What a surprise. A whole bunch of people want someone else to pay for the public sector deficit, usually those who earn more, rather than paying for public services with their own bloody taxes.

Lord Ashcroft may have other matters on his mind today:

‘Lord Ashcroft ‘avoided £3.4m in tax’ ahead of rule change

Tory peer accused of financial manoeuvre the day before new legislation would have forced him to pay tax on all income’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/27/lord-ashcroft-tax-conservative

It is rich, not to say fruity, for Tories to claim Ed Miliband “is in the unions pocket” when individual, political levy paying trade unionists voted for him. Whereas the Tories biggest funder by far was a multi-millionaire, unelected, unaccountale peer who dodged paying tax in this country.

Whereas the Tories biggest funder by far was a multi-millionaire, unelected, unaccountale peer who dodged paying tax in this country.

Not since about 2002. I think his donations amounted to less than 5% of Tory donations since 2005.

The 64-year-old peer transferred shares worth £17m in the company to a trust to benefit his children.

What a scumbag! It’s a good job that such IHT avoiding skulduggery is restricted to Tory peers and not, for example, the leader of the Labour Party. Oh, wait…

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article484468.ece

@ blanco

What a surprise. A whole bunch of people want someone else to pay for the public sector deficit, usually those who earn more, rather than paying for public services with their own bloody taxes.

Yup. But two things

1) The number of “those who earn more” is overwhelmingly less than the “whole bunch of people” who use the public services. So what you gonna do – make rich people’s vote worth more than poor people’s? Interesting concept that.

2) How do rich people get rich, and why are poor people poor. Do you think that it may be because the rich people – who own the means of production – don’t pay the poor people enough? Just a thought.

@Richard

So all of those working in the public sector, thousands of them, who earn more than the Prime Minister “own the means of production”?

There is an issue with poor people not earning enough, but the far bigger issue is the number of people who don’t earn at all – the unemployed – which went up to three million under the last government. Youth unemployment doubled under Labour, and the gap between the rich and the poor had never been higher in modern times than under Labour. So why should I expect Labour to have any answers to these issues, and why didn’t they act on them for 13 years?

And if those who earn more are far fewer in number than those who earn less, it logically follows that public services for the many cannot purely be paid for by those who earn more – either you cut the services, or middle class Labour-supporting tweeters/wankers pay more in tax. Tax rises are always great when they’re hitting someone other than yourself eh?

Did you actually read the report?

“The Labour movement is dramatically at odds with swing voters – the ones who decide the outcome of elections – over the causes of its defeat. The switchers say the problem was Gordon Brown, the fact that Labour did not have answers on important issues, and the impression that Labour had run out of steam. Labour loyalists blame voters’ lack of appreciation for Labour’s achievements, the influence of the right-wing media, and the party’s communication of its policies (not the policies themselves).

The Labour movement does not accept that the party deserved to lose. Far from apologising and showing it has learned from its mistakes, as swing voters need it to do, loyalists are more inclined to defend the Labour government’s record – in other words, to tell the voters they were wrong. Nor do many Labour loyalists accept, as swing voters largely (if reluctantly) do, that the deficit is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with urgently.”

If your party wants to start helping people, rather than making them unemployed and laden with public sector debt and increasing the gap between the rich and the poor, you need to admit you were wrong>/b>, not just on communication of policy, but on policy itself – and that your record is toxic. You are on the verge of repeating the mistakes that the Tories made from 1997-2005.

1 blanco

… or perhaps a whole bunch of people are just heartily sick of the rich getting richer, and there being no radical, progressive force actually promoting the things a lot of them would like to see introduced?

Those like me perhaps who have been waiting for decades for some party to come along and give voice to the kind of things outlined in the OP?

Lord knows it hasn’t been the Labout party, has it?

Whether Ed Mili has “the vision thing” to steer his party in that direction remains to be seen. I certainly hope so…but I won’t be holding my breath!

@ 3. Tim J

It is estimated Ashcroft has contributed a minimum of £15 million to the Tories.

“During the “Cash for Peerages” controversy, on 31 March 2006 Ashcroft was named by the Conservative Party as having loaned it £3.6m.

On 12 October 2007 he was accused by Labour MPs of being allowed to heavily fund local Conservative organisations in marginal seats of his choosing. The Electoral Commission is investigating and changes to the rules are predicted.

Significant donations made to the Conservative Party by Bearwood Corporate Services, a company controlled by Ashcroft, have also come under scrutiny. The trading status of the company, and thus the validity of donations totalling £5.1m between 2003 and 2008, is unclear and became the subject of an investigation by the Electoral Commission.

