Osborne`s "northern powerhouse"

What a pity George Osborne didn`t find the objective to "revitalise the cities of the north" such an "exciting and creative area of public policy making" five years before the 2015 general election, rather than a mere ten days! (Power to the cities could reverse the Thatcher legacy,27/04/15) That could well have meant the section of HS2 from Birmingham northwards, and involving routes to Liverpool docks, taking precedence over reducing travelling times from London to the Midlands by a matter of minutes. An upgrade of the Manchester to Leeds railway is welcome, though long overdue, but for Osborne to describe the prospect as "HS3", with routes "built within the next parliament", is fooling no-one, and takes his disingenuity to Clegg--like levels

          Little rejuvenation has been possible in the mostly Labour dominated areas of the north when council grants from the government have been decimated, and when London and the south-east have always taken priority. Funny how this chancellor believes "in government as a force for good", when his economic plan involves the reduction of government spending to 1930s levels, and cuts to the welfare budget, mostly affecting the poorest and most vulnerable, of £12billion! Perhaps he would be better advised to devote more of his "energies" to regulation of the City, ensuring every rich individual and business pays the correct amount of tax, criminalising the giving of advice on tax avoidance and evasion, and substantially raising the minimum wage? 

   

2 letters to Independent

Hamish McCrae rather spoilt the validity of his argument by stragely stating that the "Coalition has been quite anti-business in office", using the examples of oil companies` North Sea revenues, and regulation of small businesses.(Voices: Can Britain learn to love its richest citizens? 29/04/15) An opinion ignoring so many instances of Tory-dominated coalition policies, which have shown both leniency and favouritism to the corporate sector, has to be seen as disingenuous. What about the lowering of corporation tax to a level eighteen percentage points lower than in the USA, or doing next to nothing about tax avoidance, with the latest device, the so-called Google tax, only estimated to collect around £600m, and not until 2019? Does that really qualify as anti-business? Profits have been allowed to soar, whilst many firms have been found guilty of refusing to pay their workers the paltry minimum wage, but only punished with small fines. Has the government clamped down on zero-hours contracts, used by many businesses to force down costs? No, of course not, with one result being the taxpayers annually having to fork out £9.2bn in housing benefit to help the low-paid meet the cost of exorbitant rents charged by largely-unregulated, profiteering private landlords.

    As for business bosses, don`t the latest figures suggest CEOs of the top firms are now paid something like 170 times the pay of their average worker, with the government`s only response being to lower their tax rate to 45%?

Your editorial (Salt shaker,29/04/15) reminded us how Andrew Lansley ended the "costly regulation" of  the food industry, leading to wholesale reductions in the role of the Food Standards Industry and numerous food scares, and with so little regulation, the banking culture of greed, profit-at-all-costs and ensuing scams has continued unabated. Then there `s the refusal to participate in the EU`s financial transaction tax, and Osborne`s frequent trips to Brussels to protect bankers` bonuses!

    "Anti-business", Mr McCrae? The contrary is much nearer the truth, and the UK`s position of 28th out of 34 in the equality league table of developed countries supports the point!

It`s hard to believe I was watching the same election special programme as John Rentoul.(Question Time Special,01/05/15) For a start he thought the audience was "packed with truculent northern lefties" when, judging by the applause and general reaction to the leaders` answers, there seemed to be a majority, albeit small, of conservative supporters, anxious about making profits from their businesses!

  Then there`s the comparison between the performances of Cameron and Miliband: no prizes for guessing who was described as "fluent", "impressive", "polished", "fresh" and even "persuasive", whilst Miliband, with his "Blairite mannerisms" received the "Like as if" treatment, and was viewed as "disingenuous". This biased approach to reviewing an election programme is disappointing in such a respected newspaper.

 The fact that Cameron was still peddling the old nonsense about Labour`s over-spending, even to the extent of resorting to his party trick of producing Liam Byrne`s note, seems to have gone completely unnoticed by your reviewer. Just to do a spot of re-balancing, it seems particularly relevant at this stage of the election campaign, to remind voters that in the thirteen years of Labour government, £142.7bn was borrowed, compared to the £157.5bn borrowed by the current Tory-led coaltion in its five years.

