Tax Research UK

FT.com / Comment / Opinion - Democrats need to learn the blame game.

James Carville says:

Democrats would not be playing the blame game with one another for the loss or for the healthcare debacle if they had only pointed fingers at those (or in this case, the one) who put Americans (and most of the world) in the predicament we’re in: George W. Bush.

The thesis is a simple one: the right point fringes, plat dirty and win without compunction.

The left need to learn to blame those responsible for the mess we’re in. Building bridges with the right is a waste of time. They are the problem. They are the opponents of the common good. We have to say so. Loud, clear and often.

Richard Murphy Politics

Say it again, say it often: the public sector is paid less | Polly Toynbee | Comment is free | The Guardian .

“It is more government that got us into this mess!” David Cameron declared in last week’s speech, to cheers from the conference. No, it was not. Only a lot more government and mountains more taxpayers’ cash got us out of a mess caused by runaway financiers.

Polly, on form.

And the arguments on pay aren’t just good rhetoric - they’re reasoned, and right.

Richard Murphy Politics

It’s a pretty depressing time for democracy.

The Tories openly align themselves with neo-Nazi anti-Semites and homophobics.

London lawyers openly attack free speech.

The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants proposes taking the power to tax away from parliament and passing it to the great and good whilst seeking to undermine the welfare state.

And you wonder why I think one of the few defences against the far right is the internet?

It’s the main bastion of free speech right now.

I wonder how long that will last?

Richard Murphy Politics

Boris Johnson accused over hedge funds’ election donations | Politics | guardian.co.uk .

Boris Johnson, who is leading the fight against a European crackdown on City financiers, faced accusations of being “bought off” today, when it emerged that more than half the money donated to his mayoral campaign came from the financial sector including hedge funds and private equity

Unsurprising but also revealing the complete hypocrisy of the Tories when they seek to limit union funding of the Labour Party.

It is obvious the need now is for state funding of political parties. This is what will preserve democracy. I note in this context the follwoing comment:

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the former Danish prime minister said: “Hedge funds are buying off the Tories and Boris Johnson, which shows that they want to remain above the law. This will reinforce democratic efforts to introduce better regulation in the wake of the financial crisis.”

I am sure this is true, and that if the Tories get in the pressure on London will be enormous. After all, when they choose to ally with neo-Nazis in Europe what friends will they have?

Richard Murphy Conservatives, Corruption, Ethics, Politics

Taxpayers’ Alliance admits director doesn’t pay British tax | Politics | The Guardian .

The Guardian does an appropriate and timely hatchet job on my friends in the Taxpayer’s Alliance, and notes along the way that:

The Guardian has learned that Alexander Heath, a director of the increasingly influential free market, rightwing lobby group, lives in a farmhouse in the Loire and has not paid British tax for years.

For years, read 1973 - the year the UK joined the EU, which allowed Heath to move to France.

But he’s not alone in seeking to influence the UK from the far right whilst living far away. Note that the Wikipedia entry for Tim Worstall says:

Since September 2007, Worstall has been the press officer for the UK Independence Party.

He lives in Portugal with his wife.

I guess that’s one form of independence from the UK, Rather odd though that Worstall only has the right to live in Portugal becasue the UK is a member of the EU.

What is it about the Euro-hating tax bashers that makes them want to live in the EU? Could it be that they’re just a bunch of hypocrites after all? Surely not?

Richard Murphy Politics

This is from Martin Kettle in the Guardian:

Cameron’s speech confirmed the sense of direction signalled by Osborne. It is clear that the cuts programme would start on day one. "It’s the waiting that’s the problem," he announced. "The longer we wait the more we waste." Ideologically, though, Cameron’s speech went even further. Running through it, like the lettering in a stick of rock, was an attack not just on big government, but government itself.

"It is more government that got us into this mess," Cameron said. "Why is our economy broken? Not just because Labour wrongly thought they’d abolished boom and bust. But because government got too big, did too much and doubled the national debt." When Britain was in recovery, he said in his peroration, it would not be because of government or ministers, but because "you made it happen".

This was a revelatory political moment. Does anyone else in the economically developed world believe that the financial crisis has all been the fault of government? Or that the recovery, when it happens, will have nothing to do with ministers’ actions? It is hard to believe that the word "market" did not appear anywhere in Cameron’s hour-long speech, but it didn’t. Nor was there anything about the banks. This is ignorant or dogmatic – or both. Either way, it raises a massive question about Cameron’s claims to lead the country.

Staggering that a crisis created by too little government allowing markets to abuse us all is now blamed wholly on government when, just before the failure happened, Cameron and Osborne were arguing for less regulation that could only have made the crisis worse.

I hate the lies inherent in this. And yes, I use that word again, deliberately.