Liberal Democrat Lord Oakeshott stated: “Democracy is in danger if Lord Ashcroft has been pouring millions into Conservative campaigns through an offshore pipeline from a Caribbean tax haven.”

Wonder if Oakeshott would say that today?

On IHT – You free marketeers like to parrott John Stuart Mill to try and give yourself some intellectual ballast to camouflage your greed, but JS Mill was all for IHT. Mill agreed that inheritance should be taxed. “A utilitarian society would agree that everyone should be equal one way or another. Therefore receiving inheritance would put one ahead of society unless taxed on the inheritance.”

In 2009/10 only the richest two per cent paid inheritance tax. Even in the boom years, only around five per cent of estates paid the tax.

In other words Cameorn and Osborne’s plan to cut IHT was a gift to the very wealthiest in society. They only dropped it to get a coaltion with the Lib Dems.

In a previous existence cuddly Uncle Vince Cable said the Tory Inheritance Tax cut would costs £6 billion.

“We’re all in this together”…….

The trading status of the company, and thus the validity of donations totalling £5.1m between 2003 and 2008, is unclear and became the subject of an investigation by the Electoral Commission.

You appear to have missed this bit.

The Electoral Commission has said £5.1m of donations to the Tories from a firm belonging to Lord Ashcroft were legal.

The commission has ruled that the donations by Bearwood Corporate Services were “legal and permissible”, after a 14-month investigation.

And Ashcroft’s donations total less than 5% of total Tory donations since Cameron became leader.

As for IHT, I’m merely pointing out that most people who can, try and avoid incurring the full IHT liability for their children. That this is not exclusively a right-wing position would appear to be borne out by the fact that Ralph Miliband set up precisely the same sort of trust to avoid IHT as Lord Ashcroft. So Labour’s shiny new leader might have to be a bit circumspect in condemning it.

In 2009/10 only the richest two per cent paid inheritance tax. Even in the boom years, only around five per cent of estates paid the tax.

Figures which demonstrate pretty clearly how easy a tax it is to avoid. Back in 2007, when the Tories made their IHT pledge, it was estimated (in the Guardian) that 41% of households were potentially liable. That this figure drops to 5% or so of estates actually being liable shows that tax avoidance in this area is all but universal. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/apr/05/inheritancetax.tax)

“policies like a mansion tax, living wage and High Pay Commission are all fine examples that would help to show how Labour has changed for the better.”

I am in favour of raising more money from the better-off, but the mansion tax is not a good way to do it. Vince Cable originally said he wanted this tax on houses worth over £1 million. This takes in quite a few houses in London that are not actually that high-end. The house that a schoolfriend of mine grew up in comes to mind – just happened to be in the right place at the right time, was nothing flash or fancy, family did not have big wealth. You will cheese a lot of people off unnecessarily with this measure. Also the value of your house today is not directly related to your earnings and thus you ability to pay. And this will hit people in a certain type of house in areas with high property prices, but not in the same type of house in other locations. Think South-North here.

If you raise the threshold to £2 million or more, how much will you actually bring in?

And who decides the value – I see more bureaucracy being set up here to raise a small amount of money in an unfair way. Totally bad move.

We need fewer taxes, less bureaucracy, and a simpler tax system – Labour could take the Tories’ clothes away here whilst doing something good instead of going right-wing. In the meantime, have the courage to argue for and use existing taxes on individuals instead of making up more new ones. Income tax is a good start!

TimJ

As for IHT, I’m merely pointing out that most people who can, try and avoid incurring the full IHT liability for their children. That this is not exclusively a right-wing position would appear to be borne out by the fact that Ralph Miliband set up precisely the same sort of trust to avoid IHT as Lord Ashcroft. So Labour’s shiny new leader might have to be a bit circumspect in condemning it.

Not if Ed went and abolished any IHT rules which benefitted him personally and /or raised rates.

That would draw favourable comparisons with Osborne who intended to make IHT rates benefit him and his rich crony chums even more!

9 Paul Boizot

I have some sympathy for the point that sometimes wizard wheezes such as the mansion tax which seem like a good idea, and could even be described as populist, end up not being that effective and/or being bureacratic and difficult to administer.

It’s a similar point to the one quetion about why there always seems to be so much more emphasis on benefit scroungers and the undeserving poor, and yet so little on those at the other end of the scale, the undeserving rich, evading taxes, bleating about inheritance tax, and threatening to move offshore if the government has the effrontery to close all the loopholes.

Soak the rich I say!

