Watch: Osborne caught out on tax claims
1. He claims that these are new figures when they were published already.
2. He doesn’t seem to understand that tax receipts are projected to go up because the economy is expected to recover eventually, and that’s what happens to tax then.
Well done to Adam Boulton for putting him on the spot, though Osborne tries his best to get away without answering specific questions.
How did Nazi admirer become a national treasure?
I enjoyed reading the Alan Clark diaries back in the 1990s. They merit their classic status, in capturing a political age, while the dramatic descriptions of the plotting in the final days of the Thatcher premiership mean they are a historical document which will endure.
As Robert Harris writes in his Sunday Times review, “the universal acclaim for the high literary quality of his diaries, transformed Clark’s reputation. From sinister, adulterous crypto-fascist he morphed into lovable, roguish national treasure”.
And yet Ion Trewin’s authorised biography may be becoming the occasion for a reversal in reputations, with several reviewers focusing less on the personal infidelities for which Clark became renowned as on the extent of his fascist sympathies.
Dominic Lawson led the way, putting Clark bang to rights in a devastating Independent column last week. But this is also a theme followed up by Edwina Currie in The Times, and in Robert Harris’ Sunday Times review too.
This is the Alan Clark conundrum: how were literary talent, and a reputation as an entertaining and incorrigible rogue, enough to make a national treasure of a man who made little effort to hide his pro-fascist views? After all, Clark gained Ministerial Office, and was even able to return triumphantly to the House of Commons in 1997 before his death.
continue reading… »
New poll bad for Brown & Clegg
The Guardian reports today:
An overwhelming majority of voters think Labour is failing to tell the truth about the state of the public finances, according to a new Guardian/ICM poll. The result suggests the government has come off worst from a week of squabbling between the parties over the deficit, and Gordon Brown’s admission that spending cuts will be needed.
Only 14% of voters think Labour is telling the truth about the country’s financial situation. More than twice as many believe what the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats say.
That’s what happens when you keep changing your narrative, Labour.
The poll offered little good news for Brown or Clegg – both of whom are more unpopular than their party. The poll also offered bad news for Clegg on his economic narrative:
Lib Dems are the most hostile to cuts and the keenest on tax – 32% want cuts and 53% tax – suggesting that Clegg’s talk of “savage” reductions in spending may go down badly with his party base.
Will Vince Cable’s “Mansion Tax” pitch work?
So Vince Cable has announced Lib Dem policy to introduce a “Mansion Tax” targeting the very wealthiest. The tax would be paid at a rate of 0.5% on the value of properties over £1m, and would affect around 250,000 people who would pay an average of £4,000 a year.
Cable – unlike the Tories – has apparently been reading his Adam Smith, who said:
The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principle expense of the rich; and a magnificent house establishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be any thing very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expence, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in proportion” (The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Ch II, Pt II, Art 1).
But it’s also a shot across Tory bows: “You want to give millionaires a tax break? We want to reel them in and help ordinary people”. Not only is this the right thing to be saying in a country where inequality has increased – it is likely to be electorally wise.
continue reading… »
New Statesman redesigns and adds columnists
The New Statesman magazine is introducing new columnists to its stable and giving the magazine and website a new look and feel.
It will also have a greater focus on photography with the appointment of the New Statesman’s first ever picture editor.
New columnists include the novelist Will Self on strange social phenomena and high street food; the comedian Mark Watson on ethical dilemmas; David Blanchflower on economics; Phillip ‘Red Toryism’ Blond on political ideas.
Blanchflower is a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, and professor of economics at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.
John Gray has been appointed lead book reviewer. Mehdi Hasan is now senior editor (politics) and will be its polemicist, in print and online.
Michael Hodges will write a weekly column on class; historian Dominic Sandbrook will explore counterfactual history; and the writer/activists Mark Lynas, Sophie Elmhirst and Bibi van der Zee will write columns on green issues, the environment and direct action.
They join the established team of columnists: John Pilger (World Citizen), James Macintyre (Politics), Peter Wilby (First Thoughts), Hunter Davies (The Fan), Nicholas Lezard (Down and Out in London), Gideon Donald (Preparing for Power), Ryan Gilbey (film), Rachel Cooke (television), Antonia Quirke (radio), Jude Rogers (pop music), Andrew Billen (theatre) and Leo Robson (fiction).
Rebecca McClelland has been appointed as picture editor. She joins from Wallpaper magazine and was previously picture director with the Sunday Times and ES magazines.
Jason Cowley, editor, says:
We are independent of all political parties and beholden to no one individual or group. But we will continue to campaign for fairness and greater equality, to challenge and provoke as well as amuse and entertain. We shall remain at the forefront of political commentary and analysis; on the staff we have the best two young political journalists in Britain, Mehdi Hasan and James Macintyre.
