An insight into Westminster.

[davywavy]

Running your own business really makes you aware of just how iniquitous the tax regime in this country really is; the government sneaks it’s hand into your pocket using any pretence – except, of course, by using the word ‘tax’ directly. It can be bloody frustrating to hear the wide selection of politicians claiming just how much less you’re paying to HMG in real terms, when it’s bloody plain from even the briefest of perusals of your finances that nothing could be further from the truth. How this has come about was something of a mystery to me until it came to me in a flash of realisation; at some point in 1998-1999 Tony Blair must have realised that he couldn’t actually afford to pay for all the stuff he’d promised, and so he and Gordon Brown sat down and had a conversation which will have gone something like this:

TB: Gordon, I need more money. I was wondering if perhaps you could get the gnomes to dig a little harder? There’s lots to pay for; new quangos to create, a big tent to get put up, Peters friend Pablo needs a new flat, and Prescott’s Jaguars won’t drive themselves, you know.
GB: Gnomes, Tony?
TB: Yes, the gnomes. In the gold mine.
GB: Gold Mine?
TB: Why, yes. Where else would all this money you have in the exchequer come from? I always assumed that there was a big gold mine under Westminster and it was just being dug up. After all, there always seems to be lots of it!
GB: Och, Jings! Ye Bampot! There’s nae gold mine! It’s all taxes, Tony, taxes.
TB: Taxes?
GB: Aye, Taxes. Everyone in the country gives some of their money to the government.
TB: Do they, by God? I never thought of that. Does this mean I have to give all of them knighthoods and positions too?
GB: Och, no. Ye only have tae do that if they give voluntarily. Most people have tae pay tax or else we send ‘em to prison!
TB: Well, I have to say it seems very generous of them all the same. Certainly more generous than I’ve ever been, and I’m a pretty generous kind of guy.
GB: Aye.
TB: It doesn’t really seem very fair that we send them to prison if they don’t pay, don’t you think?
GB: Ye disnae understand. If ye add up aal the tax they pay, they have tae work seven months of the year to pay it aal! If we get it up tae twelve then that’s true socialism!
TB: So who decides how much of this ‘tax’ they give us?
GB: Why, Tony, ye and me. Ye and me.
TB: Why, there are simply lots and lots of people out there, so if each of them gives us just a little bit then we've get a great big amount of money?
GB (Smugly): Aye.
TB: So if each of them gave is a bit more, then it'd all add up to lot's more money! Gordon. I have a radical idea which I will call "raising" the "taxes." It's brilliant! It can't fail!
GB (Goes white as a sheet): Hoots! Ye Sassenach eejit! Ye caanae do that or else they’ll vote us oot!
TB: But I’ve got to have more money to give to the European Union? Where will it come from? There are only so many more army divisions I can disband you know.
GB: Aye, well, I’ve had a braw canny idea, if’n ye’re interested.
TB: Go on?
GB: Well, there’s this tax called ‘National Insurance’ that everyone thinks pays for health and pensions and so on – but it disnae. The bawbees we get from that just go into the exchequer, same as everything else. But the public dinnae know that, on the whole – we can raise that.
TB: Sounds good. Any other ideas?
GB: Crivvens, aye. We can lift tax relief on pensions. Naebody will notice how much this’ll impact on them for years – and by then we’ll be long retired to Mustique and wilnae have to worry about getting re-elected!
TB: But what about my pension? I can’t ask Cherie to pay for everything, you know.
GB: Dinnae fash. Oor pensions are index-linked so we wilnae feel the pinch.

And that’s the way it happened.

Comments

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

*thinks about how much in taxes and NHS she pays*

Let's go fucking gnome hunting.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Well, the way he's spending it, one can only draw the conculsion that Tony thinks that money is free.

Oh, hang on, it is to him.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Did you see the Labour platform published today? What a load of crap!

Expanding economic and educational opportunity for all
Sure, how about those top up fees then?

Personalizing public services
What the hell does that even mean? My Doctor will now call me Tiffany instead of Mrs. Craig?

