Wednesday, October 28, 2009 :
Proceeds of Crime Act extension
The Times reports that Alan Johnson has pushed through a Statutory Instrument extending confiscation powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2003 to civilian investigators. It comes into force next week. Another great example of mission creep. Powers brought in to hit mafia godfathers being made available to hit those who are in arrears with their council tax. How many Terrorism Act 2000 searches was it again that have resulted in a terrorist being apprehended?
A telling point mentioned in the article is that targets for financial seizures have been set, to recover £250 million in criminal assets by 2010, rising to £1 billion per year soon after. Somebody in central government has been taking lessons from Camden council…
Labels: law, news, UK politics
Friday, October 16, 2009 :
Geert Wilders
I can’t help thinking that Mohammed Shafiq of the Ramadhan Foundation has slightly misunderstood the idea behind the prohibition on inciting religious violence and its interface with concepts of freedom of speech. While acknowledging that British ideas about the latter mean that Geert Wilders should not be banned from entering the UK because of his views about Islam, Mr Shafiq has apparently stated that while Mr Wilders is here:
“…he has got to be monitored so that he doesn’t say anything to incite religious violence. If you start attacking somebody’s faith in the way that he has, they could react violently.”
I think the idea is that people should be banned from inciting others to physically attack people based upon those people’s religion. Not that people should be banned from saying anything about religion that might induce the religious to get offended and beat them up.
Times article on the story here.
Labels: news, UK politics, war on terror
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 :
Got any change guv?
The big theme at the conferences of both the Lib Dems and Labour appears to be the desperate need for “radical change”. We don’t need radical change. It’ll only screw everything up more. What we need is sensible, steady government that tries to intrude as little as reasonably possible into the lives of <daily mail reader>decent hard–working people</daily mail reader> and tries to keep waste to a minimum. And I don’t say that only because I suspect that by “change” they mean “shafting people like me”.
Crumbs, I’ve become a Tory…
Labels: UK politics
Sunday, June 07, 2009 :
Labour heavyweights
Saw Andrew Marr interviewing Peter Mandelson this morning. Mandelson is very quick–witted and intelligent and very good at dealing with questions and fencing with an interviewer, but he doesn’t come across as likeable in the least. He certainly is not the man to overcome the perception of a stark divide between “political elite” versus “man in the street”. By contrast, Alan Johnson, who was interviewed later on the Politics Show, came across as a nice sort of bloke. But I’m not sure I could imagine him leading the country. What sort of politics and what sort of leaders do we actually want?
Labels: TV, UK politics
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 :
Pension tax relief - 1,000th post!
There have been murmurings that the Government is thinking of cancelling tax relief on pension contributions for higher rate tax payers, so that such pension contributions are no longer effectively paid out of pre–tax income. Robert Peston states on his blog:
“So some would say it’s a bit rum that for every £5,000 put into a pension pot by a top–rate taxpayer there’s a refund of £2,000, whereas the refund on the same contribution would be just £1,000 for a basic–rate taxpayer. Is that fair — especially when there are more than 23m basic–rate taxpayers and less than 4m paying the top rate of 40%?”
Well, the obvious point is that it is not necessarily as manifestly unfair as Peston’s statement would imply (“the rich get two grand into their pension from the Government, the poor only get a grand!!”). The higher rate tax payer isn’t getting special treatment. If the principle is that pension contributions should be out of pre–tax income, higher rate payers get more back because more has been taken away in the first place. Someone has posted an amusing (if somewhat condescending) story in the comments on Peston’s blog to seek to illustrate why the instinctive outrage over tax relief being of greater benefit to those who pay more (or any) tax (“the rich”) is flawed:
“HOW THE TAX SYSTEM WORKS
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to £100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay £1. The sixth would pay £3. The seventh would pay £7. The eighth would pay £12. The ninth would pay £18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay £59.
So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers,’ he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by £20.’ Drinks for the ten now cost just £80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men — the paying customers? How could they divide the £20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’ They realised that £20 divided by six is £3.33. But if they subtracted that from everyone’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same proportion, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so: The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving). The sixth now paid £2 instead of £3 (33% saving). The seventh now paid £5 instead of £7 (28% saving). The eighth now paid £9 instead of £12 (25% saving). The ninth now paid £14 instead of £18 (22% saving). The tenth now paid £49 instead of £59 (16% saving). Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free.
But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. ‘I only got a pound out of the £20,’ declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, ‘but he got £10!’ ‘Yes, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a pound, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I did’ ‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get £10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks’ ‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor.’
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill. And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works.”
