As Polly Toynbee notes this morning:
If Cameron and Osborne visited Stoke Citizens Advice bureau, they'd find people queueing round the block as the service struggles to cope with this crescendo of woe. The debt advisers find growing numbers cannot survive as benefit cuts and council and bedroom taxes push them over the edge. There is no Sky, no cigarettes, no drink — yet after rent and electricity many are left with an impossible £10 a week for food, clothes, travel and everything else.
This is why Labour has no right to accept Tory spending cuts. This is what they have led to.
We don't need those cuts. As so many in HMRC tell me, the attacks on avoidance and evasion are desultory at best - because of a lack of resources and a management that is not committed to the task.
We could fund jobs with green quantitative easing.
We can fund jobs by making it a condition of pension tax relief that at least 25% of all pension contributions are invested directly in job creation in this country.
We can increase taxes - and should increase taxes on higher incomes, on wealth, and by cutting reliefs. Companies must also pay more. We should cut VAT on most basic goods though - we do not to increase the overall tax yield now
And if we really created work - make Stoke a green city, for example, we could take some, and maybe many, in such communities back into work. It is possible. It is possible now. But Osborne wants to invest in HS2 in a decae or so's time.
It's all a mater of priorities and we need politicians who understand just that.
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I couldn’t have put it better myself Richard, it is a great response to wealthy or high earners who will say ‘Oh but I work hard, high taxes are punitive, it is destroying enterprise, we will flee and you will be stuck and poor.’ Follow up with ‘But these low earners often work as hard and redistributing to them will make an enormous difference to their quality of life and the economy, and you can still have a good, comfortable quality of life. Furthermore many low earners help provide your profits as customers, workers and suppliers, or working in state organizations or civil service, and others help with your quality of life and may not earn as much but work as hard as you do.’
So Labour have finally gone ‘all in’ with the austerity agenda. As predictable as it is depressing. It’s New Labour, zombified. Flesh falling off in clumps, mindlessly grasping for brains, completely unaware of its own condition, dead but not lying down, gradually descending into putrefaction. I think the metaphor works.
I keep saying it: We must let Labour die! The Unions need to stop funding. It has let everyone down! Why we keep re-iterating hopes of Labour changing and becoming courageous I just don’t know – we need to move on!
If I may enter the Lion’s den – I think I am correct in saying that the Labour leadership have said they would put more emphasis on ‘capital spending’ such as new homes.This gets more bang for your buck.
Moreover they have said that that wealthy pensioners would be less likely to get payments from the state such as heating payments etc., Of course there are other privileges like 40/45% tax relief on lower middle/middle class pension contribtions ( which includes many of us) as well as the combined ISA tax free contributions of wealthy married couples which is over 22K. What ever – the payments of child tax credits are likely to be replaced with pre-schooling/child care facilities again more bang to the buck and the living wage comes in putting pressure on cheapo companies. Labour are responding not to their poll lead but the stubborn electorate who keep questioning their economic creditability. Labour has to stack up the votes all over not just from unfortunate towns like Stoke which Polly rightly high lights.
It’s a shame that the Co-operative Party is ‘married’ to the Labour Party as I’d say the Co-op and Green Parties have more in common. Caroline Lucas is doing a great job but sadly she is a lone voice so has to shout to be heard. Vote Green; yes there is a hiccup in Brighton with Cityclean’s allowance negotiations leading to a strike, but they are trying to negotiate and councillors have always said they’d keep the door open to negotiations and would not try to break the strike. They have delivered a living wage, better cycling, walking and public transport infrastructure, and are trying to green their assets
Interesting idea
My analysis of Brighton is one must always keep fighting the good fight for good policies and ideas and it can yield good results if you are skilful about it. You also have to ignore tabloids and certain petty local papers when they go all negative and talk garbage, to put it politely
Leslie48
“40/45% tax relief on lower middle/middle class pension contribtions”
So someone earning £40k-£150k is lower middle class and someone earning over £150k is middle class?? That makes 90% of the population working class?
Honesty on class is something that seems impossible in the UK. We are an odd society where all seem to aspire to be in the middle and few are aware of the real position of themselves and others. Both create problems in understanding.
When I heard what Miliband had to say I despaired. I knew that Labour were weak and lacking in moral courage and so I shouldn’t have been surprised. There are, of course, differences between the parties but on the economy whoever we vote for the same people get in.
I doubt these cuts will stop till the City’s brought to a halt by mass rioting. It was only rioting that stopped the poll tax after all and I can’t see any reason things should be different now. I suggest rioting will take place in the City a) because it will be far more effective than rioting near Parliament which I hope people will come to understand (don’t upset the monkey, upset the organ-grinder) and b) I don’t think you can get anywhere near Parliament with a protest now, not since Boris banned Brian Haw.
Mind you, I have to bear in mind too that Grayling, our Justice minister I remind you, would possibly welcome rioting as combined with a complete olack of legal aid and cheap G4S defenders it means he could send people, in quantity, to prison where they could be forced to work for little or no wage. This is what they do in the States and I understand he’s trying to create a similar model here. This would create a cheap labour force for businesses who would no doubt be very grateful to the minister who put this cheap workforce their way.
I don’t like rioting
I have no problem with mass peaceful protest
Liking it is not the issue. It remains a melancholic part of history that the poll tax didn’t stop till there was rioting over it. That was just one tax, judged to be unfair by many. Now you’ve got multiple instances of taxes which many consider unfair like the bedroom tax, the Overall Benefit Cap (yet to make its mark) and of course the sanctions regime at the DWP. Have you been following what’s going on there? I know it’s off your beat a little… you need to look at things in context more I think, best to follow Steve Walker’s blog – Richard’s regulars take note, I recommend it. Check this out, it’s shocking and believe me, it’s just one instance of what’s going on there http://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/dwp-admits-more-lies-and-misdeeds-re-fake-psych-test/