The Smith Commission Report – a deal among parties, ignoring the greater powers that polls show most people want

The dispute over the Smith Commission report turns on whether additional powers should be decided by negotiations between political parties on what powers they are willing to concede, or the views of the majority of the people of Scotland (1).

The “vow” didn’t refer to Home Rule, Devo Max or federalism, but Gordon Brown did, in widely reported comments in the last few weeks of the referendum. Opinion polls show majorities for devolving far more powers than Smith recommends.

A recent ICM poll found 63% want all welfare powers and  taxes devolved to the Scottish parliament. This would have to exclude Scotland’s share of Defence and Foreign Policy funding, but goes far beyond Smith’s recommendations of only devolving disability and carers’ benefits and the bedroom tax (2) – (3) .

A poll just after the referendum reported by STV found that ‘80% …supported Scotland having control over welfare, with 62% saying it should be in charge of pensions. Almost three quarters (71%) of people back the devolution of income tax while 62% want to see Scotland get control of corporation tax and 61% say Holyrood should be in charge of VAT.’ (4).

Smith only recommends devolving income tax, air passenger duty, the Aggregates levy and the first 10% of VAT. The UK government retains all corporation tax, capital gains tax , national insurance, oil and gas revenues, vehicle excise duty and other revenues raised in Scotland (5).

The UK parties’ argument that the power to set corporation and VAT tax rates couldn’t be devolved as it could lead to different parts of the UK competing to have lower rates was understandable. However their willingness to devolve income tax, which could similarly lead to competitive tax cutting, suggests their motives there are party political.

No UK government has raised the basic rate of income tax in decades because it’s political suicide to do so. It seems likely that, with the SNP having a majority in the Scottish parliament, the UK parties want to force the Scottish government into either income tax rises or spending cuts to try to lose it votes.

And there’s no reason why most of the revenues from income and corporation taxes raised in Scotland couldn’t be assigned to the Scottish government and parliament to decide on how to spend them, while leaving the power to set the rates  of these taxes set by the UK government, and so uniform across the UK.

It would be wrong not to acknowledge that there are a few other positives in the Smith commission. The report recommends the devolution of the power to issue or refuse onshore oil and gas (paragraph 69), which would give the Scottish government the power to block fracking (assuming the Scottish public put enough pressure on it – so far Scottish ministers’ responses on fracking have been very evasive). The power to scrap the bedroom tax and provide benefits for carers and the disabled are important, but they are not close to control over all welfare powers and the budget for them.

The power to allow the public sector to bid for rail franchises (paragraphs 25 to 26, page 21) is positive too, but a long way from allowing renationalisation.

However it’s equally wrong to pretend that the Smith recommendations are anything approaching the “home rule” , “devo max” or federalism which Brown talked of. The usual definition of these is that most domestic policy and most of the budget for it is devolved. Nor do the powers Smith offers come close to the ones polls show most Scots want.

And equally some of the recommended devolved powers are so limited as to be almost non-existent – see those over Crown Estates in Scotland for instance, which allow sweeping exceptions by the UK government on extremely vague and general terms (paragraphs 32 – 34, page 16). Similarly for those over Energy Efficiency and Fuel Poverty measures (paragraph 68).

One telling line is Paragraph 24,  page 13 ; ‘the Scottish Parliament will have no powers over the regulation of political parties (including donations)’.

This indicates a deal in the interest of parties, not voters. The major UK political parties rely heavily on donations from banks, hedge funds, big firms and the super-rich – particularly the Conservative party.

It also ensures no requirement for more internal democracy within all political parties in Scotland. So Miliband can keep imposing his policies on the Scottish branch of his party.

One month was long enough for horse-trading between the main UK parties on what level of devolution they’d tolerate. It wasn’t long enough to receive or read submissions from thousands of members of the public. Nor should we be presented with a take-it-or-leave-it package decided only by parties. Opinion polls and consultations, and/or a second elected constitutional convention, could be used to draw up a list of possible additional powers, with a multi-question referendum allowing voters to vote for or against each.

Brown might want Scottish politics “reset” with constitutional issues labelled “dealt with”, but opinion polls suggest many voters disagree (6).

Opinion polls suggesting a massive rise in the SNP vote in the next General election, combined with those on additional powers, may force the next UK government into offering considerably more devolved powers than the Smith negotiations resulted in (7).

 

Sources

 

(1) = https://www.smith-commission.scot/ and https://www.smith-commission.scot/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/The_Smith_Commission_Report-1.pdf

(2) = STV 30 Nov 2014 ‘Poll finds majority want Holyrood to control all taxes and benefits’,
http://news.stv.tv/scotland-decides/301542-icm-poll-finds-majority-want-holyrood-to-control-all-taxes-and-benefits/

(3) = https://www.smith-commission.scot/ and https://www.smith-commission.scot/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/The_Smith_Commission_Report-1.pdf , paragraphs 42 – 54, pages 18 - 19

(4) = STV 21 Sep 2014 ‘SNP on course to win third Holyrood term, according to new poll’,  http://news.stv.tv/scotland/292917-snp-on-course-to-win-third-consecutive-holyrood-term-says-new-poll/

(5) = https://www.smith-commission.scot/ and https://www.smith-commission.scot/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/The_Smith_Commission_Report-1.pdf , paragraphs 75 - 92, pages 23 - 25

(6) = BBC News 29 Nov ‘Gordon Brown calls for Scottish politics 'reset'’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-30256101

(7) = Guardian 30 Oct 2014 ‘Labour faces massive losses to SNP at UK general election, poll shows’, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/30/scottish-labour-snp-general-election-poll

Time for a debate on the system of private donations to party funds, public schools and Oxford University that creates vile politicians like George Osborne, David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith

Some might say that Chancellor George Osborne's use of the Phillpott case to try to justify taking benefits from the most vulnerable people in the country is a lot like when Bush used 9-11 as an excuse to invade Iraq, or when Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag to seize power and carry out the Holocaust - and if that seems like an outrageous statement to any of Osborne's supporters you'll now know how the rest of us feel about Osborne trying to use a psychopath’s crimes to take from the poorest and most vulnerable people in the country (1).

His attacks on the welfare state are morally wrong as they take from the most vulnerable people in the country while cutting taxes for the wealthiest and allowing tax evasion by them, big banks, or big firms through UK government approved tax havens in UK dependencies like the Channel Islands.

On top of that they are economic stupidity, especially in a recession, as people on benefits will spend every penny as they’re struggling to get by, boosting demand in the economy. By comparison tax cuts for the wealthiest will often lead to them saving more money, or transferring it to investments in other countries. So common sense and justice would suggest the government should be increasing taxes on the highest earners, closing down tax havens in UK dependencies and increasing benefits. Instead they’re doing the opposite.

