More regarding migrants

 Nigel Farage's description of migrants as  "a threat oi our national security [and] our women and children," and his plans to deport "absolutely everyone" arriving by small boats, has received a tepid response from Britain’s political establishment and media.  

The Conservatives merely complain that the  plans are stolen from the.  Labour concentrates on their impracticality.  

No-one expresses outrage that this is absolutely the wrong tone to take and the wrong thing to do.

 Last month Pope Leo reminded us that:“In a world darkened by war and injustice, even when all seems lost [migrants'] courage and tenacity bear heroic testimony to a faith that sees beyond what our eyes can see and gives them the strength to defy death on the various contemporary migration routes”.

 And, not only that: " [C]ommunities that welcome migrants and refugees can also be “a living witness to hope” as they show “the promise of a present and a future where the dignity of all as children of God is recognised”.

 So where are our leaders with the courage to make the point? 

The Conservatives are beyond the pale..

Sir Keir Starmer should be in a strong position as a former Human Rights lawyer but seems to prefer to keep quiet.  (He should be emboldened by a Radio 4 programme being broadcast this week which refers to the free services he gave in the MacLibel trial, which mean that we have evidence his heart is in the right place.)

 

Sir Ed Davey hasn't done too badly with : "Nigel Farage  pretending to be patriotic  while pledging to rip up Britain’s proud record of leading the world on human rights," (but possibly a bit of hyperbole there.)

 Laura Smith, a representative of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, with :" We are hearing proposals  that would tear through centuries of British legal tradition - from Magna Carta to the Human rights Act - with barely any resistance from those who should be defending those values." seems more concerned with Britain’s reputation than the plight of the poor creatures shivering in squalid conditions in such as the Marston Detention Centre. 

 Absolutely no one is saying, loudly and clearly: "This is wrong! Farage's proposals are not how we should treat people.  They are fellow human beings - men and women like us  ("Humanity is single" as lawyer Sir Geoffrey Knight explained on the BBC.) We share one planet. We treat each-other as we could wish to be treated ourselves.  Those fleeing danger deserve our compassion.  Those seeking a better life should be applauded, as we would applaud such endeavours in ourselves and our children.".

 Unless our leaders shout this out proudly we are on the road to a repeat of the Brexit error of nine years ago.  Then the case for reason and optimism was lost becasue for decades our leaders had failed to speak out enthusiastically  in favour of the European Union. Rather they had blamed it, usually without much justification, for any minor inconvenience for which they'd rather shift the blame from themselves.  

We are in grave  danger of making a similar mistake again, leaving the field open for the purveyors of lies, distortions and chauvinistic bombast.

 So politicians, influencers, religious leaders, humanists, philosophers and academics, men and women  who hold values of decency and compassion and know how to change a tyre,  speak out now , before it's too late.

 

 

Accommodating migrants et al

 "Than shall the Kings say unto them on his right hand, come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom  prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger and ye took me in; Naked and ye clothed me: I was in prison and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee, or thirsty and gave thee to drink?  When saw we thee a stranger and took thee in, or naked and clothed thee?  Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer them, and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it  unto one of these the least of  my brethren , ye have done it unto me."

Matthew 25, vv34 - 40, KJB. 

Present dangers?

 

Statistics.

 

It’s now 71 yeas since I took my mathematics ‘O’ level (as it was then called) and over 20 years since I taught any maths, so I presume the curriculum has moved on a bit.  I certainly hope so.  In my day we spent a lot of time messing about  solving  simultaneous and quadratic equations, to “find x;” using trigonometry ratios discover the dimensions of figures and other such erudite activities; and spent very little time on statistics.

As a teacher of economics I spent a lot of time  explaining yet again  that a fall in the rate of inflation did not mean that prices had stopped rising.

Recently there have been some interesting revelations regarding statistics relating to immigration and race.  A week or so ago  a Reform spokesperson raised the alarm because apparently no fewer than one in eight of the inmates of our prisons were born overseas. Presumably this was meant to imply that people from abroad are disproportionately wicked and should either be stopped from coming here or be sent away asap.  

