I took opportunity as it arose this morning. I was on David Lammy's show on LBC at 10.10 (or thereabouts). He is, of course, Shadow Foreign Secretary.
I listen to him lambast the Tories for ten minutes, and then I got to offer my opinion. I explained how big the coming debt crisis was going to be.
Following that, I explained that Labour was doing nothing to solve this crisis. I had not heard it say it would:
- Cut taxes for those on lower pay;
- Increase state spending on investment;
- Support inflation-matching pay rises for public sector workers;
- Demand falls in interest rates.
I did not need to get around to Brexit.
These are the issues that need to be tackled.
Lammy said people would be angry.
I said they would be angry because Labour was not giving them an alternative to vote for.
I am not sure how well that went down. He never discuss what I had to say with me before turning to callers. But as I said on Twitter:
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Judging by how autocratic the Labour Party appears to have come under Starmer and his enablers, I suspect Lammy wouldn’t be allowed to respond in any way which might be considered supportive of any of your points!
Can’t be risking MPs making any statements which sound too left-wing at present, apparently…
Precisely. Anything which seriously challenges the status quo is dismissed as ‘Marxist and Stalinist.”
Sometimes from the most unlikely quarters.
Goodbye
Lammy said people would be angry.
He said that AFTER you had suggested the basics that need to be done? Did he define people? Or did he just assume that everyone would know he meant the people who matter – the elite?
Is he actually that stupid?
people would be angry if sterling was 0.6 to the dollar which it would be if e have zero interest rates and inflation is running at 85% as it is in Turkey who have pretty much adopted what you suggest.
I don’t suppose you ever mention the consequences of what you suggest?
Tell me why any of those things will happen if we have a functioning economy
I can say why they could if we had the collapse I foresee
You tell me why they will with high employment and a functioning state
But Starmer is going to abolish the House of Lords, so we shouldn’t nag him about failing to oppose the Tories.
But he should be doing PR
By all means let’s congratulate Labour when they propose proper progressive policies such as reforming or replacing the HoL, assuming their policy makes sense. And introducing a publicly owned and run energy company.
But as Richard points out, it’s not nearly enough. Why no commitment to PR? Why the refusal to contemplate a progressive alliance? And worse, why accept lies like ‘make Brexit work?’, and that there is a fiscal black hole?
I thought you made your points succinctly and effectively. Especially the final minute. Great!
Thanks
The rhetoric of anger in politics should be the reserve of the voter, not politicians.
Politicians should instead be turning that anger into a positive agenda for change.
No such luck with craven Labour. These days it is voters who have the answers in my view.
A real Labour party should aim to equalize effective income tax rates for working people throughout the earnings scale. That’s aggregating income tax + NI + UC taper clawback.
At the moment this is:
0% on the first £4.5k
55% on the next £8k up to the income tax threshold then
69.4% on anything over £12.5k up to the point where all UC entitlement has been recovered.
A family entitled to the maximum UC cap (was £20k now £22k) will be paying that effective 69.4% rate all the way up to the point (earning c. £50,270) where they go on to a so-called “higher” marginal tax rate of 40% (42% inc NI).
In that context its difficult to find much sympathy for those whinging about having to pay a marginal rate of 45% rather 40%. Either is proportionately far less than what the lowest earners are being deducted.
Agreed
Thank you for that.
Now that really is shocking and shows the paucity of Labour’s thinking, and why this country is increasingly only a decent place to live if you have a high income.
We are indeed going backwards to me.
It seems to me that of you work, you are fair game for the rentier class.
Richard Murphy says:
When is a pay rise just a cock-up? – Tax Research UKhttps://www.taxresearch.org.uk › Blog › 2013/07/11
I am one of the few who has argued MPs should have a pay rise – but I said on clear condition that they were not allowed second jobs
You just abetted an MP in carrying out a second job today.
My actions made no difference to that
But you are clearly trolling
Given what has been revealed about the nature of the Labour voting demographic in terms of age and education, they seem well capable of realising if they have been had, and the consequences might be interesting.
Thank you Richard for injecting some sanity into the “debate”.
Whilst I agree, with an earlier comment, that the effective tax rate of lower earners is egregious, it is also ludicrous at £100k. At that rate the marginal rate between £100k and £125k is 60% due to tapering of the tax “allowance”. Then it falls to 40/45% (2022/2023) for even higher earners. Whilst not as egregious as at lower rates, and falling on “broader shoulders”, it nevertheless shows how crazy our current income tax system is.
Even Patrick Minford, hardly a left wing zealot, says, in The Telegraph, “Jeremy Hunt has taken a wrecking ball to the British economy”.
Hunt’s wrecking ball is only finishing off the destruction caused by the Brexit wrecking ball for which Minford was one of the most prominent campaigners.
A stopped clock is right a couple of times a day, I suppose.
Richard if you have a spare minute is there any chance you could reply to this idiotic tweet from John Redwood
https://twitter.com/johnredwood/status/1594214376575311872?s=46&t=0TY4LiujGmyba57D6jm6sg
I suspect not at the moment. Sorry
I have to say I find Lammy hard to listen to (and watch on TV). He seems permanently “angry” about just about everything. He starts off in a normal tone of voice but then his voice rises and rises as he warms to his subject, then he becomes angry and then very angry so that by the end he is usually in full rant mode. Now I know there’s lots of things to be angry about in the current state of the UK but it’s a shame Lammy is like that because he’s clearly a clever chap and has alot of interesting things to say – most of which I agree with. But it’s got to the point now when I switch off when he comes on the media because he’s always the same. He is Mr Angry.
The texture of Starmer’s party is now showing strongly, and not in a good way.
Economic policy = largely bereft and uncosted, social policy=so far, so autocratic with support or silence over the worst of Tory, future promise=autocratic, non-inclusive. It is not enough to frame oneself against a former leader, grossly smeared, whose manifesto is still seemingly popular (according to YouGov), nor as ‘We are not the Tories’. Whenever the next election shows, the hostages to fortune Starmer has provided (broken pledges etc) plus the Tories both stealing Labour policies and taking a chance on ultra right trigger lines, mean that no amount of massive poll leads are secure.