So it’s time we had a debate on the systems of public schools and Oxford University, along with big private donations to political parties from billionaires big banks and big firms, that create vile politicians like David Cameron, Iain Duncan Smith and George Osborne who attack the poorest to cut taxes for wealthy donors to party funds – and who try to use the deaths of children at the hands of a lunatic to try to justify this.

Philpott would have been a violent, manipulative and “vile” man whether the welfare state existed or not. George Osborne would also probably be a vile man whether private donations to party funds were allowed or not, but he might not be Chancellor of the Exchequer and he , Cameron and Duncan Smith might not have the power to take from the poorest to give to the richest.

There are plenty of sociopaths who have got to much higher positions than Philpott ever attained – for instance Roger Carr, the head of Centrica, who was given a knighthood for supposed services to the public in 2010 while his energy company is one of those which has been shown by studies by Manchester University to systematically over-charge customers over years. So we have a system where organised theft results in knighthoods.

Tony Blair, who got tens of thousands killed for nothing and ordered British forces to co-operate in US-led torture is similarly rewarded with a paid position as a UN envoy – and his bodyguards and their hotel rooms and flights are paid for at public expense while he works for the dictators of Kazakhstan (where protesters are shot dead) and Kuwait among others as a public relations adviser (4).

Time for a debate on the system that rewards these sociopaths with not just thousands a year but tens of millions and which allows them to gain positions of power so easily.

(1) = guardian.co.uk 04 Apr 2013 ‘Mick Philpott's benefits 'lifestyle' should be questioned, says Osborne’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/04/mick-philpott-benefits-lifestyle-questioned

(2) = BBC News 31 Dec 2010 ‘New Year Honours: Broughton and Carr business knights’,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12093737

(3) = Guardian 02 Dec 2011 ‘Big six energy firms face fresh accusations of profiteering’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/02/energy-firms-accusations-profiteering-electricity

(4) = Independent 29 Dec 2011 ‘Bullets, beatings and Blair's brutal friend in Kazakhstan’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bullets-beatings-and-blairs-brutal-friend-in-kazakhstan-6282490.html

Some people called Duncan Smith think they’re fit to be government ministers And that voters are all idiots who’ll believe any lie they tell ; Wrong on both counts ; And what you can do about it

Conservative Work and Pensions Minister Iain Duncan Smith has responded to a court ruling that it was illegal for his department to tell unemployed people it was compulsory for them to work unpaid for private companies or lose their unemployment benefit, when the law parliament passed only allowed for voluntary unpaid placements, by making dishonest personal attacks on one of the people who brought the case (1).

Smith says people who think they are “too good to stack shelves” are wrong and that their attitude is “unacceptable”. Cait Reilly never objected to stacking shelves though – she objected to doing it for no pay for a company that was profiting from her unpaid labour, especially as this would mean the firm would hire less paid staff (2).

She objected to the government helping big companies avoid paying the minimum wage (and in fact avoid paying one penny for the work done for “workfare” workers). (Department of Work and Pensisons guidelines for Workfare ‘Providers’ warn that offering a job at the end of a Workfare placement could breach the National Minimum Wage law. (3))

She objected to being told that if she didn’t complete the unpaid placement, she would lose her unemployment benefit.

A decent government minister wouldn’t lie to the unemployed and tell them that workfare placements were compulsory when the law passed by parliament only allowed voluntary placements. Nor would they force them to stop unpaid work they enjoyed for a museum, a public asset, for unpaid work for the profit of a company.

Duncan Smith also pretends there will be a paid job at the end of workfare. For most people there isn’t. Research on workfare in other countries commissioned by the Department of Work and Pensions in 2008 concluded that ‘There is little evidence that workfare increases the likelihood of finding work. It can even reduce employment chances by limiting the time available for job search and by failing to provide the skills and experience valued by employers.’ (4).

As the Boycott Workfare blog points out, the claim made by Duncan Smith and the Department of Work and Pensions that half of people who do workfare are no longer on benefits after 13 weeks, does not show half of them are getting jobs (5).

Smith’s choice of 13 weeks as the relevant time-frame is also interesting given that his department brought in a ‘sanction’ against unemployment benefit recipients for “non-compliance” (including even missing an appointment) of cutting off their benefits for 13 weeks (This is one of the most minor 'sanctions' - higher ones include no benefits for 3 years) (6).

So how many of the people who aren’t on unemployment benefit after the 13 weeks have got a paid job Mr Smith? ; and how many had their benefits cut off even though they don’t have a job yet? ; and how many of those were for being late or missing unpaid work or an appointment with a DWP official on just one day?

Figures released by Tesco last year showed only 21% of those who were put on workfare placements with them got a paid job at the end of it (300 out of the first 1,400 (7) – (8).

You can judge the general level of honesty on this subject from the government from the fact that they are fiddling the unemployment statistics by counting people on unpaid workfare placements as “employed” in “new jobs” (9).

Smith, true to form, is being utterly dishonest. He’s also a hypocrite. When he was in opposition he toured the country in teary eyed meetings with the poor, the disabled and the unemployed and charities working with them, promising them that when he got into government he would help them rather than punish them.

After less than three years in government Smith as Welfare minister has approved not only a 21^st century version of the 19^th century workhouse through unpaid “workfare” placements like Cat Reilly’s; but also letting French IT company ATOS get commissions on the number of disabled people they take benefits from on the basis of the say of doctors ATOS is employing and who often refuse to even look at their medical records or their GP’s opinion (10).

(The leadership of the Labour party actually initiated this scheme and gave ATOS this contract in 2008 in a shameful betrayal of vulnerable people and their supposedly democratic socialist ideals, though the Conservatives have made it even harsher than it was under Labour by changing the terms of the contract (11) – (12))

Smith is also rumoured to be currently trying to scrap the appeal process against ATOS rulings, because 40% of people stripped of their benefits by ATOS have had them restored on appeal to tribunals (though ATOS keeps its commission payments for removing someone from disability benefit even if their ruling is found to be wrong on appeal) (13) – (14).

Smith has also approved caps on housing benefit, along with an insane “bedroom tax” which takes away the housing benefit of anyone living in a flat or other property with more than one room in it and the government thinks one of them could be converted into a bedroom (15).

But, warm-hearted, compassionate men that they are, he and Lib Dem Treasury minister Danny Alexander have now let it be known that they will oppose any further welfare cuts (16). That’s nice of them. How about reversing all the ones you’re making? Then there might be anyone who gave a flying fuck. Currently it’s a bit like Hitler pledging not to invade any more countries now he’s done France, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Austria and Greece.

