud at the bottom? That’s £15BN of public money lost to a powerful elite who can afford to pay tax advisers: so this is an urgent call to sign up to our Tax Justice Rally!
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What is the left’s approach to the financial crisis?
On Sunday I wrote an article for Comment is Free criticising left-of-Labour forces for failing to present a coherent economic agenda for change. In the wake of the financial crisis, economics is now on our side, but we are failing to make the most of it.
After it went up, I actually felt rather bad about the cif article. It’s a bit disturbing that the forces I criticise hardest tend to be the ones I most want to succeed. But it wasn’t intended to be an attack; it was meant to be a call to action. The left should have the courage to make the economic case for a fairer society because, ultimately, the argument is ours to win.
Please correct me if I’m missing something, but since the financial crisis the Fabians have produced just one leaflet on green economics possibly being the way forward and written a couple of articles on the crisis. Surely the Fabians’ fantastic network of intellectuals and resources can make a stronger, more coherent case than that? Similarly, Cruddas and Rutherford just published a new e-book in response to the crisis, but it feels vague and confused.
A fiscal stimulus could provide jobs and build public infrastructure and services for the benefit of all – helping private companies increase productivity over the longer term. Income could be raised by taxation on industries that pollute and destroy the environment – taking into account their negative externalities – and bringing in much needed revenue.
An increase in social housing would stop more risky lending and save money on the costly externalities of homeless and poverty that are now on the rise. Making the economic case gives the left credibility – we cannot afford to brush over these arguments because we are uncomfortable with market-speak.
“Not only have we saved the world”*… it’s green hard-hat time
The circus has left town again. Obama, Hu, Lula and Sarkozy are moving on to their next diary dates, as are the black-clad Guerrigilieri Anomali. So what to make of the G20?
We had thousands of people in green hard hats out on the massive, peaceful march last Saturday — we’ve been teaming up with the unions and NGOs and bombarding officials and leaders with campaigns for weeks, we delivered our G20 campaigns in person to Number 10 and to Dominique Strauss-Kahn (“DSK”, who heads up the now-supersized IMF)… and I still wasn’t sure how much we were getting through the noise.
But when I look at the big picture, you know what?
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Are the TaxPayers Alliance confused?
This is getting confusing. When we launched the Other TaxPayers’ Alliance we thought we were up against just one TaxPayers’ Alliance. Now we realise there were two.
- One TPA stands up for the little guy, protesting that public sector chiefs get bigger pay rises than hard-pressed frontline staff; the other stands up for top-rate tax avoiders and slams moves to boost the wages of the very poorest public sector staff.
The agenda Obama needs to push through
by Sabina Dewan and Will Straw
The second meeting of the G20 leaders in London tomorrow provides an opportunity for key global leaders to agree on a set of tangible measures to break the downward economic spiral of shrinking growth, falling trade, rising unemployment, and declining wages.
In London, much of the focus will be on measures-some of which were outlined earlier this month by finance ministers and central bankers-to address the stasis in financial markets and the causes of the current crisis. But Obama and other leaders must not shy away from three additional critical challenges: (1) ensuring a green recovery; (2) assisting the developing world; and (3) preventing a further slide toward protectionism.
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Gordon Brown: the market’s verdict
I’ll not pick apart everything Dan Hannan said in that speech. But there’s one point to question. He said:
Britain is worse off than any other country as we go into these hard times. The IMF has said so. The European Commission has said so. The markets have said so, which is why our currency has devalued by 30%.
But not all markets have said this. The stock market hasn’t.
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These bankers just don’t get it
Wednesday morning I attended the Liberal Democrat treasury team meeting in my capacity as a parliamentary researcher. Paying a visit were some representatives from the banking sector, who were there to give high-profile members of the Liberal Democrats – the party currently at the forefront of attempts to close down tax havens, or secrecy jurisdictions as they are better termed – a bank’s eye view.
In the course of discussions, the issue of Tesco avoiding/evading £billions in stamp duty arose.
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The financial end is not nigh
The failure yesterday of the DMO’s auction (pdf) of 4.25% 2049 gilts – bids fell 7% short of the £1.75bn offered – has led to some hysteria, such as some of the comments here.
I fear, however, that the truth is rather more mundane.
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Daniel Hannan – the new Tory saviour!
It’s amusing to watch right-wingers get into such a tizzy over Daniel Hannan MEP’s speech at the EU criticising Gordon Brown. Iain Dale is unhappy our media isn’t playing this repeatedly (I expect the BBC will soon, since they give in to rightwingers easily).
Newsflash: Tory MEP disagrees with Labour policies! Stop press! Even Mr Hannan himself breathlessly claims that: “I have been making similar speeches every week and posting them on YouTube for the past seven months.” — Oh. Well, surely it’s still news that the stalwarts of American rightwing-nuttery: the Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh and Faux-News are hailing him as the new messiah? Well can we have a look at Mr Hannan’s record first?
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Tories still cling on to Inheritence Tax
In a resigned, disillusioned sort of way it was amusing to listen to top Tories yesterday attempt to cover-up the fact that Ken Clarke broke the official party line. You see, Clarke admitted that when the Conservatives come to power they won’t be able to afford cuts on inheritance tax.