Not if Ed went and abolished any IHT rules which benefitted him personally and /or raised rates.

Well, he’s already benefited so it’s a bit late for that. I’m all in favour of Labour proposing higher rates of IHT though…

Mansion tax on homes worth over £2 million would raise £1.7bn, which would raise enough revenue to reverse the Coalition’s plans to make people homeless by cutting housing benefit:

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/housing-management/miliband-mansion-tax-to-meet-benefit-bill/6510996.article

With a mansion tax:

Four London boroughs, Kensington, Westminster, Hammersmith & Fulham and Camden would pay 60 per cent of the total. Property website Zoopla has calculated that the levy would cost wealthy homeowners an average of £12,270 a year.

With the housing benefit cuts:

The National Housing Federation has calculated the measures would leave around 936,000 people at risk of being driven into debt, falling into arrears, or losing their homes, with a ‘high proportion’ ending up homeless.

Four London boroughs, Kensington, Westminster, Hammersmith & Fulham and Camden would pay 60 per cent of the total. Property website Zoopla has calculated that the levy would cost wealthy homeowners an average of £12,270 a year.

And one of those “wealthy homeowners” would be my dear old mum. She’s a widow, living on a pension (currently £19,000 pa) in one of the London boroughs you mention. How is she supposed to afford your >£12k Mansion Tax?

And this is part of Ed M’s “fairness agenda” ?

@6 Galen10

The Labour party has almost always ended up disappointing those who put their faith in it, particularly those who define themselves as left-wing.

There are plenty of problems in this country which need to be solved for the common good. Unfortunately, Labour created many of them and exacerbated many others created by the Tories beforehand.

Honestly, I think the answer is not Labour, or even any one party in this country. Most people in the country don’t think one ideology or even one broad ideological direction (say, socialism, social democracy, liberalism, conservatism etc) has all the answers – indeed, they’re not too fussed which ideology provides them with the solutions as long as stuff gets done, and stuff improves. That’s why I think parties from across the political spectrum need to work together. In fact, before the election, lots of people were saying “why can’t they work together” and “I like some policies from one party, and others from another”.

We’ve already seen some liberal noises coming from the coalition on prisons, civil liberties, and a few other areas – so yes, the cuts might be damaging but that’s more a question of timing and scale, rather than whether to cut or not – and if the government continues with its present economic policy it’s more or less continuing what Labour began – so I see coalition government, both now and present, providing far more social good than any one party by itself, let alone Labour. We rightly reject the notion that any one religion or philosophy is “right” and “true” in itself, so we should take the same approach to politics and not be so tribal.

Also I am suspicious of modern day trade union leadership – as are most trade union rank and file members – who have proven themselves on many occasions to be the most conservative elements behind the direction of the Labour party. Unions need to evolve – they’re stuck in the past and cannot represent their members, who are working in the 21st century.

If Labour is to be “progressive” – a word which they made meaningless, but which I’ll assume means promoting greater social equality – then it needs to evolve into a more modern, democratic party, based on modern, democratic institutions.

@Don Why did you oppose the mansion tax when the Lib Dems proposed it?

13 donpaskini

Isn’t (or shouldn’t) the question be more about whether it would be more efficient and “fairer” to look at whether there were ways of raising the same amount or possibly more with a more nuanced approach, or eve as noted above via properly applied direct taxation?

“And one of those “wealthy homeowners” would be my dear old mum. She’s a widow, living on a pension (currently £19,000 pa) in one of the London boroughs you mention. How is she supposed to afford your >£12k Mansion Tax?

And this is part of Ed M’s “fairness agenda” ?”

If she is paying more than £12,000 in mansion tax, then the home which she owns must be worth more than £3.2 million.

If you own an asset worth more than £3 million, then you can afford to pay £12,000 per year. There are options such as equity release which would mean that she wouldn’t have to pay the tax out of her pension.

And if you think that is deeply unfair, what do you think about plans to make people who have no savings and are living on £60 a week pay £10 a week extra in rent?

@blanco

I thought the mansion tax was an excellent idea when the Lib Dems came up with it, and that it would be popular:

http://don-paskini.blogspot.com/2009/09/mansion-tax.html

@Galen10

All for looking at other ways of raising revenue. I don’t agree with just raising income tax, though, as the tax system should tax property as well as income.

Ultimately, I think some kind of land value tax would be good – hard to avoid, progressive, minimal impact on economic activity, could replace things like council tax, stamp duty and most inheritance tax.

But in the short time, mansion tax is a fantastic alternative to government plans to make people homeless, and all the polling shows that it is very popular, so Labour should adopt it while developing longer term reforms to the tax system.

