I have already mentioned writing articles elsewhere in the last day or so. This one was a joint effort between Danny Blanchflower and myself in The Mirror today:
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Excellent article Richard. What chance it will reach the pair it’s addressed to? And if it does, is there any chance they will take note and act on at least some of your excellent suggestions?
We think the Mirror is the best way to get to them
I rather think the Mirror do too
Mr Murphy.I am very confused and wonder if you could help.
As I understand if a minister losses their position they get a payoff but then can be reinstated in a different position or the same job in the case of Suella Braverman also the likes of Ms Truss who is to get 150K for life after just a few weeks in the job.
Where does all this money come from and how much has it cost already.
It comes from the Treasury, as does all government spending
I have no idea what the total cost is, but much more than normal this year
Your claims about Truss are overstated by the way and they are for expenses, not pay
All credit to the Mirror in giving you a voice I say.
The Guardian? All it can do is give Rees-Mogg a slot recently.
Oh well – that’s why I subscribe to Byline Times and not those lily-livered lefties at York Way.
Their loss – not mine!
And having spent enough time listening to R4 and PM recently I’m afraid it is high time for the BBC to go. It needs to broke up and sold off. They’re useless – as much use as colander on sinking ship.
Maybe Adam Curtis might do something even more useful and run for PM.
I wouldn’t advocate throwing the baby out with the bathwater re: BBC. There are good arguments to be made re: news, but not for the rest of its output. I depend on it for some documentary and a lot of cultural and educational output, much of which is still in a global class of its own.
I agree with Nicola. The BBC is not perfect (what is?) but it’s existence is important and, if it was dissolved, nothing similar would replace it. While it exists there is always a chance of improvement.
Im with Nicola. Whilst the BBC UK news reporting has been strangled, there is still a mass if good stuff. Drama, documentary and of course World Service. Plus they play a key role in the wider media and production world.
I am not sure where this misconception that the Guardian is “left-wing” comes from.
It supported Margaret Thatcher in 1979, the Con-Dem coalition in 2010, but has never found a Labour government or Labour Leader that it ever felt able to support.
Blair-Brown were too right-wing, Corbyn too left-wing,
Wilson, Callaghan, Kinnock and Miliband were also unsuitable according to the Guardian and you could not get a fag-paper between the Guardian’s criticisms of those four and the lies daily published by the Mail, Sun, Telegraph and Times.
I have been a daily reader of the Guardian for the last 50 years.
It is a liberal paper
Sometimes
Good afternoon
With regards to tax and the latest media narrative about tackling the government’s “debt”, I don’t know whether this is relevant or if you value their opinions but Gina Miller’s True and Fair party has just commissioned a report on how much could be raised from closing tax avoidance loopholes
https://assets.nationbui…ned_by_True__0_Fair.pdf
or via “closing tax loopholes” at
https://www.trueandfairparty.uk/press_releases
Lots of detail in it, but the summary is:
Learn from other countries on tax loopholes. The UK should look to the Nordic countries to learn from them on policies around tax avoidance and evasion.
Ensuring companies pay their fair share
This includes closing the carried interest loophole, tackling umbrella agency tax loopholes and clear repercussions for companies and individuals that evade and avoid tax.
The amounts raised through these measures are:
• Closing the carried interest loophole would raise £400 million,
• Clamping down on umbrella corporations would raise £200 million.
• Increasing transparency and HMRC funding to investigate tax avoidance
would raise £2.8 billion.
Expand the capacity and resourcing of HMRC. Extra funding, increased staffing and upgrading technology would ensure HMRC can deal with both tax avoidance and evasion properly. It would also arm HMRC and The Treasury with invaluable data.
A new domicile pathway. This would end non dom status and replacing it with a tighter New Domicile Pathway system
I could find a lot more than that
What was the point of Brexit other than to maintain and protect these extraction routes.
I anticipate Tories will use up their remaining 2 years not only enabling the maximum drawdown but in creating new mechanisms and loopholes in case of any future persecution of existing dodges.
Why is it that the tory euphemism for ‘we’re going to hit those at the bottom, again’ is “difficult decisions”? Why does this absolutely never apply to increasing taxes on the wealthy and highest earners?
“Oh but look!” they shriek – “we pay the biggest percentage of the income tax take!” . Yeah, but those few grab the largest slices of the income pie! They leave the majority with so little they don’t and can’t pay much. But with all the other indirect taxes, people at the lower end of the income scale end up paying a far higher percentage overall than their wealthier compatriots do – *individually*.
This is often raised by the rich in various media, but it’s just another way of cheating us. Especially because mainstream media never challenges them on the issue! It’s a highly dishonest ‘truth’ that’s never properly analysed.
I try
I will be on Radio 4 (6.15) and Radio 5 (5.20) in the morning
I wish you’d post clips! I haven’t a cat in hell’s chance of being up at 5ish! Have a trapped nerve in my neck for the past couple of months, making sleep elusive to say the least. Cat naps in armchairs, with the real thing warming the lap and purring have become essential health care.