 Better informed heads gleefully pointed out that people born abroad constitute one in six of the UK’s population, so if  they make up only one in eight of the prison population they  are relatively more law-abiding than we natives.

In other words, Robert Jenrick’s daughters have more to fear from the native population that from immigrants.

In this week’s “New World” newspaper (formerly “The New European”)  an article by a  Sonia Sodha reminds us that “”Under international law anyone has the right to apply for refugee status  having reached another country  if they have  a ’well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of  race, religion, nationality , membership of a particular social group, or political opinion’”  

She points out that a relatively small proportion of the world’s refugees  set out to reach Europe.  73%  are “hosted” by low and middle-income countries. Of those who do come to Europe most are “hosted” by other countries.   The UK  comes 17^th  in the Europe for asylum applications per population head, far behind countries like Greece, Germany, Austria and Switzer]and.

 So why on earth do we make such a fuss?  Really we ought to be a bit jealous: why don’t more want to come here and help raise the standard, quality and variety of our lives, instead of giving all these advantages  to others, mostly better off then we are

 Finally a letter in yesterday’s “Guardian” (15/08/25) from a Dr Bernard Gallagher examines the danger to “our women and girls” played by men of Pakistani origin or heritage in “Grooming Gangs.” 

 Of the 115,489 cases of child sexual abuse recorded by the Home Office in 2023, only 3.7% involved “group based contact offences” of which those with majority Pakistani-heritage would have been just a part.  (Child-abuse is overwhelmingly a family affair.)  

Persons of Pakistani heritage  account for 5% of cases, whereas this group form 9% of our population over the age of 16.  So once again this group  is more virtuous than we natives. 

Sadly, more attention to statistics in the school curriculum will not stop right-wing publicists jumping on to individual incidents and, amplified by their sportive press,  exploiting them in the apparent hope of igniting the “tinderbox” they seemingly hope to explode into public disorder.  But it might help.

What would help even more is politicians of other parties (and especially Sir Keir Starmer) boldly amplifying the truth rather than cosying up to those who distort it.

Sniffing the public mood.

 

Do they do it better in OZ . . .or not?

 

A contact of mine who lives in Sydney  last week attended  a demonstration across the Harbour Bridge in protest against the murderous actions of the IDF in Gaza (and the West Bank?) under the instructions of the Israeli government.   Both the New South Wales  State Premier (Labor) and police authorities tried to stop the demonstration on the grounds of “public safety” and did indeed limit it, but nevertheless 90 000 or so managed to a take part, causing minor disruption, but no danger and hardly any disorder.

Unlike the State Premier, the Australian Prime Minister (Mr Albanese, also Labor) is, according to my contact  “good at sniffing the public mood” and has described the march as “good for democracy.”  

This ability to “sniff the public mood” seems to be totally lacking in our own (supposedly Labour) Prime Minister, and his leading ministers, Rachel Reeves and  Yvette Cooper. I would describe them as “tin-eared.”

In the perfectly sensible policy of withdrawing the Winter Fuel Allowance from affluent pensioners such as me, they failed to taper the cut off-point to protect those just above the Universal Credit line.  In requiring opportunistic non-faming purchasers of land to pay inheritance tax they failed to provide an adequate exemption for “active” family farmers.  They have imposed additional taxes on employment, something they are supposedly trying to encourage, and appear to have abandoned their green credentials by licensing further exploration in the North Sea Oil Fields and approving the expansion of  Heathrow airport.

And they bang on and on and on about migration.

In the meantime the two-child limit on welfare payments remains operative and disabled people face increased bullying to force them into work without adequate support.

 I acknowledge that my circle of friends is largely limited to people with similar “progressive “ views (though here are one or two outliers) but my impression is that  “the British people” (a group Boris Johnson and has cronies loved to claim to represent)  are overwhelmingly horrified  by the continued  pulverisation of Gaza and its people.  

To put it crudely, one months retaliation would have been quite sufficient to “respond” in an “eye for an eye” equation to the October 2023 massacre if they must continue down that  primitive but counter-productive road. 