I know whose behaviour I think is unacceptable – and it’s not Cat Reilly’s, it’s yours Mr Smith. You would not make an acceptable local councillor never mind an acceptable government minister.

What You Can Do

Go to the Boycott Workfare website to find ways you can help end Workfare in the UK
(there will also be a week of action against Workfare on 18^th to 24^th March)

Sign this petition to keep the Disability Living Allowance instead of the ATOS contract

If you’re in Scotland, sign this petition to the Scottish government to ban the bedroom tax

Wherever you are in the UK, sign this petition to scrap the bedroom tax

Join the Peoples’ Assembly Against Austerity – a non-party group to oppose austerity and welfare and public service cuts which members of any party and of no party can join

Sources

(1) = Independent 13 Feb 2013 ‘Poundland ruling: Back-to-work schemes in disarray as no-pay placements judged unlawful’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/poundland-ruling-backtowork-schemes-in-disarray-as-nopay-placements-judged-unlawful-8491398.html

(2) = Independent On Sunday 17 Feb 2013 ‘Nobody is 'too good' to work as a shelf-stacker, says Iain Duncan Smith’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nobody-is-too-good-to-work-as-a-shelfstacker-says-iain-duncan-smith-8498374.html

(3) = Department of Work and Pensions – Work Programme Provider Guidance - Chapter 3c – work experience on a voluntary basis and community benefit work placement,
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/wp-pg-chapter-3c.pdf ; ‘Even if they are not paid by the employer, participants will qualify for the NMW (National Minimum Wage) if they are regarded as employees of the employer AND are participating in a trial period of work with that employer, in which the employer has agreed to offer a job to the participant if they successfully complete the trial, in cases where the trial is in excess of six weeks… “Employment” has a wide meaning, and participants are likely to be regarded as employees if they agree voluntarily to take up the placement with a particular employer.…The NMW is very unlikely to apply to participants mandated to participate in unpaid work experience or an unpaid community benefit work placement through the Work Programme, or to Participants who volunteer to take part in an unpaid placement of either type which is not a work trial exceeding 6 weeks.’

(4) = Department for Work and Pensions Research Report No 533 ‘A comparative review of workfare programmes in the United States, Canada and Australia’,
http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rports2007-2008/rrep533.pdf (see page 5 , paragraph 7)

(5) = Telegraph 21 Feb 2012 ‘Iain Duncan Smith: it's better to be a shelf stacker than a 'job snob'’, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9095050/Iain-Duncan-Smith-its-better-to-be-a-shelf-stacker-than-a-job-snob.html ; 5^th paragraph, 1^st sentence, ‘The Government says half of those who join the scheme have either found work or stopped claiming benefits after 13 weeks.’

(6) = Telegraph 03 Jul 2012 ‘Lazy jobseekers to lose benefits for up to three years’, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9370402/George-Osbornes-plans-to-use-billions-of-pounds-from-British-pension-funds-cash-to-pay-for-roads-fail-to-get-going.html ; 4^th sentence ‘The new sanctions regime, which come into force this Autumn. will see a claimant losing their benefit for 13 weeks for a first failure to comply with the rules.’

(7) = Guardian 10 Feb 2012 ‘Unions call on UK high street giants to halt unpaid work schemes’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/10/unions-shops-unpaid-work-schemes ; ‘Tesco said that over the last four months around 1,400 people had worked for free for a month as part of work experience in its stores, and since the scheme began 300 jobseekers had gained a job with the company.’

(8) = Daily Mirror Blogs 16 Feb 2012 ‘Outrage over Tesco's £1.50 per hour "job offer"’,
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2012/02/post-2.html (see ‘Tesco’s Statement’ at bottom of the page on that link)

(9) = Guardian 15 Jan 2013 ‘Statistics cast doubt on coalition's '500,000 new jobs' claim’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/15/statistics-doubt-coalition-500000-jobs

(10) = guardian.co.uk 31 Jul 2012 ‘Sick and disabled people are being pushed off benefits at any cost’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/31/disabled-people-benefits-panorama

(11) = New Statesman 23 Jan 2013 ‘The Shadow State: The "dehumanising, degrading" treatment of disabled people’, http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/01/shadow-state-dehumanising-degrading-treatment-disabled (see especially 2nd paragraph and 9^th paragraph)

(12) = BBC News 17 Aug 2012 ‘Watchdog finds weaknesses in benefits system’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19244639

(13) = New Statesman 23 Jan 2013 ‘The Shadow State: The "dehumanising, degrading" treatment of disabled people’, http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/01/shadow-state-dehumanising-degrading-treatment-disabled ; 11^th paragraph, 2^nd to 3^rd sentences ‘On average 40 per cent of challenged decisions are overturned at tribunal – one in ten of the total assessed. It has cost £60m thus far to assess the appeals. Some 1,300 people have died after being placed in the “work-related activity group” for those expected to start preparing for an eventual return - 2,200 died before the assessment process was completed.’

(14) = Channel 4 News 08 Feb 2013 ‘Disability testing system causes ‘misery and hardship’’, http://www.channel4.com/news/disability-testing-system-causes-misery-and-hardship , ‘But the public accounts committee report though, lays much of the blame at the door ot the Department for Work and Pensions. It says the DWP relies too heavily on the decisions taken by Atos assessors. And how good are those decisions? Well , according to the committee, 38 per cent of the department's decisions were overturned in appeals...In the meantime Atos Healthcare were paid more than £112m to carry out 738,000 assessments between 2011 and 2012. The PAC report adding: "It (the department) has failed to withold payment for poor performance."’

(15) = Independent on Sunday 17 Feb 2013 ‘'We won't put up with this': Residents facing brunt of 'bedroom tax' will refuse to pay’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/we-wont-put-up-with-this-residents-facing-brunt-of-bedroom-tax-will-refuse-to-pay-8498691.html

(16) = Guardian 15 Feb 2013 ‘Senior ministers to oppose more welfare cuts’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/feb/15/ministers-oppose-more-welfare-cuts

Additional Ranting

The Conservatives’ theory is that people don’t work because they’re lazy. The reality is that even on the government’s own (fiddled) figures there are 5 people unemployed for every job vacancy available. And the real ratio is much higher because of all the fiddling of the unemployment figures. For instance people on temporary, unpaid “workfare” placements are counted as employed and in “new jobs”.

The Conservatives’ theory is that most people on disability benefit could actually work easily and are being prevented from getting jobs and getting on in life by receiving benefits and believing they can’t work (with the unspoken assumption again that there would be enough jobs for all of them even if this was true). Look at the Paralympic athletes they say, that proves that it’s all in the mind – glass half empty or glass half full perspectives. Unfortunately this is all bollocks. Many people are genuinely disabled and simply cannot work – and what’s more many of those who have become disabled worked and paid taxes for decades before becoming disabled due to illnesses or ageing.