 I am sure Mr Rentoul would not agree, but it seems to me that the whole austerity business has simply been a confidence trick to enable the Tory-dominated coalition to shrink the state and carry out its long term plan for a low-wage economy; comparing the country`s economic woes to those of Greece was nonsense, when we have our own currency, and have quantitative easing at our disposal, Raising wages to increase spending back in 2010 would have led to economic growth and, through increased taxation revenues, enabled improvements to take place in the NHS, education and general infrastructure.

 

3 simple steps to reduce tax avoidance

With only weeks to the election, voters should be clear on at least one issue: this Tory-dominated coalition has never been serious about dealing with what Margaret Hodge has frequently called the  'Tax avoidance industry'.

    Of course, there has been an abundance of the usual heart-rending rhetoric from the Tories, Cameron and Osborne in particular; the public has been inundated with descriptions of how vile the practice is, with Osborne`s "morally repugnant" taking some beating. Then there`s the tax avoiding companies, with the focus presumably on Starbucks, being told by Cameroñ that it`s time to 'Smell the coffee'! Budget after budget has introduced new coalition measures to reduce the huge total of 

£35 billion being deprived of the Treasury each year by tax avoidance, with the latest, the so-called 'Google tax' estimated to raise a measly £570million by 2019!

Clearly,  when it comes to tax avoidance, it`s just another example of the Tories taking us for mugs. Should the election set the them up for another five years of government, there is absolutely no reason to expect anything other  than a bumper time for the avoiders, be they rich individuals, profit-hiding companies, or the accounting firms making billions out of selling avoidance schemes.

  However, a new government could easily take three simple steps to make the problem both more manaģeable and mòre tŕansparent.

   A new goveŕnment depàrtment focussed entirely on tax matters, with a minister reporting back to the Commons and the Cabinet on a weekly basis, would at least indicate serious intent. A popular choice for minister would obviously be Hodge, whilst a further sensible appointment would be the tax expert, Richard Murphy, in an advisory capacity. 

   This Ministry of Tax Affairs would not only be on top of all Treasury figures realating to tax, it would have responsibility for all actions taken by HMRC, the agency in charge of tax collecting. Any of the `sweetheart deals` whereby companies and individuals reach agreement on a payment of a lump sum, rather than pay the full amount avoided over years, would first have to be agreed by the Minister, with all the necessary disclosure and publicity. Similarly, all companies avoiding tax would gain due publicity in parliamentary discussion, and this could act as some further deterrent. The more the public is made aware of the scale of the companies` avoidance, the more likely they are to take avoidance measures of their own, such as avoiding making purchases from them!

    The Ministry could also develop further Murphy`s idea of a Fair Tax Award, for companies which regularly pay the correct amount of corporate tàx, which they can use for self-promotion.

 A third step certainly never reaches the realms of rocket-science, but it seems, nevertheless, to have been too difficult for the coalition to comprehend: the majority of the electorate do not agree with tax avoidance, knowing the contribution tax plays to a civilised society, so they would certainly support a government which refused to award any contracts to corporations known for their tax avoidance practices. Companies refusing to pay a living wage to all employees should suffer the same fate!

  Three simple steps which could transform the way tax is not only collected but perceived by the public; it is not a matter for accounting firms to decide how much revenue is collected by the Treasury, and the sooner governments take full responsibility, the better.

Why Tories cannot admit the truth

Of course, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies says, the Tories are misleading voters "about the level of cuts they plan to make" should our worst nightmares come true and Cameron is returned to power for another five years. They are past masters at ignoring empirical evidence, drawing up over-ambitious plans for deficit reduction, and denying their failures and callousness, so it is no surprise that they give a "misleading impression".

   They admit to £12bn of welfare cuts and £13bn of savings from government departments, but refrain from adding such details as:

reductions in child benefit

lower housing benefit for the millions in low pay, living in private accommodation with exorbitant rent

yet more cuts and suffering for those receiving incapacity benefit

         Labour should be making more out of this, warning that Tory plans to reduce government spending to levels last seen in the 1930s has less to do with deficit reduction than the ideological desire to shrink the state and achieve their aim of a low pay, low tax economy. A return to the 19th century system of laissez-faire is on the cards, with yet more increases in the gap between rich and poor, and unregulated exploitation of the working people. There is no such thing as "compassionate conservatism"! And as for the rubbish spouted by Osborne about "northern powerhouses", don`t get me started!!

