I am currently stricken with COVID and haven't the energy to keep bang up to date with the latest developments, but understand the number of contenders for the Tory leadership is now in double figures.
Rishi Sunak is currently the "bookies' favourite." He's certainly a very personable chap and could easily win, just as Mr Johnson did, by displaying a personality that appears attractive to Tory MPs and party members. But, although Mr Sunak's character is probably not as flawed as Johnson's (a difficult man to beat on this rating) his performance in office as Chancellor was very weak. He raised taxes to pay for social care, which was honest and necessary, but the tax he chose, National Insurance, was about the worst possible, in that it is both a tax on employment (a "good" which we want to encourage) ant takes demand out of the circular flow at a time when we want to encourage it.
He is praised for his "furlough scheme" but I believe it was less generous and more short-lived than some continental schemes which were introduced earlier and lasted longer. Its administration was subject to significant fraud, dwarfed only by the fraud surrounding his £47bn "Bounce Back Loans" scheme, much of which went to non-existent "business." An his "eat out to help out" was a silly subsidy to those who were able to afford to eat out anyway, which probably helped to spread the virus.
Be that as it may, the competition seems to centre round which of the contestants can make the most credible offer on tax cuts.
Are they mad?
Did they not live through the pandemic.(some of us are still living through it, with perhaps more to follow).
What has happened to the increased realisation the pandemic engendered that we really are "all in this together," that we need to care for, help and take responsibility for each other, and that the state is the instrument best equipped to administer that care.
It is significant that the one success for which the government can legitimately boast in the pandemic, the vaccine distribution, was carried out by the public sector state-funded NHS. The bungles, the £37bn spent on the ineffective Test and Trace system , the belated purchasing of personal protective equipment, to name but two , were all the responsibility of the private sector.
In our society, still one of the richest in the world, one fifth of our people exist in poverty. Even before the predicted inflation reaches its zenith, many families are unable to cope with essential expenses for housing , energy, warmth (though today that is on free offer) and food.. At the same time four fifths of us, including me, are materially living the life of Riley, taking former luxuries for granted, with not a financial care in the world, and the top tenth are receiving, though not necessarily enjoying, incomes beyond eventhe most avaricious dreams. .
This is intolerable.
We need to pay more tax, not less.
The IFS tells us that in Britain the percentage of GDP taken in tax is 33%, below the G7 average of 36%, and way below that in our neighbours Germany (39%) and France (45%)
We need to redistribute our national income and wealth in such a way that no-one (no-one, not even the feckless) falls below a minium civilised level of physical existence, and adequately fund the civilised essentials : our health service, our care service, legal service, education and our local government services.
We desperately need some politicians with the courage to tell us this. (Are you listening, Sir Keir and Sir Ed?)
The chosen tax increases should be those which least affect affect current economic activity, which we want to encourage. There are plenty options: inheritance taxes, capital gains, profits, land, financial transactions, to name just some
Do not be deceived by the convenient idea that cuts in taxes will somehow generate enterprise and growth, which will obviate the need for the comfortable to pay just a little bit more. That is a nonsense, described in a Guardian leader (11/07/22) as " an elaborate ruse to benefit the rich."*
Yet that is the comfortable myth the Tory contenders are trying to sell, and I suspect it will go down well with their well-heeled MPs and members.
For the record, at present I'd go for Tom Tugendhat as the nearest to what's left of the "One Nation" tradition.
But it won't much matter if the progressive parties have the courage to grasp the nettle of what we stand for and proclaim it loudly and clearly.
*Added 13/07/22
He is praised for his "furlough scheme" but I believe it was less generous and more short-lived than some continental schemes which were introduced earlier and lasted longer. Its administration was subject to significant fraud
ReplyDeleteMake up your mind! If something is more generous, it is more vulnerable to fraud. Conversely, if you make something less vulnerable to fraud, that means doing more checks on people claiming it — which means you will inevitably end up being less generous.
You can't have both more generous, and less vulnerable to fraud. That's like saying you want to change the court process so that both fewer guilty people go free and there aren't as many people wrongly convicted. You can't have both. Decrease the error one way and you necessarily increase it the other way. You have to pick where you want the balance between the two to be.
(Or in three dimensions, it's like saying you want something done fast, cheap and well. Not possible. You can pick, at most, two.)
It is significant that the one success for which the government can legitimately boast in the pandemic, the vaccine distribution, was carried out by the public sector state-funded NHS
It's rather more significant that if it hadn't been for the free market competition between drug companies the NHS wouldn't have had any vaccines to distribute.
In our society, still one of the richest in the world, one fifth of our people exist in poverty
No they don't. Or rather they only do if you use relative poverty as your definition of poverty, but that's a brain-dead definition.
For the record, at present I'd go for Tom Tugendhat as the nearest to what's left of the "One Nation" tradition.
Which is why he has no chance.
I can tell you one thing for sure: whoever our next Prime Minister is, it won't be a pale-faced man.
1. For the incompetent there may be a trade-of between speed and effectiveness, but the competent should be able to manage both.
