In Place of Cuts

[butchersapron]

Interesting looking report from Compass, the soft-left labour Party grouping. Obviously not going to be too radical, but it looks useful in identifying in immediately practical alternatives to the promised "savage cuts". Richard Murphy from Tax Research UK is involved which is usually a good sign. Very briefly, the main planks are:

The tax system has become more regressive in the last 30 years, so that the poorest tenth pay 46% of their earnings in tax while the richest tenth only pay 34%. That tax shift coincided with a widening gap in earnings: the richest fifth of households take 51% of national income while the poorest fifth receive 3%. By raising the top tax rate to 50% for earnings over £100,000 and uncapping the top rate of national insurance, the balance can be reset.

Other necessary reforms would set capital gains tax back where it was under Nigel Lawson, at the same rate as income tax – to stop the rich rebranding much of their income as capital gains, only taxed at 18%. That is a key reason why on average they pay only 34% tax, and not the 40% they should. To help the lowest paid, the 10p tax band would be restored and the basic rate put back to 22%. Non-doms could no longer pretend to live in Monaco while living in the UK for four working days a week. A Tobin tax on financial transactions, tougher tax-avoidance measures, and the axing of Trident, ID cards, aircraft carriers and fighter planes, brings total savings to £47bn a year.

The potential political implications for labour adopting this plan are interesting too, definite vote winner IMO. They be mad not to take on board something like this.

Polling conducted by Compass shows such measures would be hugely popular:
- 78% would like to see a tax system whereby the richest 10% at least pay the same percentage of their income in tax as the poorest 10%, only 14% disagree
- 59% would like to see the re-introduction of the 10p tax band - with only 13% against
- 62% would like to see the tax reform measures (detailed below) that increase the incomes of 90% of households with 24% against

In Place of Cuts: Tax reform to build a fairer society - full report
Guardian summary and comments #1 and #2

 

[Jeff Robinson]

This report could potentially be a valuable weapon against the savage cuts agenda and therefore deserves to be circulated as widely as possible.

 

[goldenecitrone]

If Brown took any notice of this and acted on it, I wonder if it would save his arse.

 

[treelover]

Impressive stuff,there are also new 'equality campaign' groups being set up across the country based on the Spirit Level book, I sense a little social democratic momentum growing.

http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/

 

[fractionMan]

Makes sense to me.

 

[rern]

I have just signed up here & do not know if there is a welcome area but I have been invited by a poster called monster munch who says here is a place we can discuss current affairs properly.

 

[Lo Siento.]

weird Barbara Castle reference in the title?

 

[treelover]

HI Rern, this is for domestic politics,there is a forum for world pols and middle east, oh,and one forthe naughty bit of politics, 'protest' which I never now post in

 

[rern]

HI Rern, this is for domestic politics,there is a forum for world pols and middle east, oh,and one forthe naughty bit of politics, 'protest' which I never now post in

Thank you for that. I am exploring the site & it is massive.

 

[Rod Sleeves]

weird Barbara Castle reference in the title?

Makes perfect sense when you think who wrote this, and who it is aimed at - the soft left who position themselves firmly in the same tradition as Barbara Castle.

I agree that this could be a rallying call for what's left of the social democratic element in the Labour party - whether Brown will listen I don't know, but I am sure the Blairites will organise against it.

 

[tbaldwin]

I think that some public spending cuts are needed. There should definetely be a cap on higher wages in the public sector. Trident should be scrapped so should subsidies to the privatised transport companies. Under New Labour the amount of money spent on Health and Education has gone up massivelly. Jobs have been created that are not useful or productive and its inevitable that there will have to be cuts in public sector jobs.
VAT should be cut to 10%. Taxation should be cut for people earning under £30,000 and raised for those earning over £50,000.

 

[sleaterkinney]

I think this thing of massive cuts is a bit of a red herring tbh, if they hang onto their shares in the banks until the swing back gets underway they could easily get their money back.

 

[doddles]

Interesting looking report from Compass, the soft-left labour Party grouping. Obviously not going to be too radical, but it looks useful in identifying in immediately practical alternatives to the promised "savage cuts".

