Media and Tory manifesto

Can you imagine the media reaction if Labour had published a manifesto so vague and contrary to previous pledges as the Tory one (Johnson promises 50,000 extra nurses as cautious manifesto is revealed, 25/11/19)? How can voters, let alone journalists, take seriously a promise to hire 50,000 more nurses when 18,500 of them will be made up by "encouraging existing nurses not to leave the profession"? Had Labour`s manifesto included such an outrageous claim, it would have been on all the front pages!

     Similarly, rather than accuse Johnson of lying in order to win the Tory leadership contest, when promising "to increase the higher-rate income tax band to £80,000", its absence from the Tory manifesto merely warrants as a proposal "which appears to have been dropped"(Static proposals are light on tax reforms, 25/11/19)! The untruths seemingly never stop, and undoubtedly there will be more. Remember how ten days before the 2015 election, and the polls were indicating a close result, Osborne suddenly promised a "Northern Powerhouse"? They are still talking about it, and most likely still will be prior to the next election.            It`s called "taking us for mugs"!

Expose the Lib Dems

Your editorial rightly states that the "Tory tactic is to make this election exclusively about Brexit is shared with the Lib Dems", but isn`t that because neither party has anything else to offer "Morning Star, 12/11/19)? They can hardly tell the voters to look back at their records over the last ten years!

   Labour`s leadership team has made an error of judgement on this. Support should have been given to Jo Swinson over her complaints about not being included in some of the televised election debates. Had Corbyn spoken out immediately on her behalf, he could have appealed to all those who think her badly treated, and scored valuable electoral points, supporting the right of his opponents to a democratic voice, and such like.

    The sad truth is that Labour will lose many votes to the Lib Dems in the election, so the more important reason for getting their leader in a TV debate is that Corbyn can take the opportunity to expose her past voting record, her involvement with the callous austerity measures of the Tories, and her support for zero hours contracts. The more voters know about her political views the better! Can she explain, for example,  why she thinks "caution" is needed before an increase to the minimum wage is granted, or why she is opposed to forcing companies to reveal their gender pay quotas? 

     Winning the election is the top priority for Labour; it cannot afford simply to rely on the popularity of its policies, and has to take every opportunity to expose all weaknesses in the opposition!

Article on Labour`s taxation policies

Boris Johnson has already made it clear that the Tories have nothing to offer at this election other than misguidance about their Brexit deal. Feeble and confused promises about the NHS and schools suggest they still intend, if voters allow them, to shrink the state back to levels last seen in the 1930s. What Johnson and his cronies, both in the party and in the media, will be offering in shed-loads is criticism of Labour`s policies, particularly the ones relating to tax, but with planning and a united approach, taxation could become a key element in a Labour victory.

With Britain now the biggest player in the tax haven game, and losing at least around £30-40bn a year in lost tax revenue, Corbyn and his team must realise that bland promises about tackling tax evasion and avoidance will not suffice; voters have heard this many times from all parties with no real effect, so in order to have an impact the Labour manifesto should include precise details which then have to be repeated at every opportunity by every candidate.  He or she should have the exact same figures to hand, from how much is lost every year in the UK to how many tax inspector jobs in HMRC will be created after the Tory and Lib/Dem cull in the coalition years.

        McDonnell has already promised "the most comprehensive plan ever seen in the UK" to tackle the problem, with legislation necessary to force tax transparency on UK crown dependencies to reveal the owners of companies hiding assets. More voter-friendly policies can be added. Should the distinction between tax avoidance and evasion be ended, with both being made criminal offences? Similarly should it not be illegal to make financial gain from advising on, or creating, avoidance schemes? The honours system is clearly in need of reform generally, but  ensuring no tax avoiders, or people working in companies avoiding tax, are included in the various honours` lists might be useful, and thought can be given, too, to whether tax avoiders should be able to hold any public office or be eligible for any form of national representation. Most definitely, with the news that almost three-quarters of companies given major contracts by recent Tory governments have operations based in tax havens, Labour should  promise that all such companies will be refused any government contracts. Finally, a pledge that all Labour cabinet members will make their tax returns public would not go amiss either!