If I knew how to make clips I would.
Anyone who can and might send them to me, please do.
I have just done 5 Live and was quite pleased with my intervention – from 5.20
Will be on BBC Sounds – scroll through to about 0615 on R4Today.
Worth a listen – a pithy summary from Richard, intelligible to ‘lay’ listeners
listen again links:
‘Today’ programme.
from 16 minutes in.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001df46
Wake Up to Money
Austerity 2.0?
from 21:50
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001dflh
😉
Thanks
Congratulations on getting this into the MIrror and congratulations to them for publishing it. It’s probably too much to hope that Reeves, and Starmer and co. would have the confidence to at least engage with you and /or others with similar ideas.
Would be good if they did
Ed Miliband, Peter Kyle, John McDonnell may be prepared to engage?
Let’s see
Lord Bilimoria , President of the CBI , on Newsnight , said Austerity doesn’t work.
If more of the CBI think this, there may be hope.
I would expect the TUC would be in agreement with you.
I hope they would be
The perfect title. It’s so cheering that you and Danny Blanchflower are on the sanity side. Keep it up, it gives me hope.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001dflh
fast forward to 22.00 min
Thanks
Now on the blog
Well done, Richard!
I am only surprised at your moderation.
There is far more money sitting in bank accounts and balance sheets than people think.
Taking £15BN from the rich is extremely modest.
Plus, you could have added that people worrying about the national debt is like people worrying about their grandchildren. The priority is today and filling bellies today. The future will be looked after by spending on healthcare, social care, education, infrastructure investment and redirecting people’s savings towards investment in businesses not property and speculation.
Sound money theorists were discredited by Keynes in the early part of the last century one hundred years ago. It’s a sound economy that generates sound money not the other way round.
You cannot repeat this often enough.
Balancing the books is easy; rebalancing the economy is what we all need to worry about.
That means more money in investment and public services and less for the richest in our society. The poor should not be made to pay for the Conservative party’s incompetence.
Plus, the Bank of England is perverse to raise interest rates now when inflation is falling. Their terms of reference needs to be changed and a new Director appointed.
Infuriating report from the economics editor on C4 News on the reported Shell 3-month profits of £8.1Bn. The Government is not interested in taxing this, in spite of the fact de-commissioning costs offsetting tax liabilities, means Shell paid nothing to the UK in tax (effectivel the Governemnt saying even these exceptional profits should not be taxed, because if they are taxed Shell will just run away from Britain; it is as banal as that). Shell is paying tax worldwide; just not paying tax the UK. Even the Shell CEO seems to think the tax situation for oil is unsustainable (just not to the Conservatives!). That £8BN includes pure windfall profits; profits Shell would not ever earn in any normal world (on an annual basis that would be £32Bn profit, for Shell alone). Two things I ask you to remember here:
1) Bloomberg reported a forecast that in the UK oil and gas sector (Shell, BP etc.,) would produce £170Bn ($199BN) profits over the next 18 months. Britain will tax little of these profits.
2) I have written comments here at least twice over the last few weeks, specifically to point out that the major UK oil companies (BP and Shell) have been carrying out large share buyback operations. Shell has been spending $4Bn (£3.5Bn) buying back its own shares. BP has also been buying back $4Bn (£3.5Bn) of its own shares – over the last three months. What are these operations telling us? They are telling us, in bright circus neon, with Tivoli lighting arrows; that the oil majors have been making so much money, and have so few ideas what to invest in, that all they can think to do is return the money to shareholders. This means the Conservative argument that the oil companies need all the excess windfall profits they making in order just to keep them in the UK, investing in new projects, is false. The £7BN spent on share buybacks is the proof. Now (late in the day) the IPPR have now accepted the ludicrously obvious implications of the share buybacks:
“Taxes on shareholder transfers should be raised to ensure that companies are not channelling profits to their shareholders at a time of national economic crisis.
This briefing paper argues that the UK government can raise revenues by increasing taxes on dividends and buybacks. This is one mechanism which will allow the government to extend support for households and businesses through the cost of living crisis without resorting to public service cuts. The government should be prioritising progressive revenue-raisers which address growing wealth inequality, rather than turning back to the austerity cuts of the past.” (IPPR today).
No doubt the IPPR raising the issue is the only reason it found its way onto C4 News. All this shows is that the standard of critical analysis of business profitability is timid, in thrall to neoliberal ideology and frankly woeful; and the standard sources of news and information on business and economics struggle, even to see the blindingly obvious. You now know why they will never work out anything useful, that is well hidden by vested interests, or complex (and probably deliberate obfuscation).
Is it possible to levy a tax on currency transactions. ? I seem to remember this has been mooted before. How much could it raise?
It is possible
It would take time
I would replace NIC with it so no net revenue