Politics Thread!

[gravy]

But he's not gone because he called a copper a "fucking pleb" has he?

[venusian]

But he's not gone because he called a copper a "fucking pleb" has he?

Go on... so what then?


I don't read the papers so I'm perhaps unaware of another motive but it looks to me like some miffed journos wanted to show that they've still "got it" in terms of political influence. That he went now despite Cameron, rightly, supporting him suggests a bin diver has dug up something mucky. I don't believe it has anything to do with him being a whipping boy for Osbourne.

[gravy]

First off he's resigned. The last push seemed to be Milliband bringing it up in PMQs and highlighting that there's people from his own party who wanted rid.

The reason he's off is instead of apologising for being a bellend he's insisted the coppers report of what he'd said was wrong, the only logical conclusion from that is they're liars.

And while insisting the Police got it wrong he also repeatedly refused to give an alternate account. Everyone assumed (and probably rightly so) he was just lying himself.

Yeah, it's the media that reported have no interest in any of the rights and wrongs, they want news flow but that it's got to this stage because he painted himself into a corner? Self inflicted wound IMHO.

[gravy]

Young Tory MPs is what dunnit

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012 ... government

And Cameron's also getting it in the neck from the old guard

[(o)(o)]

I think the change in inequality is simpler than that: wages have been static while benefits have risen faster than usual die to higher inflation, so the incomes of the poorest have been increasing fastest Of course it's not especially good that wages haven't been keeping up with inflation, and it shows how inequality measures need to be used with caution.

That as well, but doesn't this just show that the Gini coefficient is an inadequate descriptor when taken out of context. "Inequality has gone down" could equate to "Everybodys losing out except the fabulously wealthy who are making massive gains"..

I mean, isn't that exactly what's happening?

Perhaps instead of being cautious about inequality, the government should get on with the job of reigning in excessive earnings!

Getting more impressed by Milliband each day.. his Zen-like approach is winning me over.

[pogo]

That as well, but doesn't this just show that the Gini coefficient is an inadequate descriptor when taken out of context. "Inequality has gone down" could equate to "Everybodys losing out except the fabulously wealthy who are making massive gains"..

I mean, isn't that exactly what's happening?

Er, no. The main cause of the deficit was not a massive rise in spending but a massive fall in revenue, e.g. tax revenue.



And as we've not got mass unemployment continental style, or seen middle-class wages fall, a main cause was falling incomes at the top. This probably helped lower the Gini coefficient too, though as a single number it's not a good measure of anything really in our complex economy.

So does that mean we can eliminate the deficit by raising revenue? Probably not, as those revenues aren't coming back; we're never again going to have a booming financial sector like we had pre-crisis, or at least not for a very long time. Not only is there no appetite for it among institutions but the government is bringing in laws to prevent it happening again. As such revenues are unreliable and unstable and lead to unexpected costs such as bank bailouts we just don't want to rely on them again.

There's not much else we can do to raise more revenue: we tried raising the top rate of tax but it didn't work. Other ideas such as a mansion tax are likely to be as effective (London seems to be popular with the foreign rich as they can buy a property here without difficulty and with few questions asked - a tax targeting their properties might drive many of them away).

[gravy]

Tebbit's take on Cameron's political competency. He's got a bit of a point to be honest:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ell-crisis

Odd he's chosen The Observer for this though

[merman]

Defsdoor: Mitchell clearly showed a lack of respect for the police at the gate, then topped it off by maintaining that the written record of the event was wrong. Even if he did not use the word pleb, acting like that towards the police and then accusing them of lying about what happened is not an acceptable standard of behaviour. To say the policeman had an agenda is to miss the point, the policeman is not and was never in the wrong.

Pogo: services are being cut, public sector workers face a pay freeze for years or unemployment, and Gideon Osborne's austerity measures to cut the deficit ARE NOT WORKING. He is still spending more than tax revenue, meaning more borrowing. His so-called economic plan was to pay off the deficit by 2015. Two and a half years later the deficit has only been cut by a quarter. 2.5 million are unemployed and - despite what the headline figures crowed about the most people ever in work - long-term unemployment is higher than under Labour. A large percentage of the jobs being created are short-term or part-time. There is no growth because there is no plan for stimulating growth.