@Don Glad to hear it

I think, in addition to raising tax, I do think those on the left need to also realise that most people don’t want to pay significantly higher taxes than they currently do, and as a result public expenditure needs to be slimmed down. We need to have a debate about the size of the state, because we’re not going to be able to maintain it at its current elephantine size.

donpaskini @ 18

I do think it is unfair that my mum should be deemed eligible to pay thousands of pounds in tax due to what is essentially a postcode lottery. A property of the same dimensions and character almost anywhere else in England would be below the mooted MT threshold. As would be the enormous houses people very much richer than she is live in out of London. She could, of course, move. But why should she have to? She’s old; her home has sentimental value to her; and her friends are nearby. With luck she’ll never have to suffer another Labour government that would threaten to either rob or evict her. Any policy that fails to make provision for the asset-rich, income-poor in our society is both unfair and stupid.

what do you think about plans to make people who have no savings and are living on £60 a week pay £10 a week extra in rent?

Unsustainable in the long term.

Ralph Miliband set up precisely the same sort of trust to avoid IHT as Lord Ashcroft. So Labour’s shiny new leader might have to be a bit circumspect in condemning it.

Could somebody please explain how Ralph M, who came to this country as a penniless refugee and who spent his entire career earning the pittance with which we reward university lecturers, and whose wife held the same low-paid job, ended up in a mansion-tax qualifying house in Primrose Hill and possessed of such a large fortune that he was able to set up trust funds for his kids?

Your mum would not have to move, she could set up an equity release scheme which would cover the costs of the mansion tax (possibly also increase her income as well). Or she could move to a home in the same area worth £2 million or less, pocket the extra £1.2 million to spend as she would like and not have to pay a penny in mansion tax.

“A property of the same dimensions and character almost anywhere else in England would be below the mooted MT threshold.”

It would also be worth a lot less money. She is gaining an advantage from the “postcode lottery”, not being disadvantaged.

I take the point about the asset rich, income poor, but I think that mansion tax is set at a sufficiently high threshold that people in this situation won’t be affected, and it will prevent cuts which really hurt the asset poor, income poor.

donpaskini –

“If you own an asset worth more than £3 million, then you can afford to pay £12,000 per year. There are options such as equity release which would mean that she wouldn’t have to pay the tax out of her pension.

And if you think that is deeply unfair, what do you think about plans to make people who have no savings and are living on £60 a week pay £10 a week extra in rent?”

Sorry to be blunt, but that last sentence is absolutely not the way to do politics. There are two issues here, each can be discussed on its merits, and a sensible solution found as part of an overall effort to increase fairness. Your seem to be suggesting that it’s OK to have a bit of unfairness for some people who live in houses which are currently valued highly, because housing benefit cuts are even more unfair. Er..no.

Could somebody please explain how Ralph M, who came to this country as a penniless refugee and who spent his entire career earning the pittance with which we reward university lecturers, and whose wife held the same low-paid job, ended up in a mansion-tax qualifying house in Primrose Hill and possessed of such a large fortune that he was able to set up trust funds for his kids?

Probably by buying the house in the 1950s and keeping hold of it. Property prices have increased somewhat in the last half-century or so.

@ 22

She is gaining an advantage from the “postcode lottery”, not being disadvantaged.

Seems to me that she only gets an advantage so long as there isn’t a Labour government. In the end a flat’s a flat, wherever it is, even a “mansion flat”. The notional “advantage” of having something to pass on to her children is nullified by a combination of your equity release scheme and IHT. The amount she’d have to pay in mansion tax, by the way, exceeds the payments my dad and she had to pay to buy the place in the first instance. Given female life-expectancy, you’re effectively telling her she has to buy the place all over again in her retirement! And you wonder why the middle class stays resolutely Tory.

“Sorry to be blunt, but that last sentence is absolutely not the way to do politics. There are two issues here, each can be discussed on its merits, and a sensible solution found as part of an overall effort to increase fairness. Your seem to be suggesting that it’s OK to have a bit of unfairness for some people who live in houses which are currently valued highly, because housing benefit cuts are even more unfair. Er..no.”

This is exactly the way that politics works and should work. The government is planning to make people homeless by cutting housing benefit by £1.7 billion. If Labour opposes this, then it needs to explain how it would raise £1.7 billion.

Labour is suggesting that instead of making poor people homeless, a tiny number of people who own assets worth over £2 million should pay a little bit more in tax. Then the voters can choose which approach they prefer. Lord Ashcroft’s polling suggests that 86% of people support a mansion tax.