Do you want a man so blinded by ideology, so willing to lie, so palpably willing to ignore where the blame really lies to lead this country?

I don’t.

I don’t like much of what Labour has done, and not done.

I don’t like the direction in which Clegg is taking the Lib Dems.

But Cameron is worse. And in all it’s a sorry tale.

Richard Murphy Politics

Gordon Brown’s Labour conference speech in full | Politics | guardian.co.uk .

On this one Brown hit the right buttons:

For there are only two options on tax and spending – and only one of them benefits Britain’s hard-working majority.

One is reducing the deficit by cutting front line public services – the conservative approach.

The other is getting the deficit down while maintaining and indeed improving front line public services – the Labour approach.

So we will raise tax at the very top, cut costs, have realistic public sector pay settlements,  make savings we know we can and in 2011 raise National Insurance by half a percent and that will ensure that each and every year we protect and improve Britain’s frontline services.

Some of those are weak commtiments but the clear mesage is progressive taxation remains on the agenda. as it should be. And that spending will be protected in many areas. As it also should be. Not least because spending is the only way to get out of this recession.

Richard Murphy Economics, Politics

Gordon Brown’s Labour conference speech in full | Politics | guardian.co.uk .

Brown’s got this one horribly wrong:

There is now a stronger case than ever that MPs should be elected with the support of more than half their voters – as they would be under the Alternative Voting system. And so I can announce today that in Labour’s next manifesto there will be a commitment for a referendum to be held early in the next Parliament it will be for the people to decide whether they want to move to the Alternative Vote.

Wrong system - ATV does not produce PR. Only the single transferable vote will do that. And the referendum should be next May - on the day of the general election.

His failure to pick winners continues - and he’s now nearly out of time.

Richard Murphy Politics

The FT has this analysis of the German election result:

The message: the social democrats failed.

The right won 45 seats. The left 39. All came from the SPD.

The problem: the left has to be left wing. The SPD was not. And that was not good enough for an electorate who want to know where their politicians stand. And being on the Left is OK. Fudging in the middle is not.

Take note, Labour.

Richard Murphy Politics

The left of centre think-tank Compass has noted:

The Labour party is not just facing electoral annihilation in only eight months time; the people the party seeks to defend don’t just face years of bleak Tory government: the very prospect of re-election, ever, now stands in jeopardy. This is not just because of the scale of the likely defeat and its nature. Much more worryingly three unprecedented factors could come into play if the Tories win:

-  First, an incoming Conservative government has pledged to cut the number of parliamentary seats by 10%. This will hit Labour hard because the biggest reduction will be in Labour strongholds such as Wales and industrial and urban areas which have seen population flight. One electoral expert has predicted that of the 65 seats that will go, a conservative assessment would be that 45 of them are Labour.

-  Second, the likelihood of the SNP winning a vote on Scottish independence increases considerably with the election of the Tories in Westminster. New polling conducted for Compass shows that 34% of the Scottish electorate ill be more likely to vote for the SNP promise of an independence referendum by the end of 2010. This could be enough to see a Yes vote go through. There are currently 59 Westminster seats in Scotland and 41 of them are Labour. They would all be lost.

-  Finally, an incoming Tory government is very likely to introduce new party funding rules, which will break the link between Labour and the unions and further destabilise a party heavily in debt and its declining membership base.

These three factors could then combine to ensure that an already intellectually and organisationally weak party fails ever to recover.

The answer – to save democracy from the ever encroaching threat of a very pernicious form of Tory takeover? PR. Labour has to do it. A majority have to have their say. We might never have that chance again.

I am reminded of a comment Alvin Rabushka, creator of flat taxes made to me:

The only thing that really matters in your country is those 5% of the people who create the jobs that the other 95% do. The truth of the matter is a poor person never gave anyone a job, and a poor person never created a company and a poor person never built a business and an ordinary working class guy never drove economic growth and expansion and it’s the top 5% to 10% who generate the growth for the other 90% who pay the taxes to support the 40% in government. So if you don’t feed them [i.e. the 5%] and nurture them and care for them at the end of the day over the long run you’ve got all these other people who have no aspiration for anything more than, you know, having a house and a car and going to the pub. It seems to me that’s not the way you want to run a country in the long run so I think that if the price is some readjustment and maybe some people in the middle in the short run pay a little more those people are going to find their children and their grandchildren will be much better off in the long run. The distributional issue is the one everyone worries about but I think it becomes the tail that wags the whole tax reform and economic dog. If all you’re going to do is worry about overnight winners and losers in a static view of life you’re going to consign yourself to a slow stagnation.

This seems to me to be what the Tories believe – and they want to claim the right to govern for that group alone.

PR stops that.

That’s why we need it. Now.

Richard Murphy Politics