The Conservatives’ theory is that the welfare state is creating dependency and a drain on the economy. The reality is that it is vital to a civilised society which doesn’t want to leave many of it’s people to die of hunger, cold or treatable diseases and illnesses, which is why it was created, in infancy and weak form in the late 19^th to early 20^th centuries and in it’s full form since the end of World War Two. Charities cannot do what welfare states and national health services do – we know that because there were lots of charities before there was a welfare state and they never came close to reducing poverty for the majority.

The welfare state is not a drain on the economy either. For instance unemployment benefit during recessions helps to limit a downwards spiral of falling wages and more people made unemployed, followed by people spending less money on buying goods and services (because many of them now have less), followed by firms sacking more employees and cutting pay for the rest as they can’t sell as many goods or services.

The Conservatives are trying to bring us back to the 19^th century and many of the Liberal Democrats are supporting them and basically agree with them. Worse still much of the leadership of the Labour party largely share their ideology and only differ in how quickly they want to dismantle the welfare state and privatise the NHS by the back door.

Much of the leadership of the Liberal Democrats and the Blairite wing of the Labour party seem to differ only in wanting to do this more gradually.

IMF Director Christine Lagarde orders Greeks to pay their taxes while doing nothing to close down tax havens either as French Finance Minister or head of the IMF

IMF head Christine LaGarde's orders to Greeks to do their duty and pay their taxes ring pretty hollow coming from a woman who is the former French Finance minister. In that role she did pretty much nothing to close down tax havens in the EU (Switzerland, the Channel Islands, etc) or former French or British colonies and dependencies; and as head of the IMF she has done pretty much nothing in that regard either. Unless she's willing to close down the tax havens to stop the wealthiest and big banks and firms from avoiding tax, she has no leg to stand on in telling ordinary Greeks to pay theirs. Most of them already do. (1)

(1) = Guardian.co.uk 28 May 2012 'Christine Lagarde's Greek comments provoke fury', http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/28/christine-lagarde-greek-comments-fury

Clegg and Cameron and their parties are the ones who are too dependent on state hand-outs - not Scotland, Wales, Northern-Ireland and the North of England ; and their austerity policies (welfare for rich party donors at everyone else's expense) are preventing us getting out of debt

Could someone tell the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, that they are patronising hypocrites when they try to tell the people of this country - apparently including the whole of Scotland, the North of England, Northern Ireland and Wales according to Nick Clegg - that they can't afford to fund our supposed dependency on welfare any more ; and liars or delusional when they tell us their policies are reducing our debts and our deficit.

At their public relations press conference at a tractor factory in Essex the other day, Cameron and Clegg helpfully explained that they had no choice but to cut the deficit by any means necessary to get us out of debt.

Never mind that their so-called austerity policies - welfare for the richest, cuts for the the majority, (including those who need it most - the disabled, unemployed, poor and pensioners) have pushed us back into recession, unemployment over 2.6 million (with the short term fall of 35,000 soon to be wiped out again by a longer term rise to an estimated 2.85 million by the end of the year). Just to top it off they've actually actually increased the trade deficit (value of exports, minus value of imports) by almost £1 billion between January and February this year alone , by making the vicious circle of falling demand and rising unemployment that happens in a recession worse by sacking so many teachers, doctors, nurses and lecturers and by denying benefit to or cutting benefits for the disabled, unemployed, pensioners and working people on low incomes. Given all that any fall in the budget deficit will be short term and soon reversed without a change in policy (1) - (4).

(For instance the abolition of almost all tax credits has more than cancelled out any benefits to those working on low incomes from raising the starting rate for paying income tax to £8,000. While the 50p tax rate for the richest was cut, the starting rate for the 40% tax rate was lowered, so hitting middle and upper middle earners harder too. ) (5) - (7) (I have to admit here to having been wrong in supporting replacing tax credits with a higher starting rate for income tax)

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg also explained (at the tractor factory) that Scotland, the North of England, Wales and Northern Ireland had all become too dependent on state hand-outs and that this "gravy train" was fine during the boom times but that we couldn't afford it any more.

(Watched this live on the BBC's News 24 , but can't find a complete transcript of it nor a complete video online)

Cameron and Clegg are paid with taxpayer money and dependent on throwing public money and lives to banks, arms companies (including as they sell arms to dictatorships killing Arab Spring democracy protesters), the PFI and PPP contractors, privatised rail operators and the pointless Afghanistan war and the Olympic circus like there's no tomorrow ; while allowing the recipients of taxpayers' money to avoid taxes themselves through tax havens. This gets them donations to their election campaigns from the recipients of these subsidies and tax breaks - big banks, firms and billionaires donating to party funds (8) - (10).

What have Cameron or Clegg ever done for the people of Scotland, Wales, the North of England, Northern Ireland, or the UK as a whole, in return for their £130,000 plus state funded annual salaries - five times the median wage - other than rob us to pay donors to party funds, while pretending that we simply don't understand that whatever's best for them and their donors must be what's best for everyone? (which is a pathetic fallacy based on a false assumption of identity of interests.) (11)

That's apart from the fact that London gets immensely higher levels of public spending on the infrastructure required for a strong economy (particularly transport) than any other part of the UK - and that the heads of the City of London's financial sector are the ones who caused the crisis and recession and who are paying themselves obscene bonuses with taxpayers' money. We are all now paying for the City of London's financial sector - and the Channel Island, Man , Belize and Cayman Island tax havens which caused the financial crisis and will cause another unless they're shut down (12).

Even the banks that didn't get bailed out were only saved from falling like dominoes as banks did in the 1929 Great Crash in the US by the majority of taxpayers paying for the bail-outs. The Conservative party's funding from banks, hedge funds and the rest of the financial sector has increased to at least 50% of all donations to their party's funds (13).

That explains why they cap benefits for people who desperately need the money but not bankers' bonuses for people who already have hundreds of times more than they could possibly need - and why the government hasn't made any serious attempt to close down the tax havens (just some window dressing) or re-regulate the financial sector. It also suggests that when the Conservatives say "we're all in it together" they really mean that they and their billionaire, banker and oil and arms company pals are all working together to rob everyone else.

Come the next general election this pair of public welfare recipient, dependent, hypocrites' days of living off the state and off of people who actually do work that benefits others, while contributing nothing themselves, will be coming to an abrupt end.