Aside from the brief amusement of watching the Tories try not to squabble and denounce each other in public, it is depressing that the Government-in-waiting thinks that inheritance tax should essentially be scrapped. As I have argued previously on my blog, a foundation-stone of fair society with proper equality of opportunity and anything like social justice is progressive taxation of the rich.
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Barclays tax evasion: ‘Nice work if you can get it’
A reader writes in, anonymously, to give some thoughts about the Barclays tax evasion schemes.
When I worked in investment banking at Barclays, I happened across the SCM team a few times. My impression is thus: they recruited unbelievably sharp, quiet accountant wizards (quite a few Indians!) who seemed to spend all their time going through the latest accounting and tax regulations with a fine tooth comb, figuring out how to exploit the loopholes and keep one step ahead of the regulators.
They were seen as the guys making the real money and had a bit of an air of mystery about them.
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We’re not barred by Barclays are we?
A reader sent in a link to a cryptic comment on the Guardian:
Surely this can’t be right. There must be a better way to ensure accountability and transparency. While institutions keep important legal evidence all kin suffer. People have a right to know.
Why yes, people do have a right to know. Barclays obtained a gag order against the Guardian, but its not a libellous document so I can link to the full papers on WikiLeaks without perpetuating a libel. The order against the Guardian doesn’t apply to everyone does it?
A lawyer during the proceedings argued: “The quality of confidentiality is lost if the information is available from other public sources.” — so I wonder how the courts would react if British blogs started carrying links to the documents. Wouldn’t that then void the confidentiality?
This is why these documents are important. If you’re going to or have blogged this, let me know so I can add you to the list.
Linked:
Andrew Grant-Adamson
newsjiffy
septicisle
John Band
Richard Murphy / Tax Research UK
CharlieMcMenamin / Excuse me whilst I step outside
Rick B / Ten Percent
D-Notice
BenSix / Back towards the Locus
Aaron H / Tygerland
Jamie K / Blood & Treasure
Pickled Politics
Shiraz Socialist
Common Endeavour
FT Alphaville has its own artists’ rendition.
Max Dunbar
Andrew Adams / mutantBlog
Index on Censorship
OurKingdom / openDemocracy
Sean / Error Gorilla
Modernityblog
Claude / Hagley Road to Ladywood
Amused Cynicism
Ben suggests Twitter tag #barclaysmemo.
Beau Bo D’Or sends in the Wikileaks / Barclays banner – thanks mate. Use the top image if you like, but pls don’t hotlink them from BBDO as he doesn’t have bandwidth.
Don’t let tax-scrounging scum Barclays get away with it.
About those scroungers
I’ll try to write more about this later in the week, but I would hope that Amelia Gentleman’s brilliant (and awfully depressing) report into Breadline Britain will add something to the debates on poverty & welfare dependency:
Shopping at Morrisons doesn’t take very long. Louise has a simple formula: don’t buy anything that costs more than £1. This week, the budget bananas are finished, and the regular packet costs £1.29, so she doesn’t buy bananas. The cheap potatoes are also sold out, so she doesn’t buy potatoes. She fills a basket with Morrisons own-brand orange juice, 56p; reduced-sugar jam, 95p; peanut butter, 78p; yoghurt, £1.00; bread, 99p, granulated sugar, 93p; oven chips, 79p; two tins of eight hot dogs at 49p each; one bag of value apples, £1.00. Only the milk, biscuits and the cheese cost more. She ignores the faltering monologue from her son, who has been diagnosed with learning difficulties, just audible from beneath the pram’s hood. “Mum, I want flowers. Please buy flowers. I want the Bob the Builder egg. I want High School Musical chocolates.“
. . .
“It would be nice, on occasion, to buy them something on a whim – treats, cakes and biscuits. But if you do, you know you’re going to have to turn the heating off,” she says. Her face is pallid, and she has grey patches of exhaustion beneath her eyes.She crosses the car park to Iceland to find cheaper bananas (brown and verging on rotten), pizza, cheese spread and chicken pies for £1 each.
“This will easily last me until next week, and there’ll be stuff left over,” she says confidently, although she concedes that things would be better still if she could spare £4 to make a bus trip into the city centre for the weekly Wednesday food handouts by nuns, who usually give her a couple of plastic bags of tins and pasta. Last harvest festival her daughter’s school was collecting for the nuns, so she sent in a few tins she had been given by them, and is half-expecting to see them come back full circle and return to her cupboard.
Do read the rest.
Will Barclays’ scam create public anger?
It would be nice to think that with various tax havens having to promise to be rather more transparent in their operations than they have been previously, that the actual businesses which exploit such havens would be following a similar trajectory. The sad reality is that both will continue to get away with it just as they have in the past: when the economy eventually recovers, they will go back to doing what they do best, letting the rich and powerful get away it while castigating the scum at the bottom who dare to fiddle their benefits.
Barclays however hasn’t even bothered with letting it all blow other.
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» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civil cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
» Is this the end for the socialist left?
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