Totally agree with their suggestions, particularly the point about capital gains. Income tax bands should be based on percentile income though, IMO - that means that it self-adjusts for shifts in absolute income, etc.

 

[butchersapron]

I think this thing of massive cuts is a bit of a red herring tbh, if they hang onto their shares in the banks until the swing back gets underway they could easily get their money back.

Not sure you get what 'savage cuts' means. Shares going up ain't quite it.

 

[treelover]

Well, its made me look at the Compass site and i have no involvement in politics anymore, apart from posting here

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Sorry to return to an old theme, but Compass really get on my tits with stuff like this. The ideas are solid enough, though far from genius, but they are whistling in the wind. They recently had a series of 10 "No Turning Back" demands: 9 were Green Party policy. 6 were Libdem policy. None were Labour policy.

Likewise, the Co-op Party manifesto is shot through with Green policy, devoid of Labour policy. They support right wing filth, campaign for right wing filth and then expect exoneration for their "4 legs good, 2 legs better" brand of phoney left capitalism.

I was chatting with some comrades the other night about the old "left unity" chestnut. One observed that the biggest obstacle isn't the SWs or the gaps between some socialists and greens : it is the phoney left contingent of the Labour Party.

Compass can campaign for anti cuts and taxing the rich more all they like. Come next spring they will be pounding the streets for a party of cuts and serving the interests of the rich.

 

[butchersapron]

Not if this soppy left stuff is taken up. Either way, my position is fuck labour, no vote for them.

Your utter hypocrisy on this always makes me sick.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

The polling cited may look good for Labour adopting populist left policies. They dont need to win populist left votes as much as centerist votes that would be put off by aspects of tax policy.

Labour had 12 years to bring in a better system of democracy. They weren't interested. They had 12 years to bring in public ownership of transport and other sectors. Not arsed. They are committed to banks and corporations. Compass are very much part of the problem without even the honest decency to admit it.

 

[butchersapron]

Look, tool, looking at what you want isn't what they're looking at. That's not what labour strategy planners are thinking about - how do we get back the raving loon bilderberg obsessed green nutter vote. You're not important. What is important is old labour voters from 2001/97, that's all they need. Doesn't matter what the tories do after that.

 

[moon23]

Sorry to return to an old theme, but Compass really get on my tits with stuff like this. They are whistling in the wind. They recently had a series of 10 "No Turning Back" demands: 9 were Green Party policy. 6 were Libdem policy. None were Labour policy. They are mere phoney left muppet apologists for war crimes, banker puppetry and corruption.

Likewise, the Co-op Party manifesto is shot through with Green policy, devoid of Labour policy. They support right wing filth, campaign for right wing filth and then expect exoneration for their "4 legs good, 2 legs better" brand of phoney left capitalism.

I was chatting with some comrades the other night about the old "left unity" chestnut. One observed that the biggest obstacle isn't the SWs or the gaps between some socialists and greens : it is the phoney left contingent of the Labour Party.

Compass can campaign for anti cuts all they like. Come next spring they will be pounding the streets for a party of cuts.

Your are probably right to be critical, but I guess Compass at least have a shot at some of these ideas getting built into either Lib-Dem or Labour policy. Which is going to be something at least.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Your are probably right to be critical, but I guess Compass at least have a shot at some of these ideas getting built into either Lib-Dem or Labour policy. Which is going to be something at least.

Not Labour policy if history is anything to go by. Libdem possibly, though they wouldnt admit it and have enough people to the left of Labour enough to think up this kind of thing anyway.

Campaign against climate change put a load of ideas to Labour MPs to sign up to, they bore remarkable similarity to Green Party ideas. does this mean the Greens have influenced much in this instance? Not very likely. Having a Labour MP say they will do something is probably next to useless unless it's to make excuses for war criminals, banksters and the like.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Look, tool, looking at what you want isn't what they're looking at. That's not what labour strategy planners are thinking about - how do we get back the raving loon bilderberg obsessed green nutter vote. You're not important. What is important is old labour voters from 2001/97, that's all they need. Doesn't matter what the tories do after that.