Letter on Mediterranean tragedies

With yet more terrible deaths in the Mediterranean this week, your editorial was  right to lambast European politicians for not only refusing to rally "around Italy's admirable Mare Nostrum search and rescue programme", when possibly the "biggest human upheaval since world war two" is taking place,  but for failing even to treat the migrant issue as a priority. (Observer view on the human tragedy in the Mediterranean, 19/04/15)
  The British government refused its support last autumn for a typically callous reason that it would only encourage migrants to risk their lives in even greater numbers, revealing again their willingness to ignore  factual evidence when it suits them.
Sadly,  Labour is equally guilty of refusing to address issues deemed electorally unimportant,  even though there are obvious points to be scored with the adoption of an humanitarian approach. Presumably, fear of hemorrhaging even more votes to Ukip is the reason preventing our selfish politicians from making a stand. And their feebleness does not end at the Mediterranean!
Foreign policy has largely been ignored in the election campaigns of all the major parties  because of the common assumption that it is not a vote - winner.  Yet, wouldn't Miliband, for instance,  appear more prime - ministerial if he rejected the traditional UK policy in the Middle East, based as it is on American and Saudi prejudice? The Trident issue clearly needs more public debate, whilst having the courage to stand up to Merkel over Greek claims for war reparations would reveal more bottle than any European leader has shown. A pledge to restore the ill - gotten Parthenon marbles to their rightful owners would not go amiss, either!
It's amazing how politicians can on the one hand treat voters like mugs, when expecting them to believe, for example, in their compassion,  but are frightened of alienating the more gullible and bigoted of our society. Has there ever been a more urgent need for a general election to give the country a British government with an actual ethical foreign policy? Has there ever been, in modern times, less chance of it happening?

Brief comment on Miliband`s foreign policy

Whilst Miliband is correct to criticise Cameron`s foreign policy as "small-minded isolationism", it is difficult to see Labour`s "hard-headed multiculturalism" as being much different. (Cameron a pessimistic isolationist,24/04/15) Will Miliband, for example, commit the UK to an independent policy which does not follow US policies unfailingly, whilst simultaneously supporting Israel? Will he open the future of Trident to a public debate, or even have the courage to recognise officially the massacre of 1.5m Armenians as "genocide", something which 25 countries have already done, excluding naturally the US and Israel. Time to end this ridiculous triple alliance!    

  Miliband could even show bottle and stand up to Merkel by supporting Greece`s claims for war reparations, and whilst at it, commit a Labour government to the return of the Parthenon marbles to their rightful owners.

 

Tristram being Gove-like yet again

Sadly, I was correct in suspecting that a half page devoted to news involving Tristram Hunt was bound to include much of the same old nonsense to which we have become accustomed since his appointment to the shadow cabinet.(Labour could abandon GCSEs within a decade, Hunt reveals,23/04/15) Every time he makes an announcement like this one, he reveals far more about his ignorance, both of what is happening in the majority of state schools, and of what the majority of their pupils are like, than about his party`s education policy. Where exactly are the schools whose "gates close at 2.55pm", or the students who lack "character and resilience"? I know of none of the former, and in my forty plus years of teaching in the state sector, I saw very few of the latter, especially as they became so adept at "dealing with the unexpected" every time a government`s new educational initiative involved a change of course, subject, syllabus or teacher! 

   It may well "drive him mad" to see these so-called "fortress schools", if indeed they exist, so why doesn`t he visit them and discuss problems with the heads and staff? What makes, I suspect, many of us even madder is to see a future education secretary miss yet another opportunity to praise teachers and congratulate everyone involved with the huge improvements made in state education in the last twenty years or so; he much prefers, with Gove-like predictability, to emphasise the "long tail of underachievement", something based on Pisa tests where students from a variety of nations are given different questions, and their results somehow compared. A commitment to address teachers` ridiculous workload would not go amiss, either, and how about an announcement to meet and work with teachers` union leaders on a regular basis to sort out the pay and conditions` problems? After all, he is the Labour spokesperson for education, so it would be refreshing to hear some comments on education which do not sound as if they were drafted by Keith Joseph!