You would prefer to raise income tax. That would be increasing taxes on economically productive activity, rather than on unearned wealth, affect a lot more people, and would be less popular with the voters.

“71% of swing voters back a graduate tax as a replacement for student fees
77% back a 50% rate of income tax on earnings over £100,000
63% want to scrap Trident
84% support increasing the minimum wage to more than £7/hour
81% support a High Pay Commission to restrict high salaries in the private sector
86% back a Mansion Tax on homes over £2 million”

These are all Libdem policies.

That’s Labour’s problem. They’ve abandoned so much territory to the other parties that the only space they have left is that occupied by the Alf Garnetts and Bob Crowes.

Se you in fifteen years comrades;)

“Seems to me that she only gets an advantage so long as there isn’t a Labour government.”

Hmm. How much was the flat worth in 1997, and how much is it worth now? The real terms difference is the free money which she got thanks to the Labour government, probably at least £1 million and possibly much more.

“The amount she’d have to pay in mansion tax, by the way, exceeds the payments my dad and she had to pay to buy the place in the first instance.”

So they paid less than £12,000 for an asset which is now worth £3.2 million.

“And you wonder why the middle class stays resolutely Tory.”

If you have assets worth more than £3 million, then by definition you are a multi-millionaire, not middle class.

It’s not £2m in “assets” which might be producing an income stream from which the tax can be paid, but in £2m in a house.

I can see why it is popular with people who live in less expensive houses, but what exactly is “progressive” about making people with a £2m house pay an extra £20,000 (a small amount according to you) while those in a £1.9m pay nothing?

Why not £1m , or £3m, or £1.874663m?

@24 – university professors 20-30 years ago were paid not much less than doctors and Primrose Hill used to be stuffed with such people before the explosion in financial/legal sector pay numbers employed

“These are all Libdem policies.”

The Lib Dems oppose the living wage, and have abandoned all of the other popular policies in order to do a deal with the Tories. That’s exactly why this is such a good opportunity for Labour. Adopting these policies presumably also makes it easier for Lib/Lab coalition in the future?

And are you really attributing house price inflation to the Labour government?

And if so, that is hardly a good thing, is it?!

@27

Shame that people who voted Lib Dem have no chance – whatsoever – of seeing any of those policies implemented while the Yellows are in bed with the Blues, then.

“I can see why it is popular with people who live in less expensive houses, but what exactly is “progressive” about making people with a £2m house pay an extra £20,000 (a small amount according to you) while those in a £1.9m pay nothing?”

Someone in a £2 million house would pay £0 in mansion tax. You pay 1% on the value of the house above £2 million (so £2.5 million house = 1% x (2,500,000 – 2,000,000) = £5,000, £3 million house = £10,000 and so on).

A house is an asset, btw.

Good to see Tim Jerk and the other scummy trolls defending how the tories are in the pockets of a few millionaires and billionaires.

Always fun to see the trolls begging for sympathy for their poor old mummy who lives in £3 million pound flat. Sell up and live some where else. After all, Tebbit said get on your bike, so darling mummy should get pedalling.

Someone in a £2 million house would pay £0 in mansion tax. You pay 1% on the value of the house above £2 million (so £2.5 million house = 1% x (2,500,000 – 2,000,000) = £5,000, £3 million house = £10,000 and so on).

As valued by whom, how often? When I put my 2 bed flat on the market earlier this year, the valuations I was given varied by £200,000. If your house is valued at £3 million for tax purposes, but you can only sell it for £2 million, do you get a rebate for a wrongful valuation?

On the other hand, perhaps all this marvellous bureaucracy will create more non-jobs for all those poor chaps who went off to become HIPs creators.

32

..and they would have had a chance with New Labour in power you think?

I know it is an asset.

Sorry, I didn’t realise it was a marginal tax – that seems a little more reasonable!

(Speaking as someone whose house is below £2m.)

I meant, I know it is an asset but it is not an income producing asset.

“..and they would have had a chance with New Labour in power you think?”

New Labour is dead, don’t you read the newspapers?

39

As I may have said before Don… habeus corpus!

I’s going to take a lot more than electing a soi distant “progressive” alrernative to New Labour to convince me that particular vampire has been effectively staked through the heart.

Time will tell eh?

@Galen10

Well indeed! Out of interest, what evidence would you require for New Labour to be out for the count? Although the “Red Ed” label is petty and daft it’s quite clear from what he has been saying the past few months that he’s not going to go back to the Blairite days of the Project etc… I’m putting cynicism to one side, for now.