Sources

(1) = BBC News 25 Apr 2012 'UK economy in double-dip recession', , 'The UK economy has returned to recession, after shrinking by 0.2% in the first three months of 2012.A sharp fall in construction output was behind the surprise contraction, the Office for National Statistics said.A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction. The economy shrank by 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2011.'

(2) = ONS Press Release 16 April 2012 'Labour Market Statistics, April.', http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/april-2012/index.html , 'The unemployment rate was 8.3 per cent of the economically active population, down 0.1 on the quarter. There were 2.65 million unemployed people, down 35,000 on the quarter. This is the first quarterly fall in unemployment since the three months to May 2011.

(3) = BBC News 04 May 2012 'High unemployment to do 'permanent damage' to UK', http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17942814 ; 'The UK unemployment rate will rise from its current 8.3% to almost 9% by the end of this year, doing "permanent damage to the UK's productive capacity", a think tank has said.The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said that the persistent weakness in the economy was "unprecedented".'

(4) = ONS Press Release 12 Apr 2012 'UK Trade, February 2012',
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/uktrade/uk-trade/february-2012/index.html , 'The deficit on seasonally adjusted trade in goods was £8.8 billion in February, compared with the deficit of £7.9 billion in January.'

(5) = Independent 27 Dec 2011 'Britain's poorest hit by £2.5bn 'stealth tax' , http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britains-poorest-hit-by-25bn-stealth-tax-6281832.html , 'Tax cuts for low and middle-income families in April will be dwarfed by hidden reductions in tax credits, according to a study for The Independent.

The analysis found that the £1bn of tax cuts in April will be outweighed by reductions of more than £2.5bn in the complex tax-credit scheme.'

(6) = Independent on Sunday 18 Mar 2012 'Working poor left out in the cold as benefit U-turn targets better-off ', http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/working-poor-left-out-in-the-cold-as-benefit-uturn-targets-betteroff-7576431.html

(7) = DirectGov Budget 2011 Tax Changes, http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/nl1/newsroom/budget/budget2011/dg_wp195609

(8) = Campaign Against the Arams Trade - Export Credits,
http://www.caat.org.uk/issues/ecgd.php

9) = guardian.co.uk 09 Jul 2011 '300 schools to be built with £2bn PFI scheme', http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jul/19/300-schools-built-private-finance-scheme

(10) = Guardian 09 Mar 2012 'Olympic Games risk going over budget as cost hits £11bn, say MPs', http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/mar/09/olympic-games-budget-cost

(11) = www.parliament.uk 'Frequently Asked Questions: MPs ',
http://www.parliament.uk/about/faqs/house-of-commons-faqs/members-faq-page2/

(12) = BBC News 18 Dec 2011 'Transport spending 'skewed towards London', http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16235349

(13) = Bureau of Investigative Journalism 08 Feb 2011 'Tory Party funding from City doubles under Cameron', http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/02/08/city-financing-of-the-conservative-party-doubles-under-cameron/

We need tax havens closed down to avoid another financial crisis and increase revenues , the 50p tax rate is a side issue, the mansion tax a gimmick

Chancellor George Osborne's cut in the 50p top rate of tax is supposed to bring in extra revenue by making the wealthiest pay tax in the UK, while business Minister Vince Cable is calling for a “mansion tax” supposedly to target the “super rich”. Another Lib Dem – Lord Oakeshott – says it’s because otherwise taxing the super rich is like pinning down jelly. In fact the real problem – the thing allowing the super-rich and big firms to avoid taxes; and the thing that caused the financial crisis and will cause another if they’re not closed down –is tax havens. Some will tell you closing them down is impossible – they’re wrong. It’s been done before and it can be done again.

Deputy PM Nick Clegg suggest a minimum tax rate, which is a better idea, but both avoids the main problem – tax havens, including the City of London ‘Square Mile’, which is governed only by the Corporation of the City of London – mostly bank and hedge fund executives.

To listen to most politicians you’d believe that they’ve now re-regulated banks and financial firms as much as is possible and that taxing and regulating big firms, banks and billionaires further is impossible as they’d just go elsewhere .  Nicholas Shaxson’s book ‘ Treasure Islands ’ shows this is a long way from the truth. It should be required reading for every voter in every country in the world (1).

The ‘Mansion Tax’ might get a little extra tax out of some of the super rich (while also e.g punishing widows and people who’ve retired for having a bigger than average house or a house in an area with high property values, the same way the Rates used to). It will barely make the super-rich of big firms blink though. If you want to get significant taxes out of them, you have to close down the tax havens

Bretton Woods

Shaxson shows that after World War Two the Bretton Woods agreement between the western European countries and the US imposed capital controls – i.e limits on how much money could be transferred from one country to another by private individuals and companies, with any large amount requiring an explanation of the reason and approval by government, which would not be granted unless benefits to the country the money was coming from could be shown.

There were also fixed exchange rates between the dollar and other currencies, avoiding currency speculation of the kind that led to Black Wednesday and the Asian Financial Crisis in the 1990s.

(Other aspects of Bretton Woods, such as the Gold Standard, were more questionable)

However from the day Bretton Woods came into force, bankers, the financial industry and politicians they lobbied were looking for ways to get around it and weaken it to the point it would collapse entirely. By 1971 they managed to achieve that.

How tax havens cause financial and economic crises – and will cause more if they aren’t closed down

Their main method has been tax havens, not only because of low (or no) taxes, but also because tax havens provide secrecy, allowing banks and companies to avoid regulation. They do this in several ways. For instance by allowing banks and companies and people to registering their company or shell companies or accounts in tax havens. Tax havens also allow professional front-man directors, managing executives, treasurers etc who are listed as the executives of thousands of different firms registered in that haven. So if anyone tries to find out about who owns and manages that company, they’ll only find the front people. Secrecy is the most important aspect, because if no-one knows who really runs an account or firm or what company or individual is putting money into it or taking it out (e.g to donate to political parties’ or politicians’ campaign funds), no-one can regulate them.

Enron, World.com, Parmalat and Long Term Capital Management for instance were all registered or had shell companies in the Cayman Islands, a British dependency.

While many tax havens are small islands and so ‘offshore’ some of the onshore tax havens like the US State of Delaware Luxembourg, Switzerland and the City of London (Square Mile) mentioned earlier are even bigger centres of corruption. Delaware has more companies registered in it than any other tax haven due to it’s lack of regulation, almost zero taxes and high level of secrecy.

The ‘financial derivatives’ like ‘Collateral Debt Obligations’ which led to the financial crisis were mostly invented and issued by firms registered in tax havens.

The onshore and offshore tax havens are similar in being small, largely being governed by the heads of companies in the tax haven (Jersey, City of London) or by governments so small that they are captured easily by big banks’ and companies’ lobbying and donations (Delaware).