[gravy]

Uhoh! The G Word! Absolute Zero incoming!

[(o)(o)]

That as well, but doesn't this just show that the Gini coefficient is an inadequate descriptor when taken out of context. "Inequality has gone down" could equate to "Everybodys losing out except the fabulously wealthy who are making massive gains"..

I mean, isn't that exactly what's happening?

Er, no. The main cause of the deficit was not a massive rise in spending but a massive fall in revenue, e.g. tax revenue.



And as we've not got mass unemployment continental style, or seen middle-class wages fall, a main cause was falling incomes at the top. This probably helped lower the Gini coefficient too, though as a single number it's not a good measure of anything really in our complex economy.

"Falling incomes at the top" - I disagree with that statement. As I understand it the uberwealthy are getting richer, and they and corporations are finding more ways of avoiding paying tax. If you add the tax-gap to the tax revenue figures what would that look like. Maybe I shall ask Richard Murphy!

So does that mean we can eliminate the deficit by raising revenue? Probably not, as those revenues aren't coming back; we're never again going to have a booming financial sector like we had pre-crisis, or at least not for a very long time. Not only is there no appetite for it among institutions but the government is bringing in laws to prevent it happening again. As such revenues are unreliable and unstable and lead to unexpected costs such as bank bailouts we just don't want to rely on them again.

There's not much else we can do to raise more revenue: we tried raising the top rate of tax but it didn't work. Other ideas such as a mansion tax are likely to be as effective (London seems to be popular with the foreign rich as they can buy a property here without difficulty and with few questions asked - a tax targeting their properties might drive many of them away).

The top rate tax rate raised revenue. How can you say it "didn't work" ??

One way of raising revenue would be a proper GAAR, and to go after the aforementioned tax gap which is £FUCKLOADS. Wealthy people are always threatening to leave if we don't capitulate 100% to their demands, but historically there's little evidence that they ever do that in significant numbers.

[pogo]

The top rate tax rate raised revenue. How can you say it "didn't work" ??

One way of raising revenue would be a proper GAAR, and to go after the aforementioned tax gap which is £FUCKLOADS. Wealthy people are always threatening to leave if we don't capitulate 100% to their demands, but historically there's little evidence that they ever do that in significant numbers.

The top rate raised no money; the amount collected after it was introduced was no different from the amount collected before. We discussed this at the time the results came in. It was not a surprising result; tax revenue follows the Laffer curve, where above a certain rate you collect less. We learned that our Laffer curve peaks around 40-50%.

And why did we collect less? One reason will be rich people leaving, as many are rich enough to chose where they live. They mostly don't threaten to leave. They know their voices count for little, and will be seen as rich people whining. They just do it. Again, see e.g. how the tax rise simply didn't work: without announcing it rich people made themselves non-domicile and did other perfectly legal things to reduce their tax bill.

Which means any attempt to raise tax too much on the wealthy won't work. Not only won't it work but the side effects of trying might do more damage to revenue. It would not take much for example for rich foreigners to avoid London: they come here as it's cheap and few questions are asked. Do too much to change that and they'll instead go to Monaco, or at least move their money overseas, together with their investments, the jobs they've created.

[Dio]

If that's the case now, why did it work in the past? Redistributive policies were very effective until the beginning of the 70s.

[pogo]

We're redistributing more than ever though. Government spending is at it's highest level ever, more than ever are receiving benefits and pensions, spending on services like health and education which are largely redistributive have gone up massively.

As for why high tax worked in the past it largely didn't. Successive governments cut the top rate and saw ever more tax collected, up until very recently. And whatever was done in the 70s would be much less effective now as people and capital are much more multinational. Much of the wealth in this country is owned by foreigners who don't have to be here. The few Brits on the rich list are as mobile and flexible.

[Ollie]

Not sure why everyone is focusing so much on the word "pleb"; surely the worst thing he purportedly said to them was telling them they should learn their place.

[venusian]

That place being to open the fucking gates for the chief whip?