"Private affluece and public squalor" rule OK

 The centre-left pressure-group Compass has recently published an essay called "Liberalism Alive" by Dr Roz Savage, the Liberal Democrat MP for the South Cotswolds. Here is a brief extract:

For decades we have quietly equated prosperity with rising private consumption. Perhaps we have been measuring the wrong thing.

There are two ways to feel richer. One is to own more. The other is to live in a place where more wonderful things are available to everyone: beautiful parks, libraries open into the evening, reliable and affordable public transport, clean rivers, thriving high streets and public spaces where neighbours can connect with one another. That is the promise of private sufficiency and public luxury.

We do not all need enormous private gardens if every child can walk to a beautiful park. We do not all need several cars if public transport is genuinely reliable. We do not all need to purchase individually what we could enjoy together.

 The entire essay is worth reading, though it is rather long (32 pages - an hour well spent perhaps.)  You can find it here:

 https://www.compassonline.org.uk/publications/liberalism-alive-a-liberal-vision-for-a-flourishing-britain/

 Of course, Dr  Savage  is saying nothing new.  The late great economist J K Galbraith  coined the phrase "private affluence and public squalor" in his  very popular book  "The Affluent Society" way back in 1958  (when I was 21 - oh happy days. I was finally allowed to vote.)  

But today's Conservative Party seems to have learned nothing in the succeeding decades.  Despite the plain evidence of their 14 years' neglect of the state sector through their mistaken adherence  to government "austerity" they still bang on and on at their Conference about tax cuts and a smaller state.

 Such  a policy might benefit the billionaires but  I suspect would not banditti the bulk of their own supporters.

I have experienced the peak of my own private affluence for many years now and I suspect the same is true of most Tory  supporters as well. 

 I cannot think of any additional private  acquisition, good or service, which I don't already posses which would improve my quality of life.  

I can  keep my house warm, clean (with a little help)  and comfortable.  It is decorated to my taste with the bric a brac I have collected over the years, and the garden is tidy (again with a little help), I eat the food that I like and wash it down with the drinks I like, constrained only by the need to eat healthily, not put on weight,and remain reasonably sober.  I take the holidays I want, buy the books I like to read, wear the clothes I like and attend the plays and concerts I enjoy (though it would help to be able to hear them better.)

 Any improvements in the quality of my life would come only through better public services.

  In this area I admit I am pretty lucky.  The local health services respond reasonably  promptly and effectively to the modest needs I have encountered so far: ditto the NHS dental service.   The council is brilliant at emptying the bins and reminding me when and where to vote.

 However, the roads are so pitted with potholes and ill-fitting manholes that I have had to abandon riding my bicycle.  Swerving to avoid the uneven patches risks being knocked over by motorists, and bumping over them makes contact between my backside and the saddle uncomfortable beyond the call of duty.  So it's walk or take the car.

 Taking the car is not only environmentally unfriendly but also very time consuming becasue it is almost impossible to go anywhere at all without being held up by road works or a tail back becasue of the intensity  of the traffic.

We are blessed with a reasonably good bus service when it is fully operational but it is subject to frequent "cancellations."  It is always necessary to take the bus earlier than the most convenient just in case that one doesn't turn up, which wastes a lot of time.

 Although I live in a former industrial area we have plenty of open countryside in which to walk and jog. I jog round our country park (based on a former pit and its slag heap) most mornings.  The council is now in charge of it and doubtless does its best, but the paths and amenities become shabbier and shabbier as the years go by. 

 I obtain much of my news and most entertainment from the BBC, both radio and television,  and heartily wish they were able to concentrate on these activities instead of wasting my and their time on advertising their good works in order to drum  public support to convince the Government not to cut their funding. 

 I know these inconveniences don't amount to much and I feel very fortunate. But the fact remains that my quality of life, and that of most "comfortable" Britain, including Tory voters, probably the most comfortable) can only be improved by more public expenditure.  

I hope the chancellor  can find some way of squaring the circle to enable at least a start on this  when he announces the budget at the end of the month.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

purchase individually what we could enjoy together.

Spread it around

 Taxing inheritances. 

I understand the Tories are  about to discuss inheritance tax today

Many years ago I heard  a suggestion, I can’t remember from whom, but probably the Liberal Party, which  I found it very attractive. 

The proposal was that inheritance tax should be charged not on the estate leaving the bequest but on the recipients receiving the bequests (note the plurals.) The recipients would be able to inherit modest amounts tax free, but pay tax on big bonanza inheritances, or a multitude of modest ones.