Tacking the problems of poor families and deprived neighborhoods
1. A lack of access to adequate education due to expense
2. Those insane Ofcom regulators who are making it difficult to even run a school, nevermind do it well.
3. Welfare reliant folks
4. Economic deprivation, caused by a lack of access to jobs and education which in turn fuels race conflict and drug use.

Pursuing tough law and order agenda

That's right, throw them all into prison. That's an excellent idea.

Promoting retirement as an opportunity, not a threat

Hahahhahahahhahahahah, with what fucking pension?!!

Promoting a tolerant multi-cultural society while tackling abuse of asylum and immigration procedures

Do people actually believe this? I thought the number of applications had gone down? Does David Blunkett really believe The Sun?

Building international support for problems such as climate change and the poverty of Africa

That's just. Holy Christ. Do people actually believe this shit?

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Damn, I wish you could edit comments, there's an errant italics tag in there somewhere. In my rage about the utter stupidity of Tony Blair I forgot to proof read.

Ah well, you get the idea.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

I sympathise. I find it impossible to even think about Blair without becoming apoplectic and incoherent with murderous rage.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It doesn't usually take murderous rage to make you incoherent?

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

No, boredom, contempt and despair work just as well.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Tony does, thats the problem.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

That is it in a nutshell, sadly.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Labours wallowing in it's own self satisfaction and are run by reranged lunatics intent, it would seem, on a police state.
The conservatives not so much haven't got a clue as don't even know what a clue is in the first place.
We're doomed I tell you.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

He's really rather stupid, isn't he? I read that and can't actually find any substantial statements. The majority of it is blatant, flat out rhetoric. It will mean something different to the white trash downstairs, then it will Receptionist, then it will to myself.

There actually is a party platform for our Democrats, which is nice. (The Republicans are doing the Tony Blair thing at the moment, lots of warm fuzzies that don't mean anything.)

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Thats it; politics is being reduced to buzz words and jingles for the Sun readers of this world who don't actually bother thinking and have their ideas compressed into easily consumed sound bytes.
People who can think without turning to page three and go "Oooo boobies" seem to be in a depressing minority.

The situation in the US is ridicious, it's half politics, half character assassination, half powermongering... okay, so I can't add.
I'm not going to comment on which of the two I'd rather won...

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Incidentally it's really tempting to find an old picture of you and photoshop it into this pic; not sure theres a cheesy enough grin pic of you tho'...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Ha! I'm sure we can find one...

I wonder if there are pics of my Giovanni? He was based on Blair.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

You find the picture, I'll do the tweaking :)

[jonnyargles.livejournal.com]

Well, Income Tax was your lot in the first place; Pitt the Younger introduced it to boost his war chest in the Napoleonic wars.

If you're such a Maggie fan, do you take public transport to work?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Why, yes I do.

[jonnyargles.livejournal.com]

Didn't she say, "Any man who still takes the bus to work at thirty must consider himself a failure?"

Not that getting the wife to drop you off constitutes a great social leap, either.

I still don't see how you can defend her; I'm hoping it's in a Nietzchean exemplar way rather than generic adoration. I know it's fashionable to mock the party in charge, but a lot of the flack the current legislation are suffering is due to a combination of the poisoned chalice inherited 8 years ago and worldwide economic slowdowns. The French and Germans refer to the 'British economic miracle' and marvel as to how we've staved off the recession for so long. That, at least, is something Maggie can take credit for: she did destroy the manufacturing industry in this country the first place, who suffered the brunt of the recession.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Dunno - did she? I wouldn't use the bus, there's too much chance of nits and the pox from the unwashed. By 'public transport' I mean GNER - the privatised rail service who are a shining exemplar of how taking such things away from central control can dramatically improve service.

I don't see how I can't *not* defend her; she oversaw an economic miracle, stripped out the fat of overly subsidised inefficient state-run industries, and crushed the self-interest of the unions (something which had been needed for a very long time). Where's the problem?