@ 29

Primrose Hill used to be stuffed with such people before the explosion in financial/legal sector…

Yes, I guess you’re right. Here’s a pic of Miliband D’s primary school class. Classmates include Sam Mendes (Daddy Mendes was a university prof) and Zoe Heller (Lukas Heller was a screenwriter). Another alumnus of Primrose Hill Primary is….(cough)… Mayor Boris, before he took the Eton scholarship exam. Small world – the North London thespo-politico-media class thingy.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01569/primrose-hill-prim_1569761c.jpg

Always fun to see the trolls begging for sympathy for their poor old mummy who lives in £3 million pound flat. Sell up and live some where else. After all, Tebbit said get on your bike, so darling mummy should get pedalling.

I must say I wasn’t too sure about David Cameron floating the idea of making council house tenants move somewhere smaller when their kids grew up and left home ….. but if you want a class war, Sally dear, I’m up for it. Shame we can’t move politics on from “we’ll evict your grannies before you evict our mums” though, isn’t it?

Let’s have the whole thing about Ed Miliband’s education:

“Miliband was educated first at Princess Road Primary School, Camden followed by Haverstock Comprehensive School in the Chalk Farm area of north London. After completing his A Levels, he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, gaining a Bachelor of Arts, followed by the London School of Economics, where he studied Economics and obtained a Master of Science degree.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Miliband

The wiki entry for Haverstock Comprehensive School includes this:

“The school was originally considered a failing school and most pupils came from poor families in the nearby Haverstock and Gospel Oak areas. Recently however, the school has become one of the most successful schools in Camden, and is a desirable school with rapidly dropping levels of violence and expulsion.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haverstock_School_Business_%26_Enterprise_College

The school’s alumni include, besides brother David, several footballers and two serial killers as well as Oona King.

Shocking poll results: when asked about them in isolation, voters favour populist measures.

When electing a government however, these policies are not considered in isolation. The actual report does not suggest that the people who liked the policies (who may not all be the same people remember) will automatically vote for a party that proposed those policies after all.

@41

I suppose the heads of some former cabinet ministers on pikes would be out of the question?

I too believe the Red Ed label is pretty daft, but I’m not quite sure how thorough going the damascene conversion is yet. It’s one thing to tentatively disassociate yourself from the whole nauseating project (though from memory I don’t recall him being too critical at the time….?), it’s quite another to show what your “grand projet” actually is?

The king is dead. Long live the king!

An awful lot of you must live in and around London to think that a house / flat worth £2 million + is in any way “normal”. Where I live, (and I have a nice 5 bed detached house in a reasonably affluent area in the south of England), you could buy half of my close of 12 houses for £2 million and still have enough left over to pay the stamp duty.
Maybe a mansion tax would help bring down the ludicrous prices that some people think is acceptable to pay. I realise that some people are so rich, (bankers, footballers, Russian ex-gangsters), that no mansion tax is going to make the blindest bit of difference, but for the majority of people it would make an appreciable difference.
FlowerPower – I’m sorry for your Mum who is asset rich and cash poor, but she is still rich in one aspect and as lots of people have pointed out there are plenty of ways she could use that asset to pay both the mansion tax and live very comfortably until the age of about 200. I guess that would leave no inheritance for you to pick up, but I don’t think we should expect anything from our parents. My own Mum is living quite comfortably with assets of about £300K, her state pension and a few small investments, and I’m confidently expecting her to spend all of that on either herself and care before she passes away.

@ 26 Don Paskini

You write, “You would prefer to raise income tax. That would be increasing taxes on economically productive activity, rather than on unearned wealth, affect a lot more people, and would be less popular with the voters.”

I would like to see something done about the inequality of our society and the entrenchment of privilege, but taxing income rather than inherited wealth makes more sense for the very reason that it derives from economic activity. If you tax wealth somehow (and it hasn’t been spirited away overseas) it is a finite resource and will run out. Taxing income is diverting a stream, so it can be sustainable.

The point about taxation is how it is used and whether it is wasted. It can therefore be progressive, which I’m sure we both want.

46 Gaf

Well said.

It’s about time people woke up and realised that a large part of why we are in this mess is the failure of successive governments to deal with the illusion that the housing bubble which did so much to stoke the fires wouldn’t burst, that regulation needed to be “light touch”, and that the markets, if not always right, could be left to regulate themselves.

It’s not as if they weren’t warned… people were warning about it for years. Of course it’s only to be expected from the Tories, but the fact that New Labour bought into the whole thing is a demonstration of how anti-progressive and laissez-faire they really were, and indeed are.