Delete2. The private sector may have played a significant part in the development of some of the vaccines (and some are reaping huge profits as a result,) but the distribution in the UK, for which the government so frequently claims the credit, was exclusively NHS - the public sector
3. The poor really are poor. Try going without food for a few days, and heating during the winter, and see if you just feel "relatively" hungry or cold.
4. At least one survey predicts that Tugendhat will survive at least until the second round. We shall soon see.
1. For the incompetent there may be a trade-of between speed and effectiveness, but the competent should be able to manage both.
DeleteSo you reckon if somebody's sufficiently competent they should be able to do a project fast, cheap and well? What are you doing hanging around putting articles on a website nobody but me reads? You should be out there making billions as a consultant, teaching people your secrets!
2. The private sector may have played a significant part in the development of some of the vaccines (and some are reaping huge profits as a result,) but the distribution in the UK, for which the government so frequently claims the credit, was exclusively NHS - the public sector
Well, for a start, the government is responsible for the public sector, so if it was done by the public sector then the government does deserve the credit. The government certainly gets the blame when bits of the public sector go wrong, which is constantly, so it's only fair it gets the credit on the massively infrequent occasions when the public sector does something right too.
But secondly the important point is that if it wasn't for the free market there wouldn't have been any vaccines to distribute. Countries which tried to developed vaccines through the public sector (I'm looking at you China) ended up with vaccines that took much longer and don't work.
3. The poor really are poor. Try going without food for a few days, and heating during the winter, and see if you just feel "relatively" hungry or cold.
I'm sure the poor really are poor. But they aren't 22% of the population. That's the figure for those in relative poverty — a braindead measure for many reasons including, for example, that if you make everyone poorer (for example, during a recession) then the relative poverty rare decreases.
What proportion of the population have to go without food, or heating, ie, are actually poor rather than on less than 60% of the median income (that being the deifiniton of relative poverty, and currently standing at about £19,000 pa)? Do you have a figure for that? It's a lot less than one-fifth, I'll tell you that.
(Yes, ideally it should be 0%. But (a) it's important to know the true figure, and it isn't one fifth or anywhere close to it, and (b) that's got nothing to do with 'relative poverty' — I don't care how many people are on some arbitrary fraction of the median income, as long as nobody is actually going hungry or freezing to death, and neither should you.)
4. At least one survey predicts that Tugendhat will survive at least until the second round. We shall soon see.
He has survived until the second round. He may even survive until the third or fourth. He won't get to the final two, and if he did he wouldn't win with the members.
currently standing at about £19,000 pa
DeleteNote that's after-tax income, so equates to a salary in the high 20s to £30,000; and it's per-household, not per-person.
He may even survive until the third or fourth
DeleteThird.
First my apologies for taking so long to respond to you, but the Covid has taken more out of me than I'd realised and I've been a bit below par. I'm not seeking for sympathy. I value your comments and simply want your understanding.
Delete1. Although you are the major commentor you're not the only reader. I wish there were more of both but do keep up your comments: they keep me on my toes. Frankly, I've no desire to make millions: just my contribution to an informed political debate
2. OK the vaccine creation and distribution were a public-private partnership , but the distribution, for which the government claims the credit, was entirely public, and very effective.
3. OK again, 25%, or the slightly smaller 1 in 6, are ball-park figures for people in poverty. I've no need to quibble about the precise figure, just that it is far too many. Even half or a quarter of that proportion would be to many. We should care for them all and be ashamed that we don't even try. Relative poverty, the inability to participate in what is "normal" or a society, can be as painful as physical poverty, especially for children.
4. I'm sorry Tugendhat has gone. He was the one with a streak of decency. The others seem to have just vaunting ambition (to be rather than to do, as with Johnson)
2. OK the vaccine creation and distribution were a public-private partnership , but the distribution, for which the government claims the credit, was entirely public, and very effective.
DeleteI don't understand the 'but'. Surely the correct conjunction would be 'and'. 'But' implies that what comes after somehow contradicts what went before, but (see?) in this case it doesn't.
3. OK again, 25%, or the slightly smaller 1 in 6
One in six is 16.7%. That's not 'slightly smaller' than 25%. It's only two-thirds of 25%.
We should care for them all and be ashamed that we don't even try.
What do you mean, 'we don't even try'? We have one of the most generous welfare systems in the world. There are cracks, of course there are, and inefficiencies. But no one can say we don't try to make sure that there's a safety net for all those who need it because they are unable to work (obviously those who are able to work, but just don't want to, should starve — but no one who is willing to work but honestly unable to should find themselves in true poverty, and that is, pretty clearly, the aim of the system, even if (being a government system) it frequently misses that aim).
4. I'm sorry Tugendhat has gone. He was the one with a streak of decency. The others seem to have just vaunting ambition (to be rather than to do, as with Johnson)
I don't think it's possible to be Prime Minister without having much greater than average amounts of ambition, so that just seems par for the course. Tugendhat was hardly without ambition himself.
My own preferred candidate went out in the fourth round.