Ed Miliband: regrets, he’s had a few…
The Cabinet Office minister Ed Miliband on the matter of the abolition of the 10 per cent tax rate making people worse off:
When you make a big set of changes in the tax system, some people do lose out. That is a matter of regret.
Strong words, I ‘m sure you’ll agree. But who will be doing the lion’s share of regretting, I wonder? Miliband Minor or the likes of Victoria Forester?
As it is I always try to buy the cheapest own-brand groceries but it’s never enough. I’d love a fresh wardrobe but I can’t remember the last time I bought new clothes.
What does the term ‘Labour Government’ mean to you? Does it mean this? Making poor people poorer? It’s like the 75 pence pension rise all over again. Gordon Brown insists that not making these people worse off would be ‘playing to the gallery’.
Apparently that term means ‘the general public, usually considered as exemplifying a lack of discrimination or sophistication‘. That’s us he’s talking about, the people at whose pleasure he serves. I’d say he’s right in the sense that we show those qualities when choosing our leaders.
People on lower incomes would be no worse served by choosing who they vote for with a pin and taking their chances. There are some of us who still retain the ability to be surprised by this kind of thing. That is a matter of regret. How does one foster a blind spot to all this? Is it a do-it-yourself lobotomy or something? I for one would probably be a lot happier.
(Link via RickB)
Update: The view from higher ground:
The amounts lost by childless low earners in this week’s tax changes are relatively small - about £230 a year at most - and relatively easily defended.
A ‘relatively small’ sum for who? Times columnists? It’s a lot of money to most. Alice Miles is on safe ground because she’s speaking over the heads of the proles. This isn’t an argument for the likes of them.
Posted on April 9th, 2008 at 7:43 am
| See also • David Miliband: Regrets, he’s had a few. But then again… • Life on other planets • Mohamed ElBaradei: trying too hard |
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What did they think would happen if they abolished that tax band?
ejh’s last blog post..Spain
Well, according to Gordon’s 2007 Budget speech, there were ‘more focused ways of incentivising work and directly supporting children’ hence the abolition.
I think that means that to prosper in Britain you have to work even harder and have kids but it’s rather hard to tell.
“When you make a big set of changes in the tax system, some people do lose out”
Not if you cut taxes, you idiot.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
Not if you cut taxes, you idiot.
I wonder if this is the most stupid thing I’ll read all day?
I was going to add to my original post (before being sidetracked by the fatuity above) that as I’ve said before on here, there is a genuine problem, which is that revenue needs to be raised for the functioning of society and its infrastructure, and nobody wants to pay for it. Least of all, affluent Tories braying about high spending and low taxes and pretending to be badly off when in fact they’ve never been better off in all their history.
So the reason “stealth” taxes happen, or in general why there is buggering about with tax rates other than the standard rate (which everybody knows about) or the top rate (which the Tories care most about) is that governments adopt a policy of doing it on the quiet. To my mind this is what happens if you have an infantile political culture where everybody pretends that they’re paying too much tax and that it all goes on waste or corruption or into the government’s pockets.
ejh’s last blog post..Spain
Isn’t the thinking here that £12k is perfectly liveable on (and it is: been there, done that, got the £1 Asda t-shirt) if you’re physically able and don’t have kids?
So the woman in the Beeb article who can’t actually walk anywhere is screwed, and ought to get [indeed, is entitled to if the story checks out] some kind of benefit to help her with transport. But the young girl and young bloke who’re just complaining about not having as much cash as they’d like - while running a car in the bloke’s case and probably the girl’s as well - can sod right off…
In theory, the cash would be better targeted at people who don’t have any money and have dependent children, at which point £12k becomes nowhere near liveable. And yeah, I know that’s probably not how it’ll work out, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong from a redistribution point of view about targeting tax rises towards people with higher disposable incomes.
john b’s last blog post..From the department of ?couldn’t make it up?
With ‘targeting’ being the operative word, John. They’re using a shotgun not a sniper’s rifle.