   Then there are the proposals on income and corporation tax. Labour`s proposals to increase the rates of income tax on the top 5% of earners will be attacked, with ludicrous claims that the changes will ruin the economy, actually reduce the amount the Treasury collects, and dash the hopes of aspirational young people. Utter tosh, of course, but the likes of the Mail and the Telegraph will have a field day! Labour candidates will have to be ready with their prepared responses. For a start, this nonsense centres around the so-called Laffer curve which was dreamt up to justify Reagan`s tax cuts, and which modern economists like Thomas Piketty have been rubbishing for years. Labour`s candidates could do worse than remind voters that under Thatcher, between 1979 and 1988 the top rate of income tax was 60%! Did that end aspiration? Worth remembering too, is the pledge made by Johnson when campaigning to be Tory leader; he promised to raise the higher-rate income tax threshold to £80,000 from £50,000, meaning those earning £80,000, for example, would save £3000 in tax. It would cost, moreover, £9.6bn a year, and lead to more government borrowing, just to benefit the well-off, the ones earning three times the national average. All Labour candidates should learn the next figure off by heart: average income in the UK is £26,400!

         Hopefully, Labour will have ready for all social media outlets available, responses from nurses, junior doctors, teachers and such like saying how the income tax rises will not affect them, with a few bankers and businessmen saying how much they earn and how much more they will pay. This would have even more effect if a few well known actors could play the roles, emphasising how little effect the tax increases would have on almost everybody. Similar publicity about the proposed VAT to be levied on private school fees will do no harm either. Waiting for the Tory propaganda machine, oiled this time by the duplicitous Dominic Cummings, to get its act together is not a wise electoral tactic, so Labour must, to use the rugby metaphor, "get its retaliation in first".

     Tories will claim a corporation tax increase to 26% on company profits will be disastrous, economic chaos will ensue, causing businesses to leave the country in their hundreds, with thousands of jobs lost  The Labour response should be quite clear; the Conservatives` reduction of corporation tax did not attract new businesses from abroad, nor has there been a surge in investment, whilst countries like Germany, Japan and France have far healthier economies even though their rate of corporation tax is around 30%. Instead of paying CEOs and directors obscene amounts plus bonuses for "performance" even if that entails job losses and lower productivity, companies need to be paying their fair share of tax, to ensure they continue to benefit from the government investment in health, education and transport.

       Dealt with sensibly, with all candidates and members of the leadership team well prepared and using the same, correct figures and details, taxation policies can prove a vote-winner in the December election.

Johnson`s one-nation Toryism

Andrew Gamble argues that Johnson, by "siding firmly with the Brexiters" and "reshaping" the cabinet and parliamentary party, is aiming to replace Conservative Remain voters with "Labour working class Leave voters" (Adapt or die: how the Tories kept power in centuries of pragmatism, 03.11.19). Presumably, with Cummings at the helm, the thinking is that by relentless repetition of dubious facts and downright untruths, most of the public can be persuaded to accept Johnson as a "one-nation" Tory.

     Disraeli, the originator of the Conservative "one-nation formula for government",  had similar hopes: by claiming to want to "elevate the condition of the people", he aimed to forge an alliance between the Conservative party and the working class males who had the vote. Like Johnson, he treated voters as mugs, and was removed from office in the 1880 election after his "reforms" were seen for what they really were, window-dressing! Johnson and Cummings are in grave danger of underestimating voters in the same way!

        If, as Michael Heseltine recently wrote in the Guardian, "one- nation" Conservatism is about "governing for the whole country", its existence recently has been confined to election propaganda (Boris Johnson has no right to call himself a one-nation Conservative, 12/09/19). Pouring money into the south, doing next to nothing either to ease the plight of the poor and black people, or to prevent tax avoidance and evasion whilst reducing tax for the rich, all typical of government policy since 2010, are not exactly "one-nation" criteria, and Johnson`s sudden and duplicitous Damascene conversion should fool no one!