Thus, if we define a “modest amount” as, say, £50 000 (though that’s beyond the dreams of avarice of many people) then an estate of, say £1 000 000, not all that unusual nowadays, given the price of houses, would not be taxed at all if the bequests were in 20 different bundles of £50 000, but would pay the current rate (40%?) if the whole million went to one lucky recipient.

This would go some way to reducing inequality in our society, and probably increase the level of happiness.  It would also probably encourage innovation, as potential entrepreneurs would have the wherewithal for start-ups.

The sun still shines on PM Burnham

 The Labour Party has had a successful Conference, burnished by a very successful speech from Andy Burnham.  Next week we shall endure the Tories tarnishing the shine with predictable scorn and cries of unaffordability, unjustified optimism and Death Taxes, with no mention that it is largely their 14 years of misrule that has brought the country to this sorry pass (along with 40 years of multi-party acquiescence to misguided neo-liberal policies.)

I hope we Liberal Democrats will confine ourselves to constructive suggestions rather than knee-jerk opposition for the sake of opposition.   It is refreshing to have a prime minister who speaks honestly about the country’s problems and seems cheerfully confident of finding solutions

In that vein, here are just two caveats.

(I do no know why the next paragraph is in bold)

First, on the abandonment of the Triple Lock.  This is a Liberal Democrat policy which we introduced during the Coalition of 2010-15.  At the time the UK’s State Pension was a mere 16% of median earnings – not enough to maintain an acceptable  standard of living for those for whom it was the sole source of income.  The aim of the Triple Lock was to raise the basic State Pension gradually to bring it up to a viable minimum level  of about 40% of median earrings. 

It is succeeding  but not there yet: the current level is about 30% of median earnings, and is about £12,000 (roughly €13 000.) – still well below the basic state pensions of our nearest “big” European neighbours, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, where basic state pensions range between       €17 000 and €19 000. 

 

Politicians are very fond of talking-up Britain as “World Leading.”  I’d be content in the pensions  area to see us reach the average, and believe the Triple Lock should stay in place until then.  Given that Labour’s abandonment of  it doesn’t come into effect until 2030, maybe there’s still a chance.

Secondly I’m delighted to see Mr Burnham’s continued commitment to proportional representation, but disappointed, though not surprised, that:

1.     We are to have yet another Commission.  

 The Electoral Reform Society (founded in 1888) has spent over a century pondering this and unhesitatingly recommends Proportional Representation by Single Transferable Vote in Multi-member Constituencies. (bold a deliberate choice here.) That’s it, full stop.  Nothing further to discuss.

The Guardian reports, however, that we are likely to retain single member constituencies because “the PM sees the link between MPs and their constituencies as vital.”  

 The disadvantage  of this is that a desperate family needing help may have no choice but to plead with an unsympathetic Tory.  Similarly an entrepreneur  wanting help to set up a business may be limited to a Labour MP committed to collective ownership (maybe that’s not a bad idea.) 

Multi-member constituencies give choice.

 Modern communications also make larger constituencies perfectly viable.  We are no longer in the days of the carrier pigeon and the horse.

 Much is made of the emotional  link between the individual MP and her/his constituency ( reminds be of “the mystical union between Christ and His church.”).  More nonsense.  MPs swap them around like handbags (Makerfield!) and they change their size and shape with every boundary change.  The house where I live has been in thee different ones in my lifetime: the Spen Valley when I was born, Batley and Morley when I first voted, Batley and Spen for about half the rest of my life, and now back to the Spen Valley with Batley abandoned to Dewsbury.

2. I’m also disappointed that we are to wait until the next parliament for the legislation to be presented. We didn’t wait for a mandate to pass the Reform Bills, give Votes for Women, lower the voting age to 18, demand photo ID in order to vote.  

Labour should do it now, while they (and we, Liberal Democrats and Greens, maybe even Reform still)  have a whopping majority. 

FASCISM?

  

 The weekend’s Guardian (Saturday 19^th September) contains a review by Daniel Trilling of a book by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor called “End Times Fascism.”   According to Trilling the purpose of the book is to warn us of a convergence of three  interests which are in effect encouraging the climate crisis rather than working to prevent it.  

The book focusses chiefly on the United States and identifies the  three interest as the “Religious Fanatics” ( the Christian Right who look forward to the Rapture and the end of the World, when the righteous will be "caught up to meet the Lord in the air,") the “Tech  Barons,” expecting to exploit AI and the “Political Entrepreneurs” who are anxious to “turn their nations into bunkered garrison states . . . in an increasingly aggressive scramble for natural resources.”

These three groups together are working towards what the book defines as  “End Times Fascism.”