The City of London is governed by the City of London Corporation headed by the Lord Mayor (no relation to the democratically elected mayor of the rest of London). City of London Corporation elections work like those of a medieval city dominated by merchant guilds rather than a modern democracy. There are 9,000 ordinary electors, but 39,000 votes held by companies. The votes held by companies are held by their Chief Executives, who get a number of votes based on their number of employees. (Tony Blair, who dropped the Labour party’s previous policy of abolishing the Corporation in 1996, passed legislation in government increasing the number of votes in it going to company executives from 26,000 to 39,000).

When Labour party member Maurice Glasman stood against one of the candidates in a Corporation election, it was unprecedented. The heads of the companies in the Square Mile are almost always elected unopposed by any other candidate.

This means that, in practice, as many of the UK’s banks and other financial companies are in the Square Mile governed by the Corporation, the UK’s financial industry remains entirely unregulated. Neither the British government nor the Mayor of London, nor the London Assembly, nor the EU, can regulate what goes on inside the Square Mile under their ‘Ancient Charter’ dating to before the Norman conquest of England.

What’s more the City of London Corporation and the firms that make it up are in denial about CDOs and other financial derivatives having caused the crisis and continue to lobby the government to avoid ‘unnecessary’ regulation of the financial sector and to allow it to continue to create now and ‘innovative financial products’ of the kind that caused the crisis.

If the tax havens aren’t closed down another crisis is not just a possibility – it will almost inevitably happen again, because the banks and firms involved are so big they can always extort a bail-out to avoid taking down the entire economy with them – and then re-invest some of the money they get from that in lobbying and donations to party funds.

How Tax Havens push up taxes for the majority

Shaxson found that an estimated $12 trillion – a quarter of the world’s wealth – is untaxed in tax havens, put there by individual people or their financial advisors. The amount put in them by banks and big companies is not known, but we do know that every major company and bank in the UK, from RBS to Tesco has dozens of subsidiaries, ‘joint ventures’ or ‘associates in tax havens like Jersey – and that the purpose of these subsidiaries and other agreements is to avoid tax. So at a guess at least half the world’s wealth is going untaxed in tax havens.

We also know that the Inland Revenue, which would jail ordinary people or heads of small businesses for evading or avoiding tax, instead negotiates ‘sweetheart deals’ with big banks and firms, allowing them each to avoid tens to hundreds of millions each a year – and that’s only from the accounts the Inland Revenue knows about.

That pushes taxes up for everyone else – all the ordinary people and small businesses who can’t afford the lawyers and accountants they’d need to avoid tax.

If that money was taxed, so those who can afford to pay paid what they can afford, taxes for everyone else would fall, extreme cuts in public spending would be unnecessary as tax receipts would rise and the kind of fraud that allowed the financial crisis to happen could be prevented.

How Tax Havens allow developed and developing world corruption

It also helps corrupt governments and dictatorships around the world – including in the poorest countries – to divert taxes and aid money into secret accounts in tax havens. So the next time you hear someone complain about how corruption makes aid pointless, point out that it couldn’t happen on the scale it’s happening without the tax havens and lack of controls on capital transfers, which are the result of the actions of developed world governments like the US, Britain, France and Switzerland. The centres of corruption are tax havens in the developed world.

Tax Havens launder drug , criminal and terrorist money

The secrecy which tax havens provide which is designed to allow people and companies to avoid or evade tax also allows drug traffickers, organised crime and terrorist groups to launder money. Shaxson provides several concrete examples including the BCCI affair and the Florida mafia

The Fiction that most Tax Havens are independent

The British government maintains a fiction that it has no control of what goes on in it’s tax haven dependencies – especially the Cayman Islands, Jersey and the Isle of Man. Shaxson’s book provides plenty of examples of them being able to get their way when they want something in these places – and plenty of quotes showing the British government giving their dependencies a nod and a wink on how it would be better if matters were ‘resolved’ without the UK government having to act itself and end the convenient fiction.

The biggest threat from tax havens – and how they can be closed down, as they were under Bretton Woods

The most frightening thing about tax havens though is that they are all still operating, providing secret accounts and shell companies for banks and firms worldwide – and as long as that’s the case another global financial crisis could happen tomorrow.

The ‘nothing can be done’ excuse – and why it’s false

Most of the politicians and bankers and billionaires will tell you that there is nothing that can be done about this – that modern technology and business practices have gone beyond the ability of governments to regulate them. That’s nonsense. It was possible to transfer money between countries fairly rapidly in 1945-1970, but Bretton Woods prevented it being done constantly without good reasons – and growth rates in that period were far higher (at an average of 4% a year) in the developed world than they have been since 1970. Before 1945 there was the same chaos in international finance, leading to the same problems – the 1929 Great Crash and the global Great Depression. So this is not a matter of new developments making new capital and exchange rate controls impossible – they are just as possible as they were in 1945 to 1970.

The ‘lack of political will’ excuse – and how to create the political will

Many will tell you that the problem is a lack of political will – again, nonsense. If enough people demand that their governments close down tax havens and impose regulation on them, it can be done, just as it was done after World War Two. Tax havens rely on money being able to get in and out. Simply ban all money transfers in and out of them until new regulations are in force and enforce full sharing of all information on accounts and companies registered in them.

The problem is that the billionaires and big firms and the newspapers and TV stations they own and the politicians they lobby and donate to have persuaded everyone that the people costing them money are fraudulent welfare claimants, when in fact, for instance, only 0.6% of benefit claims in the UK are estimated to be fraudulent. As long as the majority allow themselves to be conned in this way there certainly won’t be the political will to do anything about the tax havens that are really pushing taxes up for the majority and causing economic crises. If they are informed and persuaded of the real problems – and that allowing the tax havens to remain will result in another financial crisis and recession if they’re not closed down, that will rapidly change though.

Politicians lack the ‘political will’ to do anything about tax havens as long as the majority don’t realise how they’re suffering due to them because the same big firms and super rich people benefiting most from tax havens are also the ones donating most to the funds of the big parties and spending most on lobbying government.

The ‘requires an international agreement we can’t get’ excuse – and the alternative of leading by example

Then there’s the excuse that it would require an international agreement and that that’s not possible. In fact it’s been done before (Bretton Woods) and progress can be made even without one – because if one country starts closing down it’s tax havens then the voters in others won’t accept that closing down tax havens is impossible any more -  and the dominoes will start to fall.

