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Tell us about the rabbits George

Mar 16

Posted by Jeff in Economy, Westminster | 28 Comments

There can surely be no more depressing news, no greater harbinger of doom for the lamentable direction that the UK is travelling in than the leaking of Osborne’s intention to reduce the top rate of tax from 50% to 40% in next week’s budget.

Cited as the reason for this 10% tax cut for the super-rich is a need to show that Britain is open for business, and the cut will come backed by a very useful (not to mention suspiciously timely) study showing that the top rate of tax brings in hundreds of millions rather than billions of pounds.

George Osborne and David Cameron’s focus should be on increasing that hundreds of millions figure, not reducing it down to zero.

And goodness knows where this leaves the Lib Dem hope of bringing many of the lowest paid out of tax altogether. Tax cuts at both ends of the earnings spectrum when we’re skating perilously close to a double dip recession seems foolhardy at best. Incidentally, the SNP position was laid clear on BBC Question Time last night when the supreme Humza Yousaf made clear that one of his primary desires for the budget is to see the 50% rate remain in place.

Alas, it shall be going, and all because George Osborne is wilfully drawing the wrong conclusions around the low level of tax that it supposedly brings in.

To use Goldman Sachs’ favourite word, only a ‘muppet’ pays PAYE these days, only the grunts that do the legwork. Meanwhile the banking superstars rake in the mega-salaries and mega-bonuses. I got paid my first ever bonus this week, a banker’s bonus no less (the shame). I have no qualms about saying that it was ‘only’ £4,700, 10% of salary, but when 1,200 jobs were cut on the same day, it was more than enough to make me feel decidedly queasy.

Some people might be surprised and/or startled by the inclusion of salary information in the above paragraph, but that for me is part of the same problem with this tax cut and the widespread tax avoidance that goes on. Back in the days when I was contracting for various financial services companies, the recruitment agents would ask with lascivious grin whether I wanted to be paid PAYE along standard tax rate lines or through an umbrella company, avoiding National Insurance contributions and paying a much lower level of tax than I would do under PAYE. I always went for PAYE. Every other person I’ve spoken to in a similar position went with the other option, and many of them have gross annual pay that is a heck of a lot more than I enjoy. That’s where a tax take that should be billions becomes hundreds of millions right there.

George Osborne could, at a stroke, eliminate this tax avoidance and bring in a fortune to pay down the deficit and reverse the level of cuts that he has made over the past couple of years and intends to make going forwards. The practice of avoiding tax in this manner is so naked that it is an easy target, the lowest of low hanging fruit for any Chancellor faced with the unenviable task of making Britain’s books balance. Indeed, the practice is so endemic that even Moira Stuart, hitherto the embodiment of all that is good and right in the world, and the public face of the Inland Revenue, uses a private firm to reduce her tax payments. If that’s not the final straw then what is?

Let’s face it, ‘we’re all in this together’ is precisely what many of us thought it would be, a handy election slogan pitched at just the right level to get the Tories over the line in May 2010, after which it could quickly be discarded.

The truth is we probably need to go even further than the Tories even dare consider going. Don’t we as society deserve to know that all citizens are paying their fair share of tax, from Rooney to royalty? A simple system that would surely guarantee maximum tax intake each financial year is to put every taxpayer’s gross income and tax contributions online for all to see. This is sacrilege to many fiercely private Brits but it already works in Sweden, Norway and Finland and sunlight is the best disinfectant. Would Ken Livingstone have set up a company to avoid tax in such situations? Would idolised footballers? Would Moira frickin’ Stuart?

With this tax cut, and the conscious decision to not go after the super wealthy, George Osborne is aiding and abetting a new divide in the UK. It’s not North vs South and it’s not Working vs Middle vs Upper, it is those who PAYE vs those who do not PAYE. The former are the mice, honestly turning the wheel of the British economy and the latter see themselves as the men, living a life of luxury largely removed from the rest of us.

The Tories sold us a dream, of fairness, of a big society, of rising standards. We knew it would never happen, but it was nice to pretend that it might do, for a short while.

I only hope that the Lib Dems, the only hope that we have left, will do the decent thing and get out of this partnership before George takes the short story of this parliamentary term to too frightful an ending.

Do the Lib Dems have an LGBT problem?