If climate change is the biggest danger to our way of life (or even human life itself) then the second most serious danger we face is surely to Liberal Democracy, which I believe to be threatened by the same or similar forces.

Google defines fascism as  “a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology that places the perceived interest of the nation or race above individual rights.”

It  describes Fascism’s features as:

1 Dictatorial Leadership

2 Extreme Nationalism

3 Suppression of Opposition

4 Militarism and Regimentalism;

. . . and finally

5 Rejection of Liberal Democracy: Opposes pluralism, individual liberties, equality, communism, and socialism.

The first four features are very much in evidence in British Politics today, fuelled and encouraged by wealthy sources, some of them foreign.

If our political class is alert to the danger there is as yet not much sign of it. 

The Conservatives, probably in cohorts with Reform and Respect, seem likely to go along with it. Labour alone lacks the backbone to fight it (no cap on donations to parties, restriction on the right to protest, further drilling in the North Sea still on the cards, BBC fighting desperately for funding.)

 The principal raison d’être of the Greens is to halt and even reverse climate change, the principle raison d’être of the Liberal Democrats is to preserve, improve and extend Liberal Democracy. 

Both are desperately needed, in alliance with “one nation Tories, (of which there are, apparently , a number recently converted and attending the Liberal Democrat conference,) in government with Labour to preserve and improve and spread our way of life.

Assorted Maxims

 

Today is my birthday, a traditional time for reflection.  Here are a number of maxims on how we conduct our lives (and politics) which I find of interest.

1.     1. This is from a talk by a humanist which I I heard on the radio some years ago.  I can’t remember the speaker’s name or the title of the broadcast.  It can’t have been “Thought for the Day” as humanists weren’t allowed on that and maybe still aren’t.

 

Beyond our physical needs for safety, warmth, shelter, drink and food everyone has three psychological needs:

-        that someone cares what happens to them (usually a partner, parent, offspring, relation or friend);

-        that someone or something benefits from their having lived;

-        that they pay their way.

I believe all three, and especially the third, to be true.  I think no-one actually enjoys being a “sponger” or passenger.” Some, forced into that position (benefits scroungers?) may  try to save face by pretending to boast about it, but would really like a job with a decent income and the ability to “pay their whack.”

 

2.     2. The Religion of Usefulness.

-        Happiness is the only good;

-        The time to be happy is now;

-        The place to be happy is here;

-        The way to be happy is to make others happy.

                                                 Robert G Ingersoll, 1833-1899.

I believe this was once displayed on London busses under the heading “There is no God”  (Ingersoll was a well-known American agnostic)  but I feel that agnosticism or atheism are not a necessary conditions for the statements to have value. Though essentially selfish they are rather more positive than the worst interpretation of religions: put up meekly with the inconveniences of this life in the hope of a better one in the next (or oblivion.)

 

3.     3. The Church (-es, and Synagogues, Temples, Mosques, Chapels and whatever. . .)

-        My attachment to Catholicism  ows much more to a sense that it is a good  guide to this life  rather than to any conviction that it is a passport to the next.  Edward Stourton, BBC presenter, 1957- 2026, quoted in a recent obituary in the Guardian.

 

I feel very much the same about my attachment to the C of E, and especially to its ceremonies, liturgy and music.  I suspect it applies to most if not all the major religions.  At best, religions exist to promote “the good life.” At worst they are used as tool by governments and bigots to control the lives of others. We must strive for the former and fight against the latter.  Maybe that’s the search of the “via media.”

4.    4. Taxation

The poor and middle pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the very rich pay lawyers and the billionaires pay politicians/political parties.

George Monbiot, The Guardian, St George’s Day, 2026.

I’ve long believed we should adopt a different terminology about taxation, drop the description “burden of taxation ” and adopt “the privilege of paying  taxes.”  That’s not as daft as it sounds.  Many working men, my father included, where very proud when their pay packet (as they were then) reached the level when they "qualified” (another term deliberate chosen) for income tax.  If that’s a step too far, let’s talk about taxation as our  “subscription “ for membership of an ordered educated and secure and cultured society.  Accountants who advertise their services for “tax efficiency” (ie maximum avoidance) should be scorned, tax evaders boycotted and their directors  sentenced to lengthy community service   

5.     5. Political Canvassing

-        Understand that “feelings” don’t care about your facts.                   Matthew D’Ancona, Prospect Magazine, September, 2023.

A tough one, this.  We need to reverse the concept that “Media Studies” are some sort of Micky Mouse degree, and teach them from the infant class upwards.  From the very earliest ages children should be taught to distinguish between fact, opinion, blatant distortions and propaganda, as I believe is already done in Finland.