Sources

(1) = Michael Shaxson (2011) ‘Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World’ Bodley Heads, London, 2011

(2) = Guardian DataBlog October 2011 ‘Tax havens and the FTSE 100: the full list’- The top 100 British multinationals have declared full or joint ownership of 34,216 companies - 25% of which are located in jurisdictions classed as tax havens. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/11/ftse100-subsidiaries-tax-data

(3) = Guardian 20 Dec 2011 ‘HMRC hid 'sweetheart' tax deals for big business, MPs say’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/dec/20/inland-revenue-sweetheart-tax-deals

Neither Cameron’s concern for the City of London financial traders who caused the crisis nor Eurozone balanced budgets will solve the real problems

It’s hard to know which is worse between David Cameron’s concern for regulations that might harm the ‘City of London’  - i.e the stock market traders, hedge fund managers and bank executives who caused the crisis - at the expense of everyone else; or the Eurozone governments’ fantasy that balanced budgets will solve everything.

Both ignore the actual causes of the crisis – deregulation of the financial sector leading to massive fraud causing a crisis when it was discovered and global recession.

In addition the Eurozone ‘fiscal unity’ plan ignores the fact that trade between countries with stronger and weaker economies will inevitably lead to trade imbalances and so deficits in the governments of the weaker economies unless there is major redistribution from wealthier to poorer economies, invested in development.

The Franco-German plan at least recognises that re-regulation of the financial sector is necessary to avoid another crisis, even if it doesn’t go far enough in re-regulating.

Balanced budgets will do nothing to prevent another banking crisis, because it doesn’t prevent debts being run up by the banks and other ‘financial institutions’ in the private sector again, nor does it stop them developing and fraudulently trading new ‘financial instruments’.

A balanced budget does nothing to guarantee a strong economy either. In fact it may prevent borrowing to invest in developing new technologies and infrastructure that would lead to development in the future; and it prevents governments ending recessions through stimulus packages.

Why would any national government give up control of how much it taxes and borrows to the Euro-zone?

Even states of the US in a federal system don't give up that power (though extreme free market ideology has led many of them to practically abolish taxes, leading to bankruptcy at the state level in California and elsewhere).

There is pretty much no chance of the Greek, Spanish, Portugese or Italian public approving of the fiscal unity plan in referenda even if it gets through their parliaments; and even the French are intensely nationalistic and unlikely to give up that much sovereignty.

Some French and German politicians have already suggested Greece might wish to leave the euro - so perhaps the fiscal unity plan is intended to force the weaker economies out of the euro-zone, leaving it with maybe France, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Holland, Poland and the Czech Republic.

Why is there a focus solely on levels of debt when Germany's debt as a percentage of GDP in 2011 is expected to be 81.1% of GDP according to German government projections (1). So how can it lecture Greece or Italy on debt? Like other European countries, it's debt only became a critical problem due to the recession which resulted from the financial crisis.

So I don’t blame Cameron for refusing to sign up to the fiscal unity deal – I blame him for only defending the interests of city traders who have retained incomes including bonuses averaging over £100,000 a year , including a 12% average pay increase in the last six months (equivalent to 19% in the last year when 5% inflation is taken into account), while he sacks hundreds of thousands of public sector employees on a fifth or less of that wage who provide healthcare, education, policing and emergency services while many city traders profit from the suffering of others and are grossly over-paid for jobs that do more harm than good to other people (2) - (3).

City of London financial traders are the last people who need protected from ‘bureaucracy’ – they need reined in hard, with regulators coming down on them like a ton of bricks to prevent them causing another crisis - and if the government really want to tax the 'haves' and not the 'have nots', they'd be better raising taxes on city traders rather then sacking teachers and nurses.

(1) = Wall Street Journal 28Oct 2011 ‘German Government Now Sees '11 Debt-To-GDP Ratio At 81.1%-Spokesman’, http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20111028-713887.html

(2) = Astbury Marsden Compensation Survey 2011 – Banking Infrastructure London,http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:tN8-iJkGpa8J:www.astburymarsden.com/documents/Astbury%2520Marsden%2520Compensation%2520Survey%25202011_Banking%2520Infrastructure%2520London%2520small.pdf+Astbury+Marsden+report+city+pay&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjCp35WxasQC0uKU6hyPufcF3PKQgqywr0k1qNAEGK_4wMSeFBhohPhKrGo7oTiY4RLukF4E51KGYTxH6kmRfhX-1zs80hIKdv6Ckao6ZzZxFrjD6HI5anmt52lZR3QiNTc0ttx&sig=AHIEtbS9vlPCGJzgvi4HFde7s45wAlnw_w

(3) = Guardian 28 Nov 2011 ‘Banks under fresh pressure to curb bonus and dividend payouts’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/nov/28/banks-curb-bonuses-dividends

Any third round of quantitative easing money should by-pass the banks and go straight to businesses and people to restore employment and growth

then we have to deal with our energy and waste crises

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee have said there may be a third round of Quantitative Easing, after the first two failing to provide any benefit except increasing the banks’ reserves (1).

They failed because the banks are not passing the money on in loans at an interest rate that businesses can afford, partly because they’re afraid of not having big enough reserves to meet another crisis; and partly because their top managers have decided they can get off with that because politicians aren’t willing to risk any bank going under in case it sets off others like a string of dominoes and they take the rest of the economy with them.

Quantitative easing has been much derided because it’s a euphemism for printing money, but printing money is not always a bad idea – it depends on the circumstances and who the money is going to.

Printing money when inflation is low, deflation is a serious risk and the economy is on the edge of another recession and banks are refusing to loan is not unreasonable. Since banks across Europe are private creditors of the Greek government, which may be forced to default on it’s debts unless it’s creditors forgive the majority of them (with either option involving losses for the banks), quantitative easing is also seen as a way of ‘recapitalising’ the banks (i.e boosting their reserves) to avoid runs on them in the event of a default.

However if we’re going to print more money it should go in loans directly from the government to small and medium sized businesses at reasonable interest rates to boost employment; and in payments to the unemployed, the disabled and people on low and middle incomes. That way it can keep viable existing businesses going, start new ones and increase demand in the economy, rather than just padding out banks’ reserves. It would also involve a modest redistribution of some of the wealth spent on bank bail-outs back to the majority.

This could restore growth and employment levels in the short term, but we also need to re-regulate the banks, undoing decades of de-regulation from the 1980s on, or else another financial crisis could happen at any time.

That could restore at least some of the economic stability of the early post-1945 period. However we also face problems now that we didn’t face then.

Avoiding an Energy Crisis

There is the coming crisis of energy as remaining oil reserves becoming increasingly costly in money and energy to extract, along with increasing demand from China and Asia. To meet this we need increased taxes on oil and energy use to reduce waste of energy. We also need government subsidies and tax breaks for research and development of new energy sources.