Observer letter on Osborne

Your editorial last week was way too lenient on George Osborne (Celebrate the end of austerity. But the new cash must be spent wisely 10.11.19). Admittedly, he did have "important support" from the International Monetary Fund and the OECD when he declared in 2010 that austerity measures were "the only way to bring the deficit under control", but by January 2013, things had changed significantly.

It was then that the IMF`s chief economist Olivier Blanchard, told the then chancellor of the need for a "reassessment of fiscal policy", less than two months before the March budget (Austerity plan is failing, IMF tells Osborne, 24.01.13). His recent work on fiscal multipliers had shown him the devastating effects tax and spending cuts were having on the wider economy, but did the arrogant Osborne take any notice?

        What we saw was the growth forecast for 2013 halved, and debt as a share of GDP to increase from 75.9% to 85.6%, whilst government department budgets were to see cuts by 1% in each of the following two years, £11.5bn further cuts earmarked for 2015-6, corporation tax cut to 20%, and the !% cap on public sector pay extended for another two years.

  Osborne deliberately ignored expert advice, and continued with his callous austerity policies, so that now billions have to be spent to "repair pretty much all of the fraying fabric of public services, infrastructure, amenities and welfare provision". Most certainly, history will not forgive Osborne; December`s voters should not forget, either, which parties and politicians supported Osborne in his duplicitous scheme!

Appeal to Guardian to expose BBC

Rather than showing Johnson getting his timing wrong at the Cenotaph and then placing his wreath upside down, the BBC for its Breakfast programme dug out some old footage from 2016 of Johnson with a green wreath and no gaffes! Of course, this was later claimed to be a "production mistake", but can anyone imagine the same happening if it had been Corbyn making the errors? As your editorial rightly says, during election campaigns, "reliable information matters more than ever", and it would appear that it is not only the "cavalier tactics" of the Conservative party and tabloid press which create the "fake news" (A doctored Tory video and dubious claim reveal a cavalier attitude to truth, 11/11/19). By all means, "remorselessly expose" the BBC whenever its obvious bias leads to a distortion of the truth.

Examination system`s "forgotten third"

How refreshing to read the interview with Sir Tim Brighouse, and actually be able to find agreement with so many ideas on education (Morning Star, 29/10/19). Naturally, I liked his ideas that exams should be "nationally set, internally marked and externally moderated", especially in view of the way the private schools are avoiding the newly-reformed GCSE and A-Level examinations.

   Brighouse`s views on the curriculum, that it should affect the "hearts and hands" as well as the minds of the young, were spot-on, especially as governments appear to have forgotten about the third of school pupils who are unable to gain grade 4 GCSE in Maths and English examinations every year.

The general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders described the fact that 190,000 young people "fall short" of grade 4s as a "tragedy" but the real sadness lies in them being  regarded as "failures". With so much attention on results, and so much publicity given to successful students, the depth of despair and demoralisation experienced by this "forgotten third" should be sufficient for any government, especially one claiming "one nation" status, to rethink both its examination and inspection policies. Judging schools almost entirely on their examination results has forced most of our underfunded state schools to devote totally insufficient resources to pupils unlikely to gain grade 4s.

       Whilst there has been justifiable concern about talent being wasted because of very bright working class students not being given the opportunities afforded by the so-called "top" universities, the plight of 35.6% of our young people  rarely gets a mention. The policy of forcing them to repeat the exams until they are "passed" is simply Dickensian!          These pupils do have skills, however, so one alternative is for examinations be devised for them which allow these skills to be exhibited and rewarded. Without a properly funded education for the non-academic pupils, these would undoubtedly be deemed, like the old CSEs, to be inferior. As Brighouse says, the current system is "designed to fail a third of pupils".

