Friday 28 May 2010

Christ preaching at Cookham regatta


The Welfare Revolution

Michael Meacher presents the old defeatist view of welfare reform, whilst Camilla Cavendish yet another symptom of social disfunction all around us. Meanwhile, Iain Duncan Smith sets out his stall. We'll have to wait a little longer for the solutions.

Complex and inter-dependent social forces are at work here. Iain Duncan Smith's Centre for Social Justice describes the five pathways to poverty, but in truth there are more - mental health for example - which will require multi-layered solutions across several government departments. Did anyone mention prison reform? Why aren't all prisons adult education institutes? And why aren't all prisoners serving more than three years coming out able to read, write and be professionally qualified for work? You get the idea.

With the initial focus on ending welfare dependency and the lack of incentive for work inherently built-in to the welfare system, the coalition needs to look positively at raising the tax threshold not just to £10,000 - as the LibDems are demanding - but to the minimum wage - around £11,400.

A permanent link between these two would provide the greatest incentive for enterprise generally and getting back into work in particular. It would also enable dismantling of the overly-complex and widely abused Tax Credits system, as well as providing a fairer and more balanced tax system which benefits all taxpayers.

Paying for it - around £22bn I understand - will mean substantially increasing the level of redistribution within the tax system. Ending the cap on NI contributions for instance, could raise £8bn, CGT increases to income tax bands around £2bn, the scrapping of tax credits a further £4bn, with the balance paid for by lowering the 40% tax threshold for higher rate payers.

I realise the howls of protest from the Tory right will be both substantial and sustained. But they should understand the real goal in this package. Properly incentivising people off welfare and back into employment not only gives them a real stake in society (and with it at least partly mending some of the broken bits) but enables them to contribute - through the tax system - towards Labour's debts and future public spending.

It might also reduce those welfare payments by around £22bn. Now there's a thought.

Thursday 27 May 2010


Eurozone crisis

Great piece from Adrian Hamilton in today’s Independent suggesting we are now witnessing the second phase of the Credit Crunch - the unwinding of debt. This is as much a political issue as a financial one, demanding political decisions about expenditure, tax and investment.

“The trouble with the trillion dollar rescue package put together by the Eurozone governments was that it once again bailed out the commercial banks with taxpayer's money, this time at the cost to the public of dramatic and early expenditure cuts.”

What needs to happen now is the rescheduling of the debt along time frames “more realistic to the national fiscal positions and popular acceptance.”

Wednesday 19 May 2010


liberalConservatism

What a sense of relief as we enter the bold world of liberalConservatism. Thankfully consigning the forces of anger, hatred and deceit to the opposition benches. And with them, right on cue, an extraordinary piece from Simon Heffer in todays Telegraph. Apparently he doesn't want to be demonised as 'right wing'. Bless.

In that case Mr Heffer, it might be an idea to stop your weekly abuse of mainstream politicians with names like 'Lord Rumba of Rio', 'call me Dave' or 'boy George'. We expect such tribal hatred from Labour and the rabid right. Not the reasonable mainstream.

And whilst you and your fans from UKIP are thinking about it, may I congratulate you for depriving Cameron of those last 20 MP's in the recent election. Didn't get you a single seat in parliament, but it had the desired effect of bringing into the coalition the most Euro-enthusiastic party in British politics. Well done. Hope you enjoy the results.