[ex-boog351.livejournal.com]

Its funny, but for the first few years in office Gordon Brown actually did a decent job. The reason? Labour made an election pledge to stick to Tory spending plans for the first few years of office. This, combined with independence of the Bank of England and abandonment of trying to peg the pound to other currencies created stable economic conditions in which businesses to flourish and jobs to grow. Of course, they slowly built up the stealth taxes, but it wasn't until the election pledge passed its expiry date that they began taxing everything that moved and pretending they were cutting taxes all along. That's when they started going crazy and bringing in the socialist ideals of high tax and spend. This actually helped the UK economy during the worldwide recession as we were able to engage in a good old bit of Keynesian demand management whilst the private sector recovered. The problem is now that they have not stopped their little spree - and they are crowding out private enterprise. Silly buggers, getting carried away with their own success.

Of course, there are long-term systemic problems such as the ageing population, low health-spend/capita and badly outdated transport networks that require large sums of money. Whether we do that through private investment or taxation is another matter. If we do it through taxation, the best way is through a progressive income tax - fairest for all imho.

However, if I were in charge I would set hard and fast rules about the mix between private and public spend in the country (lower than it is now), much in the way we have targets for inflation, and allow some variance around that to account for where we are in the business cycle.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I did start out rather liking Brown - I'd been advocating the independence of the Bank of england for some years and when he did it I nodded shrewdly and muttered 'smart lad'. What worries me about his subsequent competance is that he drew up a long-term spending plan based on the economic growth figures derived during the biggest bubble market in recent history - and now, rather than adapt his plans to changed conditions, is doggedly sticking to his plans which requires a higher percentage tax take - and he's achieving that with what is essentially outright theft from pension funds, amongst other strategies such as banning tax avoidance as well as tax evasion (an iniquitous strategy to say the least).

[ex-boog351.livejournal.com]

Everyone said when he based those spending plans on high growth that he failed to take the fluctuation of the business cycle into account.

Of course, politically he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Socialists have been demanding higher public spend for years and had been disappointed Labour hadn't fleeced the rich as soon as it came into power. On the other hand, Labour had been elected by re-establishing its credibility with the electorate as a moderate party that wouldn't go on a tax and spend rampage and would instead like Kinnock and Foot always threatened to do.

To give Labour credit - they have ended the boom and bust cycle (and we have overtaken most of Europe in GDP / capita) - but they are in danger of blowing that achievement if they don't re-impose hard fiscal rules. Under the current plans they will be OK as long as the world economy remains relatively buoyant - but a recession in the US or a really huge leap in oil prices could put pay to that.

Taxing pension funds is a pretty stupid move, but I don't see the problem with cracking down on tax avoidance - unless you mean they are being disingenuous.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

The legal principal which tax avoidance worked around, until recently, was "There is no legal or moral requirement upon anybody to so arrange their finances to allow the tax inspector to take the biggest possible slice". This how now been changed.

I doubt they have changed the boom & bust cycle. Two points on interest rates and we'll see another bust as the credit boom comes to a screeching halt and a lot of people will suffer on the back of that.

[ex-boog351.livejournal.com]

Its possibly true that the debt bubble will pop and the subsequent house price crash (I hope thats what will happen, anway) could see us slip into a recession. However, this is not the same as earlier boom and bust cycles. There, low prices and government intervention built up inflationary pressures so that high growth meant that instead of investment in new resources and production techniques - existing resources were over-utilised and so inflation had to be controlled by hiking interest rates. This time things are slightly different, low inflation has led to greater investment and helped us overtake the French economy. The concern is that consumer spending has expanded on the back of a growth in debt. Part of this may be a sustainable increase due to greater certainty and stability in the business cycle. A debt-driven recession wouldn't necessarily mean a return to boom and bust through the business cycle as long as the government maintained its discretionary monetary policy. Real interest rates are actually still lower than they were during boom and bust, and economic growth is hardly galloping out of control.

Actually, what is needed are some constraints on the consumer credit market

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

Most amusing. Of course British politics is doomed. Michael Portillo will never be Prime Minister.

I have to confess, though, that I wouldn't mind boffing Gordon Brown. I'm sure it would help turn him to the right.