        Labour has much to write in its election manifesto on education, but remembering the "forgotten third", and funding a suitable curriculum for them, should be high on the list of priorities!

Response to Freedland

If Jonathan Freedland really wants to know how Jews "can vote for Corbyn", could I respectfully suggest he read recent articles by some of his co-columnists at the Guardian (Many Jews oppose Brexit, but how can we vote for Corbyn? 09/11/19)? He could start with Gary Younge`s excellent piece which compared the views of the empathy-free zone that is Rees-Mogg with those of the Labour MP Russell-Moyle (In moments of candour, the real choices become clear, 08/11/19), before moving on to Marina Hyde`s description of our "verbally incontinent" prime minister (Lurching and rambling, the man in charge has lost control, 09/11/19).

     All those not voting Labour in next month`s election must realise they risk giving power over the UK for five years to the country`s most duplicitous politician, whose word cannot be trusted, and whose policies will  increase the huge inequalities and injustices currently existing in our society. If Freedland wants tax avoidance to flourish, the NHS and schools to continue to be underfunded, for the number of food banks and homeless on our streets to multiply, and for the lack of regulation to enable more Grenfell-like disasters, not voting Labour is the obvious choice. If he goes down that route, can he please tell us, so that I for one can avoid reading anything he writes again!

Guardian letter on tax avoidance

Nicholas Shaxson`s article on the scale of tax avoidance globally, and the harm it inflicts, is a timely reminder for Labour on how taxation should be at the heart of its election campaign (To defeat the world`s crooks, shrink the City, 29/10/19). With Britain, as he says "the biggest player in the tax haven game", Corbyn and his team must realise that bland promises about tackling tax evasion and avoidance will not suffice; voters have heard this many times from all parties with no real effect, so in order to have an impact the Labour manifesto should include precise details which then have to be repeated at every opportunity by every candidate. He or she should have the exact same figures to hand, from how much is lost every year in the UK to how many tax inspector jobs in HMRC will be created after the Tory and Lib/Dem cull.

McDonnell has already promised "the most comprehensive plan ever seen in the UK" to tackle the problem, with legislation necessary to force tax transparency on UK crown dependencies to reveal the owners of companies hiding assets (UK and territories are "greatest enabler" of tax avoidance, 28/05/19). More voter-friendly policies can be added. Should the distinction between tax avoidance and evasion be ended, with both being made criminal offences? Similarly it should be illegal to make financial gain from advising on, or creating, avoidance schemes, whilst the honours system is in need of reform to ensure no tax avoiders, or people working in companies avoiding tax, are included. Most definitely, with the news that almost three-quarters of companies given major contracts by recent Tory governments have operations based in tax havens, Labour should  promise that any such companies will be refused any government contracts. Finally, a pledge that all Labour cabinet members will make their tax returns public would not go amiss either!

A reminder for voters

The Star`s editorial mentioned that Labour would fall into a "Tory trap" if it fought this forthcoming election "as just one of the contending parties of Remain", but this isn`t the only one to avoid (Morning Star, 29/10/19). Not only did the cancellation of the budget mean the Tories` fiscal plans don`t get an official airing, but the updated growth forecasts and health check on the public finances are kept from public scrutiny. The last time Cummings was given the opportunity to lead a campaign, he ensured the nation was inundated with nonsense about  billions going to the NHS, and millions of Turks arriving in the UK. Without the economic data, which accompany each budget, similar duplicity can be expected prior to the general election.

       A Cummings-dominated Tory election campaign will dismiss the claims, from the likes of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation, that the economy is currently close to the point of recession, as another Project Fear. Agreeing to support a December election before accurate figures on the economy are published will sadly see opposition parties playing into his hands!

   On the brighter side, the election gives Labour the opportunity to remind voters what the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Trade Secretary think of them. Raab, Patel and Truss in 2012 described British workers in their jointly written "Britannia Unchained" as "among the worst idlers in the world"! A few thousand posters wouldn`t go amiss!