Compass have been asking for this kind of thing for many years and not getting it. I know they aint after the votes of people like me, it's just that people like me are actually a better bet to see through their programme.

The best they can hope for is that after 12 years of right wing government, Labour will suddenly adopt this programme for an election before promptly ditching it if they get back in. Labour run stuff up the flagpole nearly every day for PravdaGraun to spout off about. The Tobin tax episode was bizzare indeed, and all that guff about changing the voting system. It's rot. They are stumbling around in the dark, hopelessly trying to convinve us that Business as Usual will pull us out of the shit.


Labour have too much form to trust them an inch and they dont have a programme for dealing with the monetary system which caused much of the percieved "need" for cuts in the first place.

This isnt to say that what Compass are saying is bad. but it's not as if it's much different from what lots of leftists have been saying. It certainly chimes with Green policy, sadly the largest anti-cuts party going into the next election.

The problem is that Compass espouse one set of interests and operate for another. No amount of namecalling against me can alter that.

Labour's betrayals, and the complicity and apologism of the phoney left in their war crimes and capitalist shag-ups should never be underestimated or forgotten. If the other Conservative Party had done the same things in power they would have been fought tooth and nail by Labour. 4 legs good. 2 legs better.

 

[glenquagmire]

I was chatting with some comrades the other night about the old "left unity" chestnut. One observed that the biggest obstacle isn't the SWs or the gaps between some socialists and greens : it is the phoney left contingent of the Labour Party.

Heh. Well, obviously you're talking shite as usual, but even if you weren't I'd be quite happy to participate in a strategy which kept fucking lunatics like you away from power.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

I know they aint after the votes of people like me, it's just that people like me are actually a better bet to see through their programme.

You think there are enough people out there who share your politics to swing the next general election for Labour...really?

Louis (astonished) MacNeice

 

[agricola]

The argument should not really be whether cuts are or are not needed, but where the cuts should take place.

Brown and Cameron will further cut into key public services and pay private companies more to do a worse job - Cameron of course intending to apply this to education in addition to everything else that Labour have subjected to this magnificent economy drive. PFI deals continue to be approved even though they are more expensive to the State than the alternative - either in terms of government borrowing to set it up (the latest Eye claim its, on average, £23 million more) or in the long term (IIRC that most PFI hospital trusts are currently in the red and will be for the forseeable future). It is this deliberate waste (this of course includes nonsense like ID Cards) that must go first, followed quickly afterwards by the bank shares.

There should be no further tax rises for anyone until the idiocy that infests current government finance is dealt with.

 

[trevhagl]

If Brown took any notice of this and acted on it, I wonder if it would save his arse.

i suspect too many friends in high places though

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Heh. Well, obviously you're talking shite as usual, but even if you weren't I'd be quite happy to participate in a strategy which kept fucking lunatics like you away from power.

So you call someone a liar with no reason at all, then live up to your usernames tagline. Should I be a non loony like the people who fucked the economy?

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

You think there are enough people out there who share your politics to swing the next general election for Labour...really?

Louis (astonished) MacNeice

I think you may be responding to a point different from that which I made. But as it happens I think there probably are, they are the people Butchers is referring to - genuine centre leftists who are sick to death of a right wing Labour party.

 

[glenquagmire]

So you call someone a liar with no reason at all, then live up to your usernames tagline. Should I be a non loony like the people who fucked the economy?

I don't remember calling anyone a liar, I was making the point that talk a load of shite.

Nor do I really care what sort of loony you choose to be; there's always the ignore button if it makes my eyes bleed too much.

Cuckoo.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

I don't remember calling anyone a liar, I was making the point that talk a load of shite.

Nor do I really care what sort of loony you choose to be; there's always the ignore button if it makes my eyes bleed too much.

Cuckoo.

I wasnt talking shite that the conversation took place. So long as I'm not the sort of loony who commits war crimes and gets the country into the best part of £1,000,000,000,000 debt then I'm hard pressed to be as loony as the Labour government and Compass activists who campaign on their behalf.