…
We are, also, in the process of a major expansion of our online operation. Newstatesman.com has been stylishly redesigned and we have launched our popular blogs, Free Speech. Over the next few months, we will be rolling out a series of exciting digital projects which will utterly transform our online presence as the New Statesman seeks to become the world’s leading progressive voice.
A press release stated it will, “remain left-of-centre in politics and true to its radical heritage, but will be more nuanced in tone, more plural and sceptical.”
Watch: Meet Tory Muppet (CC Channel)
The Conservative Change Channel unveil their first video and introduce Tory Muppet.
(credits: Tim Ireland, Jamie Sport and Daniel Hoffmann-Gill)
Also on Twitter
Iain Dale Fail on Labour and motorists
The hysterial Iain Dale thundered yesterday: Labour’s Maddest Idea Yet: Find All Motorists Guilty!
Apparently,
Labour Ministers are intending to pass laws to ensure that all motorists are found to be the guilty parties when involved with accidents involving pedestrians or cyclists. Unbebloodylievable.
…
This demonising of the motorist has to stop.
The article however didn’t list a single government minister in favour of the proposal.
Now if you actually click on the link, you find that Labour ministers are not “intending” anything of the sort.
The proposal (which isn’t to find drivers automatically guilty in any case) is from Cycling England, rather than ministers (or Labour).
But as usual, enough has been done to set off Dale’s readers:
And what did the government have to say on the proposal by a lobby group?
A Department for Transport spokesman said: ‘This is something that gets raised by pressure groups from time to time.
‘Cycling England has proposed it, but it is not something that is being considered by ministers.’
We look forward to a correction.
[hat/tip Tory Troll]
Jackie Ashley the political strategist
Jackie Ashley, June 2009: “what is silly is to imply that Labour would not make cuts or that they would not have to raise taxes for ordinary families…Better to admit the obvious and draw clear lines between Labour policies and Tory ones. There is a sensible, grown-up argument to be had, and it’s one that Labour could end up winning.”
Labour followed Jackie’s advice. So how did that strategy end up working out?
Conservative Home, September 2009, “It’s certainly now much easier for the Conservative government to make cuts. Labour has provided cover and, deliciously, Ed Balls has started the process.”
Matthew d’Ancona, September 2009, “What the PM has achieved is remarkable, nonetheless. He has decontaminated the very word he so successfully drenched in ugliness and horror. For more than a decade it was brave at best, and sometimes politically suicidal, to declare oneself a “cutter”. That was thanks to Gordon Brown. With bleak symmetry, it is he who has declared an end to this once-robust consensus. It is he who has given “permission” for others to argue for much deeper cuts.”
*
Conservative Home, September 2009, “George Osborne is now determined to blame tax rises on Labour, too. This is Phase II of the Tory campaign. Phase I has seen all the parties become cutters. CCHQ now want the need for tax rises to be conceded too.”
And the subject of Jackie Ashley’s column today? The need for Labour to set out its plans for tax rises.
Here’s a tip for Ashley’s future columns on political strategy – next time don’t write a newspaper article about how Labour would be more popular if they did what George Osborne wants them to do.
How dare you assume I’m a progressive?
‘WE ARE all socialists now,’ Liberal chancellor Sir William Harcourt famously maintained on the introduction of death duty in 1894. The soundbite was resurrected earlier this year when Newsweek took a pop at Obama’s ostensible leftism.
For the last century, politicians have routinely reworked the phrase. Thus Tricky Dicky insisted ‘we are all Keynesians now’ – although it seems Milton Friedman actually said it first – while Peter Mandelson deliberately offended Labour sensibilities when he claimed ‘we are all Thatcherites now’. Mandelson can speak for himself.
The current crop of British politicians are now offering a new twist to the theme. These days, it seems that it is compulsory to be a progressive.
continue reading… »
New Labour’s best legacy
If you were around in 1996-97 the sense of deja-vu is palpable. Swap round the words Labour and Tory and oogle at the easy ride David Cameron is being given: from clearing away cereal boxes in front of BBC cameras to hugging huskies, there are plenty of clues that P45 forms for the current ministers are ready for collection.
But while many are dreading a shift of the pendulum on a number of issues such as public spending, social policy or the EU, one change that took place during New Labour’s tenure is here to stay: Britain’s approach towards sexuality.
continue reading… »
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» Revealed: govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote
» Would raising the tax threshold actually help the poorest?
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» This trade agreement with India will destroy thousands of lives
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» Today’s economic figures will simply confirm UK’s “lost decade”
» Have Labour realised the election is more than three years away?
» Violence in the office
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