Mar 2

Posted by James in Media, Parties, Westminster | 27 Comments

It seems like an odd question even to ask. At Holyrood the rump of the Lib Dems is four square behind equal marriage, and their activist base is almost certainly less heteronormative than the other larger parties.

Furthermore, parliamentary politics as practiced either at Holyrood or Westminster hasn’t that much residual homophobia going on. As it was put to me in conversation this week, every political party is essentially LGBT-friendly now, even the Tories (imagine Ruth winning even ten years ago) – with the possible exception, my friend noted, of the SNP, where LGBT MSPs have to rub shoulders at group meetings with the likes of John Mason and Bill Walker. Even Jackson Carlaw, probably the most right-wing person at Holyrood apart from Fergus Ewing, has signed the Equal Marriage pledge.

And yet, and yet.

The story of Simon Hughes and his relationship with both the newspapers and his own sexuality is back on the agenda again. For those who don’t know the original story, he was the Liberal Party candidate in the 1983 Bermondsey by-election, taking on Peter Tatchell, then in Labour and now someone I’m proud to have met while we were both out campaigning for Caroline Lucas in 2010. Peter had already been an LGBT activist with the Gay Liberation Front, and as a result the Liberal Party leaflets were larded with innuendo, endorsing Hughes as “a straight choice” for Bermondsey, despite, as it turns out, his closetted bisexuality. Peter’s accepted Hughes’ apology for the hypocrisy and negativity, but that’s just because Peter’s a better person than I am.

The story has come back again because, as the Guardian reports, Hughes finally pre-emptively outed himself to the Sun in 2006 following alleged phone-hacking that would have revealed he’d called gay chat lines.

That’s an understandable response to another shocking breach of privacy, but the article also contains a peculiar new angle. The Guardian quotes Hughes indirectly as follows. “Hughes added that he believed the forced revelation came at the time he was running for the party leadership and pushed him out of contention.” Really? Being bisexual would make it impossible to lead the Lib Dems? Either that’s true, in which case their membership is a lot more homophobic than one might expect, or Hughes has not just seriously misread his party, he’s also bad-mouthed his colleagues.

Hughes is not an isolated case, though. Leaving aside the more complicated situation of Mark Oaten, consider also David Laws. Despite the best efforts of his supporters, it wasn’t his sexuality that brought him down – it was the sight of a millionaire chiselling the taxpayer by lying about his living arrangements, not to mention doing so after making probity on his expenses a major part of his election campaign. But he couldn’t feel comfortable being out, and it wasn’t clear whether that was because he feared for the reaction from friends and family, or the party, or the electorate, or the media, or what combination of those.

What’s more, the specific language and way in which he announced his resignation were problematic. As a former Lib Dem friend of mine put it to me: “He said the past few days had been the “longest and toughest” of his life because he was outed – what a message to send to young people thinking about coming out. The whole thing about wanting to keep his sexuality a secret just had this tone of gay equalling shameful. It was horrible.”

The expectation is that the Lib Dems would be a safe crowd to be out amongst. But perhaps Simon Hughes is right, and perhaps that’s not the real truth.

House of Lords reform – Is ‘jury duty’ the answer?

Feb 27

Posted by Jeff in Constitution, Westminster | 13 Comments

I’m sure this is an idea that’s had an airing before and indeed when I mentioned it to my co-editors here, Comrade Aidan mentioned something apparently similar from Mark Thomas (who I think is a ninny, which drew all manner of opprobrium from BN Comrades plural).

Anyway, I was in the pub, as you do on a Saturday lunchtime and, again, as you do, I was chatting about what one could realistically do about the House of Lords to make it a better place.

My first suggestion was to call it the House of Ladies every other year. Isn’t it about time the gender assumption was turned on its head? Apparently I wasn’t thinking big enough.

Despite the widely perceived nonsensicality around the House of Lords, one must remember that to do nothing might actually be the best course of action. On the one hand you have unelected peers debating policies with the public having no means of recourse to challenge their discussions but on the other hand you have a lot of largely intelligent people providing reasonably objective reviews of legislation for relatively little expense. It is arguably difficult to improve upon that. I mean, does anyone believe that Baroness Williams getting stuck into this NHS Bill is a bad thing?