14. Flowerpower

‘ And one of those “wealthy homeowners” would be my dear old mum. She’s a widow, living on a pension (currently £19,000 pa) in one of the London boroughs you mention. How is she supposed to afford your >£12k Mansion Tax?

And this is part of Ed M’s “fairness agenda” ? ‘

The old liquid constrained asset rich poor widow crops up with monotonous regularity. I favour a LVT not a mansion tax but the problem is easily resolved. If she can’t meet her tax liability then nobody would evict her but the liability is collected when she moves or dies.

Your mothers home has not increased in value it is the land that has appreciated. Your mother did nothing to increase the land prices that was the whole community who contributed to make London a mote valuable place to live and do business. Therefore, the whole community should capture the increase in value that they created.

Richard W.

Your logic about community creating the price, so therefore benefitting, falls down a bit if you consider people living in areas of outstanding natural beauty. Would you really consider that the community created the Scottish mountains for example?

Facinating stuff… just goes to show (again) how skewed these debates are by the fact that opinion makers in Westminster and the press have wildly distorted perceptions of what ordinary middle-class incomes actually are.

Interesting to hear Ed Balls, in the Sky hustings, relating how he’d asked Blair what he thought the median income was and Blair had guessed ‘around £40,000 – £60,000′! Maybe he’d misheard and thought the question was ‘how much do you have to earn before you’re in the top 10% of the income distribution?’

The old liquid constrained asset rich poor widow crops up with monotonous regularity.

Yet with odd levels of convenience, much like “my nan who lives on a council estate run by yobs WHATABOUT HER LIBERTY, EH?” and “my builder mate who’s being forced out of business by the Poles” the right have always enjoyed creating little persona’s to tug at the heart strings for their favoured policies, that’s why Cameron incessantly blathers on about the ‘xyz I met last week’ – none of it exists, pure fantasy.

the right have always enjoyed creating little persona’s to tug at the heart strings for their favoured policies, that’s why Cameron incessantly blathers on about the ‘xyz I met last week’ – none of it exists, pure fantasy

The reason Cameron does it is because easily the most effective form of political speceh making references personal/local/national in that order.

‘I met Mrs Bloggs last week who was deeply worried that her twin girls wouldn’t be able to get into to St Mungo’s Primary up the road, and it’s for people like Mrs Bloggs that we’re introducing the biggest revolution in education policy since…’

works better than

‘In 2011 we will be introducing new reforms in state education’

and much better than the stat-heavy Brown method

‘since 1997 we have invested £x billions in education, at a rate of £y billions a year, the greatest increase in z years.’

‘Better’ in what sense? That it’s complete nonsense?

Most people have realised he’s making it up, it doesn’t make him seem personable or his policies any more relatable, it makes him sound like an alzheimer’s victim lost on a treadmill.

Brown used to love blathering on about ‘hard working families’ btw.

The government is planning to make people homeless by cutting housing benefit by £1.7 billion.Hyperbole is a turn-off. Homelessness may well be a consequence but I strongly doubt it is a “plan”.

What happened to my blockquote?

52
“the right have always enjoyed creating little persona’s to tug at the heart strings for their favoured policies, that’s why Cameron incessantly blathers on about the ‘xyz I met last week’ – none of it exists, pure fantasy”

So true, because tories lie a lot. Remember the non existent French neighbour who Peter Lilley always went on about who did not observe EU laws? Turned out to be bullshit. tories just pull these people out of their backsides, to impress the trolls.

And some of the make believe horse shit you read in the Daily Torygraph have come straight out of the imagination of some porn writer.

Dear Penthouse, I was walking down the road one day and I saw a man on welfare, doing a bit of bricklaying…………

@ 50. Watchman

Did the landowner create the mountains? The supply of land is fixed in the economic sense as its supply can’t be increased by labour. It can’t be produced as it was created with the earth. If I own a piece of land I deprive everyone else from owning it and the rest of the community should be compensated through a LVT. Assuming the use of land is close to its most appropriate use a LVT seeks to capture for the whole community a resource rent from the resource owner.

Land derives its value from its use. It is public spending on schools, hospitals, roads, services, security, transport links etc that cause land prices to rise. Did the landowner cause the price to rise? The Jubilee line extension cost 3.4 billion and land values along the line increased by 14 billion. Who created this increase in value? If the community build a new good school or open a commuter rail line in a town land prices increase. Who created this increase in value?

A LVT should not be seen as an additional tax. I favour completely abolishing taxes on labour as they are inefficient and destroy jobs. All taxes are distortionary but all the classical economists from Adam Smith to Winston Churchill realised a LVT was the most efficient of all taxes.