Abolishing the 10p is a blunt instrument and nowhere in any of this is the mention of those higher up who definitely do have higher disposable incomes.
I just think however you slice it, with the cost of necessities continuing to rise, this is a shocking policy from a Labour government.
As with most things they do these days, it’s appallingly badly timed given the last year or so’s economic woes. Someone, somewhere should have been re-thinking large sections of Labour’s priorities for government around about last summer/autumn.
£230 is about a couple of months worth of food. I’d say that’s a lot of money, especially if you have to count the pennies.
That’s us he’s talking about, the people at whose pleasure he serves
Really? At our pleasure? Since when? Who elected him? Come to that, how many people elected his predecessor? And how many people don’t want either of the braying loons who lead the two major parties as PM, yet find that they have no realistic alternatives?
He serves at someone’s pleasure, certainly, but I don’t think it’s ours.
Really? At our pleasure? Since when?
I meant in theory.
It’s also about 6 months’ worth of electric bills for me and the missus.
Hmmm… Fuel poverty, eh?
Nosemonkey’s last blog post..Anyone else having problems with Wordpress 2.5?
Meh - confusing comment system, Mr McK - that was meant to be a reply to Nick.
Nosemonkey’s last blog post..Anyone else having problems with Wordpress 2.5?
Luddite.
Is Gordon Brown “a braying loon”? Does he bray? Is he a loon?
ejh’s last blog post..Spain
He brays slowly, and at a very low pitch.
So the woman in the Beeb article who can’t actually walk anywhere is screwed, and ought to get [indeed, is entitled to if the story checks out] some kind of benefit to help her with transport.
(* my bold)
In a fair society she would be entitled to benefits for her disability. But under Labour this isn’t a fair world. As she works, she cannot get Incapacity benefit; Disability Living Allowance is being cut back, by the use of private companies, and newly restrictive entitlement decisions.
There is a “Decision Maker’s book” the government hands out to the private companies now running disability benefits, which lays out who can claim and on what premise, with sections for all illnesses. The rules for claimants with back pain - and many other illnesses and disabilities - have recently changed, meaning the amount of evidence needed to support a claim of disability is huge and the testimony of the claimant herself, or that of her GP does not hold any weight against the opinion of the private doctors who assesses her for 20 minutes. These private companies are anyway paid by the government to reduce the number of successful claims. A conflict of interest in anyone’s book.
The amount of time, stress and energy needed to fight the system becomes prohibitive whilst working. Therefore she doesn’t claim the benefits, and the government can say it is reducing the number of claimants.
Result!
The government no doubt ran the numbers and calculated that they could afford to piss off single people who earn less than 18,500. These people either don’t vote at all or won’t vote for Labour anyway. If the former, maybe they’ll start to take more notice of Westminster now that it has screwed them.
Not true. 18 to 24-year-olds, if they vote, tend to vote Labour and they’re the ones getting must screwed if they earn under £18,500 (as most undoubtedly do) as they’re not eligible for tax credits.
septicisle’s last blog post..Mea culpa.
“When you make a big set of changes in the tax system, some people do lose out”
But why is it almost always the ones who can afford it the least..?
It’s their own fault for not owning newspapers or hedge funds.
As Tony Blair once said to Alastair Cambell:
Isn’t it great? When we were running Backing Blair, I seriously thought the Labour Party wouldn’t, nay, couldn’t possibly let itself be led by someone less suitable than Tony Blair. No way would they simply anoint Brown, a man with so many flaws even my dog could do a better job. But they bloody well did.
And so it continues, vote Labour and get screwed, vote Conservative and get screwed or vote LibDem and get screwed by a Tory or Labour government.
It is about time that our elected representatives (oi, stop laughing at the back) experienced the thrill of adventure tasted by Charles I in 1642.
Clive’s last blog post..For Paul Staines aka Guido Fawkes, a question
“But under Labour this isn’t a fair world.”