However, there is a flip side, of course. For one, the idea that Lord Sugar should be a peer for life because Gordon Brown wanted him to be a Business Tsar for four months is bonkers, as is the idea that bishops and landed gentry get a seat in the Lords by dint of their job or birthright, not to mention the unseemly act of PM after PM filling the chamber with as many of their party members as they can get away with.

The House of Lords currently has just shy of 800 members and I, at best, could name a handful of them, which is probably more than the vast majority of people in this country could manage. That is not a healthy state of affairs for any democracy so how can it change for the better? Let’s firstly rule some options out.

A House of Lords that is a pale imitation of the House of Commons would not realistically be fit for purpose. Is there a point in having an elected second chamber that would nod through legislation if it consisted of those from the same party as those in Government, and knock legislation back if it didn’t? I suspect most people out there don’t just want more of the same knockabout Punch and Judy politics.

The other extreme is to have a House of Lords full of independents, full of the heads of science and economics and literature and philosophy, all worthily discussing legislation before them and passing their honest, considered views before taking a vote. It’d be like BBC4 does UK Politics, a tantalising prospect but a bloody nightmare when you start to wonder about the specifics of who, what, when and why these people would be selected.

Something doesn’t necessarily need to be done but improvement is surely within our reach.

There is a worrying, and widening, democratic deficit in the UK right now. Elections went from being typically every four years to fixed every five years without people batting an eyelid, if they even knew it had happened in the first place. Are we happy about this? Who the hell knows.

There is a pressing need for the public to be more immersed in the politics that exists in this country, avoiding the artificial line between politics and normal life that makes the former tantamount to showbusiness for ugly not-as-beautiful-as-celebrities people. I just want people to be interested and if they aren’t interested then perhaps it is best to force them to be, even just a little.

My preferred type of House of Lords reform therefore is quickly becoming a form of jury duty where 800 or so people are selected at random from the UK public and serve for six months or a year, followed by another tranche of 800 people and another tranche and so on. There would be permanent staff at the House of Lords that would simplify legislation and provide the legal support but the revising of the output of the House of Commons would be strictly for the 800 to decide. It’d be like a more honourable Big Brother where the public takes on direct responsibility for part of the UK’s future by being the very ones that have to take the decisions of what should and shouldn’t pass in our name. I’d certainly prefer the public being involved in legislation on an ongoing basis rather than being asked (and, let’s face it, lied to) by politicians twice a decade.

My hope would be that a natural filter for bampottery and inappropriateness would apply whereby anyone unsuitable for the job would elect not to take part if they were selected, but those who did serve in the House of Lords would be paid the same salary, wage or welfare as they would ordinarily. It’s Big Society and the work experience scheme rolled into one. How couldn’t David Cameron sign up to it?

You may well disagree but I see very few faults with this proposal and I believe it would be a marked improvement on the status quo, and not only because the old leftie deep inside me would thoroughly enjoy seeing Lords inhabitants being turfed off their red leather seats and into the cold.

Could Joe Public do a better job in the House of Lords than Lord Blah Blah? It’s debatable but perhaps more to the point, who would dare suggest otherwise?

Worst Motion of the Week – MP fights the blues

Feb 24

Posted by Jeff in Crime, Westminster | 3 Comments

There is no doubt what the worst motion in Scottish politics was this week, it was the headbutting motion that Eric Joyce (allegedly) made in Strangers Bar at Westminster (*boom boom*). It’s a rather spectacularly public fall from an already rather graceless position for the MP and, despite the unavoidable, scabby mirth behind headlines such as ‘Labour MP hit 5 Tories in brawl’, this could be the final nail in the Falkirk MP’s political coffin after a recent charge sheet that includes failing to provide a drink-drive breath test and expenses scandals.

We largely enjoy an appropriate approach of innocent until proven guilty in this country, and so we should, but that nonetheless won’t, nor shouldn’t, prevent speculation surrounding this situation. One could argue that it is for constituents to decide if their MP is fit for purpose, and with a 7,843 majority in 2010, despite the expenses controversy, who outside of Falkirk should say that Eric should step aside, whatever happens here? Nonetheless, if, and it is a big if, this legal process results in a criminal conviction, it is difficult to see how a by-election can be avoided. Denis Canavan is already calling for one to be held.