I believe taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilised society. So have absolutely no problem with paying my share. However, I invest in new firms that I think look to have good prospects. When I want to sell and move on the government on behalf of the community says everyone else should get a share that my risk and skill created. No one will every say here is your money back when they go bust. In my opinion they are not entitled to a share because the firms are already taxed. If I own a piece of land that increases in value through absolutely no effort from me the community is entitled to tax me with a LVT.

This is an excellent long thread with all the old fallacies skillfully debunked. Royll, JohnLVT and R.J.Sandilands are particularly interesting.
http://blogs.ft.com/martin-wolf-exchange/2010/07/12/why-were-resources-expunged-from-neo-classical-economics/#comments

This sort of reinforces my view that it is the political and media elites who are the ones who are really out of touch, based as they are in their central London ivory tower.
.
The sort of people who believe that someone who earns £150,000 a year is middle class, are probably not the best placed to be in touch with ordinary people.

If a progressive politician proposes policies that are beneficial to ordinary people but detrimental to the well off who control the media. The elites will inevitably start shreiking and wailing. They always have done.

One can hope that E Milliband will have the confidence to ignore their siren voices.

59 Graham

I think there is a lot to be said for your view.

The $64,000 question isn’t just whether Ed Miliband is the person to resist the siren voices; there’s more to it than that.

Even if he IS the person, what’s he going to do about it? Is he REALLY going to disown all the worst aspects of New Labour, and lay the foundations for a truly progressive, radical set of policies to address both short to medium term problems, and longer term ones?

I have my doubts frankly, but I am prepared to suspend disbelief and judge him on his actions. There is a lot to be said for the argument that swing voters don’t really care about the epithets “left” or “right”…. but they do often have an instictive sense of what kind of policies feel right.

Too often New Labour was in the bizarre position of being on the wrong side on a whole raft of these issues: civil liberties, the war in Iraq..we all know the list. It was actually seen as further to the right even than the Tories, and certainly than the LD’s. No wonder a lot of voters (most of whom aren’t actually that politically involved or even interested) have come to mistrust the old left/right dichotomy.

There IS an appetite for change. The question is can Ed Miliband and Newer Labour satisfy that appetite?

‘Better’ in what sense? That it’s complete nonsense?

Better in the sense that people listen to it, and it’s more persuasive. This is hardly a trade secret – it’s one of the very basic rules of public speaking.

The sort of people who believe that someone who earns £150,000 a year is middle class, are probably not the best placed to be in touch with ordinary people.

That swings both ways though, people on here talk as if six figures means you wear a top hat, a monocle and get chauffeured around in a 1950′s Rolls Royce.

Better in the sense that people listen to it, and it’s more persuasive. This is hardly a trade secret – it’s one of the very basic rules of public speaking.

Are you sure, because the guy who lives opposite me on benefits but does a bit of cash in hand work on the side, says it isn’t.

Did it work?

62 – Ask Ed Miliband:

But this new generation recognises that we did not do enough to address concerns about some of the consequences of globalisation, including migration.

All of us heard it. Like the man I met in my constituency who told me he had seen his mates’ wages driven down by the consequences of migration

62 – or:

I remember during this campaign I met some school dinner ladies. They had to buy their own uniforms, their shift patterns were being changed at a moment’s notice, frankly conference they were being exploited.

So they looked to their union to help them. They weren’t interested in going on strike, they loved the kids they served and wanted to serve their schools. But they wanted someone to help them get basic standards of decency and fairness.

Responsible trade unions are part of a civilised society, every democratic country recognises that.

62 – or:

I remember a care worker I met in Durham.

She worked hard and with dedication, looking after our Mums, Dads and grandparents when they couldn’t look after themselves anymore.

She is doing one of the most important jobs in our society, and if it was my Mum or Dad, I would want anyone who cared for them to be paid a decent wage.

But she was barely paid the minimum wage – and barely a few pence extra for higher skills.

She told me that she thought a fair wage would be £7 an hour because after all she would get that for stacking shelves at the local supermarket.

Or so on ad infinitum. I’m afraid that’s the way most political speeches (indeed most speeches in general) are made.

Wasn’t it I who pointed out the abundance of such rhetorical devices in the first place?

Well, actually it was probably this chap – http://www.fridgemagnet.org.uk/toys/dave-met.php

Alas, doesn’t empirically prove the value of such fiction though does it, appealing to in-groups and reviling out-groups is likely far more common – middle england, white working class, mondeo man, worcester woman, blah blah blah.