Question: without the higher rate tax relief, does the balance sway in the direction of private pensions being an unattractive option for the higher rate tax payer, when you weigh the loss of control and the requirement to buy an overpriced annuity at the end of it all against the basic rate tax relief alone? Tinkering with the tax reliefs so that pension contributions are no longer universally taken out of pre–tax income is not about “fairness”, but is in reality just a stealth tax rise. If the top rate of tax needs to go up, put it up and we can vote at the next General Election about whether the move to a slightly more redistributive tax balance that results is democratically acceptable.
Update @13:30: turns out the Chancellor has both raised the top tax rate from 40% to 50%, and restricted pension tax relief for top rate tax payers… but only for people earning over £150,000. Screw those rich bastards, I say…
Labels: economics, UK politics
Friday, April 17, 2009 :
Political doublespeak
I know that politicians are supposed to talk rubbish that doesn’t bear logical analysis, but this Government is taking it to a new level. In the early part of this week, we had Ed Balls on school inspections: “if schools are ‘satisfactory’, it’s not good enough”. Er, isn’t that what “satisfactory” means, Mr Balls? And yesterday, we had Gordon Brown talking about the evil plot to write rude emails about the Tories: “I take full responsibility for what happened. That’s why the person who was responsible went immediately”. Er, I thought you just said one second ago that that was you, Mr Brown, and you seem to be still here.
Labels: UK politics
Tuesday, December 16, 2008 :
Bow'vember
Never mind all this Mo’vember crap
It has just occured to me that none of these financial problems that we now face would have happened if the City had not lost the habit of keeping its collective swede up to operating temperature by means of the time–honoured Bowler hat. I say we should bring it back in the interests of restoring market confidence by signalling a return to the old standards of prudence and probity.
Only thing is, we’ve missed November, so we’ll have to call it something else…
Labels: economics, london, UK politics
Tuesday, September 23, 2008 :
Gordon Brown
The papers are reporting that Gordon Brown’s speech at the Labour Party conference has been warmly acclaimed and mention that the Prime Minister “highlighted his role in helping lower income families”. Shouldn’t that be his role in “helping lower families’ income”? Also, I’m not sure that I get his concluding point about the last words of the poor Rwandan kid who was killed. Is that supposed to be in Rwandan, or it is a pop at extraordinary rendition, intended to illustrate the point that people will say anything under torture and are mostly incomprehensible as opposed to providing helpful intelligence?
Likewise, at the start of page 11, he seems to be stooping to a childish Mary Whitehouse Experience “The History Professors” level in his characterisation of Mr Cameron’s position on the difference between the Labour and Tory levels of public investment. Is that really what Mr Cameron said?
Labels: UK politics
Wednesday, October 03, 2007 :
I just walked past London mayoral candidate Boris Johnson, MP, stopped on his pushbike at the pedestrian crossing on Farringdon Road. I couldn’t think of anything to say other than “nice barnet” (which I didn’t say).
Labels: celebrity spots, london, UK politics
Wednesday, August 22, 2007 :
I thought this was a well observed article on why people are disproportionately worried about inheritance tax.
Labels: economics, UK politics
Tuesday, August 14, 2007 :
...the wrong lizard might get in
I recently re-read So Long and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams. The “Take me to your lizard” scene is a telling satire on Western democracy and neatly answers the question why anyone might vote for any of the proposed candidates for US President.
Labels: UK politics
Thursday, July 05, 2007 :
Are Mervyn King and the MPC in fact terrorists?
Part of my reaction to Islamic terrorists threatening to blow and/or actually blowing things and people up is the same as my reaction to the Bank of England threatening to put and/or actually putting interest rates up:
what the hell do you people actually want me/us to do?
Labels: economics, UK politics, war on terror
Monday, June 18, 2007 :
More fuss over Salman Rushdie, this time in a speech by Religious Affairs Minister Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq before the Pakistan Parliament, following the offer of a knighthood to Rushdie:
“The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the ‘Sir’ title”.
Isn’t that more or less saying:
“The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. Funnily enough, I now confirm, as Religious Affairs Minister in a country where the dominant political force is Islam, that my own views at least are extremist and that I support terrorist acts”.
These guys are so far on another planet with their moral compass it is unbelievable. Let’s get this straight: the bestowing by an irrelevant historical figurehead of a pointless honorific title on a bloke who eighteen years ago wrote something about a bloke, whom I believe received instructions 1,500 years ago from a supreme supernatural being who created the universe, smoking weed, which I find personally insulting, means that it would now be right for people to attempt to blow other people, and themselves, up, unless the British government apologises and arranges for the grant of the pointless honorific title to be revoked.
Er, taxi for Mr Ijaz ul-Haq?
Labels: UK politics, war on terror
Wednesday, June 13, 2007 :
What do we think of this new proposal to make Sex Offenders Register background checks available to women on new boyfriends and families on new relatives? It seems to me that the result of this would be to render the Sex Offenders Register pretty close to being a public document. Is that a good thing?