Basically, long before oil reserves run out, we will hit ‘Peak Energy’ running short of energy due to the increasing energy costs of extracting oil. In the 1930s when we were extracting mostly the easiest to get at and easiest to refine oil reserves there was a return of 100 barrels of oil for every barrel of oil used to extract it (in fuel for vehicles, drilling, setting up pipelines, oil tankers etc). Today that has fallen to about 11 to 18 barrels for every 1 barrel used. (For more on ‘Peak Energy’ and ‘Net Energy’ see Mandy Meikle’s blog post here and Chris Martenson’s here, as well as this one).

That’s before you even take into account the climate change and other pollution caused.

If you think petrol prices are already high you’re right. However we can’t afford to reduce them if we want to make alternatives to oil based transport and electricity economically viable to develop soon enough to avoid a Peak Energy crisis – and if we don’t do that we’re going to be looking at rationing electricity and being unable to get anywhere by car, train or bus at all except at insane prices at best - and societal collapse into some kind of former Yugoslavia or Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome at worst. Either will make expensive petrol look like a picnic.

Having said that, far more of the taxes on petrol should be going to improving public transport and reducing thecost of using it. It’s no use telling people to use public transport more while making it more and more unaffordable and over-crowded and without more railway stations opened and more trains running.

The Rubbish and pollution Crises

On top of this there is a waste management crisis as we run out of space for landfill of rubbish (which in any case can pollute groundwater and release methane and other gases harmful to people living nearby). Government responses so far have focused on either shipping waste to developing countries which don't have the same regulations, causing illnesses and deaths there, or else incinerators as the cheapest option in the short term and a quick fix, ignoring the waste of energy and resources (especially oil based plastics)  involved and the toxic emissions. These emmisions are likely to increase the incidence of cancers, especially among children and may pollute farmland and so food and water supplies.

Instead we should have a recycling tax on all companies in Scotland or the UK, with companies producing the least waste and the most easily recyclable products and packaging paying a lower rate – plus an import tax on foreign imports that don’t meet the same standards. Recyclable or re-useable products can then be given back to firms for re-use at no further charge, their recycling and delivery funded by the tax.

Taxing the businesses that produce products and packaging which can't be cheaply and safely recycled is the only way to impose a financial cost linked to the cost in terms of peoples' health, lives and environment which will force the worst companies to change their behaviour and allow the better ones, who were already making an effort, to avoid being put out of business by firms who only look at their own costs and profit

We have to act to prevent all the crises - we can't pick and choose which to deal with as if the others don't matter

To get a political climate in which we can deal with the energy and waste crises we first have to avert a second longer and deeper recession in which hunger, poverty and mass unemployment would lead to lots of suffering themselves and could lead to 1930s style politics with the extreme right and/or extreme left gaining support. People who are left scared about whether they can feed themselves and their children and avoid losing their homes will ignore everything else to get those and will be vulnerable to propaganda.

Providing them with some security in the short term has to be the number one priority, but as soon as that’s done we have to start dealing with the energy and waste crises before they lead to disasters just as bad.

(1) = Guardian.co.uk 09 Oct 2011 ‘Third round of quantitative easing possible, says MPC member’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oct/09/third-round-quanititative-easing-possible

Kelvin Mckenzie and the Murdoch press pretending to support ordinary people against the establishment is a joke

Kelvin McKenzie had a very amusing piece on the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ website. While I have to admire his chutzpah in putting it to such a hostile audience his claims about Murdoch and his media empire are as much hot air as usual.

He claims

‘In the two decades he[Murdoch] has owned the channel [Sky], not one editor or journalist has suggested that he has interfered or even made suggestions about news coverage.’

Why would he need to when he can pick people like you, whose political views are his own exactly like his own as editors? (i.e spread hatred of immigrants, the unemployed and foreigners, plus talking up whichever of the two main parties he has a deal on further media deregulation and targeting the one he’s not currently made a deal with)

He then launches into an advert for Sky TV.

‘Sky is the giant of television. Sure it has the football but it has so much more. Even a cultural philistine like me finds myself drawn to Sky Arts, National Geographic and the History Channel. All have unexpected gems that you cannot find anywhere else.’

It’s hard to understand why the Guardian is giving Sky free advertising space here.

Kelvin then starts praising Murdoch’s supposed services to reducing unemployment in the UK.

‘Thank God for the Rupert Murdochs of this world. I wish there were hundreds more in our country. Unemployment would be wiped out at a stroke.’

Not sure what his evidence for that is. Murdoch backed Thatcher from the start. In opposition the Conservatives put out an election poster showing a dole queue with the words ‘Britain isn’t working’. At that point unemployment was over 2 million. By three years into Thatcher’s first term in office (helped there by the support of Murdoch and his Sun newspaper) unemployment was over 3 million. That doesn’t seem like a great job if you’re judging by results.

 If everyone was like Murdoch we’d certainly have no tax base at all due to his companies managing to pay almost nothing in tax on their vast profits and would go bankrupt like Greece.

His companies used tax avoidance to pay no net taxes at all in the UK in the 1990s  (no-one found this out till 1999). News Corporation recently paid $77mn in taxes to one Australian regional government after claiming for 7 years that it hadn’t been avoiding taxes.

I’ll grant that Murdoch’s firms do certainly provide employment for some dodgy ‘private investigators’ like Glenn Mulcaire, who has suddenly done a massive u-turn on his belief that no-one has any right to privacy, now that it affects him, asking reporters to respect his family’s privacy

McKenzie has more praise for Rupert

‘Why has Rupert a monopoly? Simple: nobody else had the guts, the nerve or the stunning management skill to take on the establishment.’

Allying himself with the leaders of the two main political parties alternately and getting his papers to tell people to vote for the one he currently has a deal on deregulation of media ownership with is “taking on the establishment”.

David Cameron and his other Bullingdon Club boys aren’t the establishment? Few people have been as close to "the establishment" as Rupert Murdoch and Kelvin McKenzie.

There’s also his media empire’s use of phone hacking and unusually long ranged mikes to target anyone who goes up against them.

Finally Kelvin says

‘Sky is not Fox News and I have my doubts that in leftwing, socialist, clapped-out Britain, the latter would work commercially or audiencewise.’

It wouldn’t work because it’s blatant propaganda and has had shows by people like Glenn Beck claiming Obama is racist against white people; and has edited out the applause from News reports on his speeches.

That’s apart from the fact that the last time the UK had a government that could be described as socialist was the Atlee government in 1945-1950.

I wonder what Kelvin might have said about a left wing or even vaguely liberal person saying Britain is “clapped out”. I’m guessing the phrase “Brit bashing” would be involved.