A by-election in Falkirk would, of course, be a two-horse race with the SNP, who won the equivalent Holyrood seat(s) in 2011, going up against Labour. It could prove to be a mini dress rehearsal for the independence referendum at large and could be an opportunity for Salmond to start building some momentum, not dissimilar to the ‘political earthquake’ in Glasgow East all those years ago. For that reason, one would expect that the Nats’ campaign warchest would be deeply delved into, and with Labour’s coffers being fuller than only that of Rangers FC, the contest could well be closer than it otherwise would be in a Westminster contest.

There is a risk of getting too far ahead of one’s self here of course, it is not after all in Labour’s interests for a by-election to be held at this stage of the political cycle with so little to gain from one, so efforts behind the scenes to prevent one would no doubt take place.

For now, it is sufficient to only regret that the old Scottish leftie metaphorical rhetoric of going down to London to knock lumps out of Tories has been regrettably taken literally in this instance and that politics in general is the main loser here, apart from Eric Joyce of course.

Jam Tomorrow

Feb 21

Posted by Kirsty in Democracy, Westminster | 20 Comments

Image from Bella Caledonia

One should never really believe political promises, but ‘vote no for more powers later’ has to be one of the worst. Especially from the mouth of someone making that promise only because he feels he ought.

Last week, while speaking in Edinburgh, David Cameron offered Scotland more powers, but only if independence was rejected.

“I am open to looking at how the devolved settlement can be improved further”, he said. “And, yes, that means considering what further powers could be devolved.”

Offering voters what they might want through a different and delayed means of your own choosing strikes me as less political masterclass, and more desperate politician.  Nonetheless, Conservative-supporting facets of the media have applauded Cameron’s move.

Writing in The Guardian, Conservative Home editor Tim Montgomerie has followed
Cameron’s statement with a call for him to “seize the moment”.

“By offering to extend Scottish devolution he can be the Conservative leader who saves the union. By promising to balance Scottish devolution with a commitment to new arrangements for the government of England, he can radically improve his own party’s electoral prospects. And through these changes – with the introduction of city mayors and greater localism – he can be the PM who replaces one of Europe’s most centralised states with a political architecture fit for the 21st century.”

I’m a big fan of devolution. I think the best place for power to be is as close to the people as possible. For me devolution and the debate around independence isn’t just about territory or a binary discussion between what powers reside and why in Westminster and Holyrood, but how powers – democratic and economic – extend down to councils and to communities, and how those powers are used.

Montgomerie has identified the ill – the moribund institutions that can dominate sections of English local democracy. The cure he proposes will be interesting to watch – the 12 new city mayors to be elected, as well as police commissioners, will hopefully revitalise local democracy in England. And there is always a case for councils and communities across all nations of the UK to enjoy greater localism.

But Cameron’s jam tomorrow promise for Scotland is a hurried attempt to claw back ground gained by Salmond and the SNP, a ‘shush now, behave, and we’ll give you a treat’ attempt at cajoling voters using a strategy that ceases being effective once someone’s older than about six. Cameron and today’s Conservatives have scant interest in devolution – Montgomerie in the same piece notes it was Salmond, and not Cameron, that “[chose] to put Scotland’s relationship with the rest of the UK at the top of the political agenda”.

Cameron’s intervention in the independence debate is a self-interested salvo, an attempt to adhere to the role of UK Prime Minister and retain the power it brings, a role that he feels he must play, rather than a great passion or driving ambition on his part.

Cameron and the Conservatives seem likewise only interested in localism and English devolution when it stands to benefit their own grasp on power. You can’t argue for reducing the number of seats in Westminster in order to make everyone’s votes more equal, when you are also switching to individual voter registration despite warnings that up to six million voters are currently missing from the electoral roll. For others like Eric Pickles, localism and cohesion are being confused with ill-thought out assimilation. And slashing local public services, from lights to libraries, doesn’t inspire hope that Cameron is really interested in standing up for what’s happening on the doorsteps of England.

Any intervention by Cameron into the independence debate with pledges and promises will be regarded with bemusement by the majority of the Scottish electorate. We expect his thoughtlessness and hashed attempts at making do when it comes to the devolution debate. But he risks more by only being half-hearted and damaging about changes to English democracy, especially when his own party are arguing for him to be otherwise.