Labels: law, news, UK politics
Monday, April 30, 2007 :
Tax Freedom Day
Happy Tax Freedom Day. If you’re American, that is. According to the Adam Smith Institute, we in the UK have got another month of toil before Gordon Brown lets us start actually trousering the resultant wedge.
Labels: UK politics
Thursday, March 29, 2007 :
Speeding
So the House of Commons Transport Committee wants to limit the speed of motorcycles because they are dangerous and cause pollution.
Sounds fair enough, you might say. What is the possible justification for a vehicle being able to go over 70mph when that is the maximum permitted speed? The trouble with this is that it is an accepted part of living in a free country rather than a police state that many of the laws are drafted in a draconian way on the understanding that it is in fact perfectly acceptable to break them whenever you like as long as you don’t take the piss.
However, it has now become technologically possible to enforce many more of the laws absolutely than in the past. GPS in every car, linked to speed limit map and engine management system could prevent people from ever breaking the speed limit. Maximum speed limits at the top end could be just the beginning. They’ve already banned guns on an arguably shakier premise (in that despite its potential to be used for unlawful reasons, a gun can at least also be used for lawful reasons: there is no lawful reason for a road–licensed vehicle to do more than 70mph).
More and more CCTV cameras go up in London every day and before long it will be possible to nick and send out fixed penalties to each and every person who at any time commits a parking offence, traffic violation, piece of bad driving, or who spits gum on the floor or has a smoke when it’s raining in a “semi–enclosed area to which the general public habitually has access” (bus shelter). What’s the problem: if people aren't supposed to do it, they should expect to get punished for it. The problem is that it’s not how this country has historically worked and absolute law enforcement of relatively minor laws is absolutely an encroachment on day–to–day freedom.
Labels: driving, motorcycles, UK politics
Wednesday, March 14, 2007 :
Council Tax
I have written about this before, but it still seems to me that the stories about Council Tax revaluations are based upon flawed logic. It is often quoted that since Council tax bands were set in 1991, the average house price has increased threefold. The implication appears to be that everyone is going to face an enormous Council Tax increase if the bands are reassessed on current prices. You’re three times richer than you were in 1991, so you should pay three times the tax, right? And what about the pensioners? It’s not their fault that their two–bedroom London maisonette, where they’ve lived since 1946, is now worth £2,400,000. How are they going to pay the tax out of £85 a week?
It’s nonsense. Council Tax is about dividing the costs of local services fairly among local residents. The Government has decided that ‘fairness’ can be achieved by making contribution to services proportional to the value of property inhabited. It’s not a capital gains tax, based upon absolute increases in value. Therefore, it doesn’t actually matter much when the valuations were conducted, unless for some reason since the valuation, the prices of some residents’ properties have increased more than those of other residents. Pensioners only get screwed on revaluation if since 1991, their two–bedroom London maisonette has soared in value, while the value of the maisonette round the corner has remained static. If, as is likely, prices within a given area have more or less risen uniformly across the board, the pensioners will be in exactly the same position when bands are set on a revaluation as they were in 1991.
A related article talks about proposals to bring in a new band for houses of £1m plus, which will incur double the tax. This is hard to get particularly excited about either, but I accept that it may be somewhat more prone to producing unfairness. This is because £1m appears to be an arbitrary cut–off, leading to a stark increase. If the situation really is that in some Councils’ territories, historic house price inflation means that many houses are now above that limit, while many remain just below, it could look to be unfair. Greater fairness is obviously more likely to be achieved by a larger number of smaller incremental increases. But is it really the position that there are many income–poor people, particularly pensioners, living in £1m+ houses? I somehow doubt it. And if so, one reaction might be to say “lucky bastards; why don’t you release some equity or move to a cheaper pad, if the Council Tax payments really are unduly burdensome”.
Labels: economics, UK politics
Tuesday, March 13, 2007 :
EU farming subsidy
Farmers being paid by the EU not to produce crops that are not needed seemed mad enough in the first place. Now, it is alleged that the “decoupling” of those EU farming subsidies from the land to which they relate has resulted in the surreal dealing in the rights to receive EU payouts by “entitlement traders”.
“This is the final reduction to absurdity of the Common Agricultural Policy. Only the EU could have created a situation where people who are not farmers are paid not to farm” (Neil O’Brien, director of Open Europe).
Labels: economics, UK politics
Monday, March 12, 2007 :
Xenith?
I thought that the Tories’ anti–flying policies, announced over the weekend, sounded ridiculous and this article goes some way to explaning why they are. All the talk about “changing behaviour” using taxation is a euphamism for “people need to pay more tax so that poor people cannot afford to consume”. If they are to achieve anything, these policies require a reversal of progress and a reduction in standards of living for the non–elite.
