We can tackle inequality

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The Guardian is doing well with its blogs today. Seamus Milne has a great one on the growing poverty gap in the UK. As he notes:

Only when the government begins to shift away from free market orthodoxy can the underlying trend to greater inequality be reversed.

Unfortunately, all the signs are that little of any of that is yet on the cards - even though Brown recently refused to rule out raising the top rate of tax. "We're still a very long way from that politically," one cabinet minister said yesterday. "There are powerful forces against us." For which read the bulk of the media and the most influential people in the country, who would all have to pay more tax.

There is in practice a lot that can be done without raising tax rates (something I do not necessarily propose, but to which I do not object). First we can end the domicile rule.

Second we can require transparency and accountability of tax havens. The abuse of the rich can only take place in the secrecy space provided by the world's accountants, lawyers and bankers in the artificial world of offshore. Collectively they are the suppliers of corruption services. Those are the services that are being used to undermine the state and which will unless curtailed undermine our western way of life.

So let's end the excuses and create some political will to oppose those powerful forces. Because as Milne concludes:

But perhaps the government is lagging behind an emerging consensus that something has to be done. Of course the rich will squeal. But when even the princes of private equity and the Daily Mail put the case for action over inequality, it's clear there's been a sea change. In any case, that action has become a democratic and social necessity.


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