Is anyone else a bit distrusting of people who make arguments that sound broadly left-liberal, but use lines like the above? It sometimes seems like an insidious way of implying things would be better for [the poor / disabled people / whatever other group is being discussed] under the Tories. Which, for the avoidance of doubt, is not true.
Also, AIUI Atos Origin has the national contract for disability assessment work and its fee is based on the amount of work done, not on the number of applicants turned down. If you’ve got any evidence to the contrary I’d be keen to see it (and I agree that it would be wrong to pay them that way, for obvious reasons).
john b’s last blog post..From the department of ?couldn’t make it up?
Is anyone else a bit distrusting of people who make arguments that sound broadly left-liberal, but use lines like the above? It sometimes seems like an insidious way of implying things would be better for [the poor / disabled people / whatever other group is being discussed] under the Tories. Which, for the avoidance of doubt, is not true.
Yes, we know that: I might have made the distinction between a Labour government (who might do something for the poor such as redistributive taxation) and New Labour (which, well…see Justin’s original post).
It is about time that our elected representatives ….experienced the thrill of adventure tasted by Charles I in 1642
You mean we should raise our standard at Hull?
ejh’s last blog post..Spain
Er, I thought Charles raised the Royal Standard at Nottingham on 25th August. Hull was where Sir John Hotham told Charles to piss off, before kicking his arse when he tried to force entry to the city.
I was thinking more along the lines of chasing Parliament out of London in fear for their safety.
Clive’s last blog post..For Paul Staines aka Guido Fawkes, a question
Er, I thought Charles raised the Royal Standard at Nottingham on 25th August. Hull was where Sir John Hotham told Charles to piss off, before kicking his arse when he tried to force entry to the city.
I was thinking more along the lines of chasing Parliament out of London in fear for their safety.
On the first of these, you’re quite right, and - having studied the Civil War for my undergraduate degree* - I should be ashamed of myself.
On the second of these, I stopped being amused by “eccentric” barking-mad opinions at roughly the same time as the aforementioned studies.
[* under Keith Thomas, no less]
ejh’s last blog post..Spain
Meh, be proper liberals. Raise the personal allowance to £12 k.
Tim Worstall’s last blog post..Timmy Elsewhere
Nah, let’s be really radical. Scrap income tax altogether, simplify and if necessary increase the level of inheritance tax and flat rate VAT. Earn as much as you like, but if you spend it then you pay tax, and when you die, your estate coughs up. An incentive to get out there and earn, and with a simplified system, we could probably make at least 50% of HMRC redundant.
Clive’s last blog post..For Paul Staines aka Guido Fawkes, a question
An incentive to get out there and earn
And currently we have so few!
ejh’s last blog post..Spain
>An incentive to get out there and earn, and with a simplified system, we could probably make at least 50% of HMRC redundant.
Is it just me sees a contradiction in that sentence?
I can see not just a contradiction but an unlikelihood that the figure mentioned has been calculated with the rigour that one might expect from, say, HMRC.
ejh’s last blog post..Spain
He may have had a few, but I bet he didn’t stand them on these!
Curly’s last blog post..Brown stays out of China
I’m all for cutting taxes for lower earners and taxing the better off more heavily, and hope that everyone who is angry about this now keeps up the pressure so the government has to act in next year’s budget.
Just on the 75p pension rise, from memory that was when the government introduced the minimum income guarantee. What that meant was that rather than giving more money to all pensioners, regardless of their income, the extra spending went on big increases for the poorest pensioners.
Minimum income guarantee and later Pension Credit (for all the problems of takeup) have led to a situation now where poverty amongst pensioners has fallen substantially, and for the first time ever, you are less likely to be living in poverty if you are over 65 than if you are under 65.
Obviously, it wasn’t very clever politics, because better off pensioners are more vocal than poor ones and were angry that the government was giving all this money to people who hadn’t saved up while they were working rather than to them. But it really wasn’t an example of ‘making the poor poorer’.
Also, “People on lower incomes would be no worse served by choosing who they vote for with a pin and taking their chances” - really not the case.
donpaskini’s last blog post..DIY Henry Porter