Labels: science, UK politics
Thursday, February 01, 2007 :
I was going to post something about the current outcry about lack of rape convictions, but Camilla Cavendish in the Times makes the point well.
Labels: law, UK politics
Racism
I appreciate that I am well off the pace with this one, but I have had more important things to worry about, like being hounded by various London Councils with their demands for unjustified fines in relation to fanciful offences.
However, I am sure that it will not have escaped you in the meantime how extremely stupid it is that a programme which documents what happens when one incarcerates a number of stupid egomaniacs in a confined space has had such an impact on worldwide political and media debate, to the extent that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been compelled to make a statement of apology to the outraged, effigy–burning people of India.
One might think that this Big Brother debate is something of an irrelevance, when our neighbors are apparently proposing to kidnap members of our armed forces in order to torture and behead them on live webcasts. Never mind what is happening in Iraq. However, the Government’s terror about being seen to condone racism is revealed by the statement from Tom Kelly, Downing Street spokesman:
“What clearly is to be regretted and countered is if there is any perception abroad that in any way we tolerate racism in this country. What the response to the programme has shown is precisely the opposite: that there is no level of toleration in this country for anything which, rightly or wrongly, is perceived to be racist. The message should go out from this country loud and clear that we are a tolerant country and we will not tolerate racism in any way.”
That is not the statement of a tolerant country. It is the statement of a hysterical, terrified country. We are so bloody tolerant that according to the spokesman for our Prime Minister, “there is no level of toleration in this country for anything which, rightly or wrongly, is perceived to be racist”. What a position to adopt! If any nutcase, at home or abroad, entirely without justification, feels that the British are being racist, the message is that this Government will not rest until the racist sons–of–bitches responsible have been hammered.
Slow down, Tom Kelly. Here is some advice. We should stop pandering to people who insist upon getting outraged and offended at everything in order to promote their own agendas. Instead, we should treat these as the childish tantrums that they are. The Government should stop being so terrified about looking bad in the media and actually try offering some strong leadership and common sense. Jade Goody should kick herself for making herself look like an ignorant bitch and potentially throwing away a highly remunerative career being a professional idiot (jury’s out on this one — a highly remunerative career being a professional recovering former racist in rehab idiot may still be available). Shilpa Shetty should continue laughing all the way to the bank and enjoying the millions of pounds that will now no doubt flow in her direction thanks to the hard work of Max Clifford.
Labels: TV, UK politics
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 :
Single parents
So there’s a big drive from John Hutton to get single parents back into work. As Alice Miles points out in the linked article, a lot of this comes down to the money and where the parent fits into the earnings league table. It makes sense for a single parent partner in a law firm to pay someone to look after their kids while they go out and earn three quarters of a million quid. However, underlying the debate on the need for “affordable” (i.e. state subsidised) childcare, to enable the less high earners to rejoin the workforce too, lies the question of whether or not it is crazy for the state to pay to look after someone’s children so that they can go out to work and earn less than the amount that it is costing the state to have their kids looked after. Why not just give them the money and let them look after their own kids?
If the argument is that it may be beneficial for the single parent’s spiritual growth if he or (still much more usually) she goes back into work even if that actually costs the taxpayer more money overall, well, that’s a pretty interesting policy. For one thing, it amounts to subsidising low–paying employers, who are effectively paying a wage which is not otherwise viable in the market. And in the situation where the single parent does not want to work, and would rather take the benefits and look after their kids, it is significant extension of the nanny state to insist that they work nevertheless, even where this gives rise to a net cost to the taxpayer. Even if the single parents do want to take on economically unviable jobs, because it improves their self esteem, or enhances their social network, or whatever, is that a good reason for this to be funded by the taxpayer? Or could one say that they chose to have kids and have to bear the economic and social consequences of having done so? Are the obligations of a civilised society fulfilled by offering benefits so that once the kids have arrived, if the parent’s job is not enough to support the family, appropriate benefits are offered, in as cost–effective a manner as possible, to support the family in looking after the kids without the parent working?
I suppose in answering that question, we need to consider whether or not we have now reached the stage where the state benefits package must act as an incentive for people to have kids even if they cannot afford them, because the demographics of the country (caused by people living longer and the middle class giving up procreation) mean that otherwise we are going to run out of young people and become extinct as a nation.
Labels: UK politics
Tuesday, January 09, 2007 :
Climate change
Although he is getting slated for it, I cannot help thinking that Tony Blair’s latest comments on climate change represent the reality of the situation as far as the UK is concerned. If he is correct that even if we reduced our CO2 emissions to zero, this would cut world levels by only 2%, an amount that would be replaced by the growth of emissions from China within 2 years, then, really, what’s the point?
Labels: UK politics
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