Twenty plus months and 60 000+ deaths is beyond all reason.

So why does our tin-eared Labour government use parliamentary subterfuge to designate  the Palestine Action group of disrupters as  terrorists?

 And why, when the prisons are already full and the justice system already stretched beyond the limit, arrest 500+ apparently  respectable citizens (average age 54, I believe, though I admit age doesn’t necessarily guarantee respectability) who are peacefully and silently exercising their right to disagree in this land which boasts of Magna Carta, liberty, freedom and enfranchisement?

Tin-eared indeed: public opinion woefully misjudged, (and expensively so  should the Supreme Court rule that the designation of  Palestine Action as a terrorist group was unlawful.)

Labour should remember what the party, and most of its members and supporters, stand for.  It is not just to rule the country rather in the same way as the Tories but  more efficiently more tenderly.

It is to protect the weak (inducing migrants), protect our freedoms, nurture our environment  and  create a culture in which all inhabitants have the opportunity to reach  their potential.  

 Labour needs more accurately to “sniff” the true sense of the public’s expectations and the reasons for our present acute disappointment.

Taxation truths

 

In  the 22^nd June this year the Observer published an article by Will Hutton containing some useful facts and perspective on taxation in the UK.  This is a summary (published without his permission, but I hope he won’t mind. I have tried to put information from the article in bold type, and my own minor interpolations in ordinary type.)

1.Next year (2026) the UK’s tax take  as a share of GDP will rise to its highest level  in 70 years.   The right-wing press  will have a field-day flaunting this as speculation in the next few months continues about  almost inevitable need to increase the present level.  This post is written in the hope of encouraging a more informed debate.

2.  However, the UK comes only 8^th in a list of 14 OECD countries  with 35.3%  of GDP taken  in tax.  This is just above the OECD average of 33.9% (and no surprise given the need to repair 14 years of “austerity.") France is top of the list with 43.8%  Finland (the happiest country in the world according to a survey published today) is third with 42.4%, Germany  sixth with 38.1%, the USA 13^th with 25.2% (which, of course, does not include universal health care.)

3.The freezing  of income tax thresholds for nearly all of the 2020s means that the number of higher-rate taxpayers has  already increased by about 40% to some six million, and will climb by the end of the decade to eight million.  Britain  has by default  created a very progressive income tax system.

4.On  the other hand, while wealth as a share of GDP has doubled over the past 40 years,  the proportional revenue from taxes on capital and property has scarcely budged.

4.  The contribution from indirect taxes other than VAT has  halved over the last 30 years.  The freezing of  excise duties on fuel alone has cost a cumulative £30bn fallaway in tax revenues.

5.  According to the IFS, there is no unequivocal relationship  between tax share and good economic performance.  All the Nordic countries have higher tax to GDP ratios,  while poorly performing Colombia and the Czech Republic  have lower ratios.  The US is often cited as  an exemplar of the opposite  but its dynamism has as much to do with its continental economy, pool of scientific research  and deep capital markets. (And, as I hint above, I suspect if the amount US citizens spend on health insurance were included they would move sharply up the table.)

6.  The UK is in fact astonishingly entrepreneurial.    We rank third in the world for the number of startups,  and third in the world for hosting “Unicorns” – fast growing companies valued at more than $1bn.

7. If Britain wants the common good outcomes of functioning public services  and a decent social floor than the money will  have to be found. The task is to find the resources to deliver what we know we need  and work out a fair  means of raising tax  that doesn’t deliver perverse outcomes.

8.  Hutton has reservations about a wealth tax, as I do.  It is too difficult to calculate and too easy to avoid.  Well designed council, inheritance and capital gains tax are surer mechanisms.

9. Over a five or 10 year period a system [of council tax] based on today’s values and with wider bands must be phased in.

10.  Fuel duty now only represents 1% of GDP and should be restored to 2%.  As electrically driven vehicles become the norm we need to move to systems of road usage  pricing.

11.  Together reformed car and council tax could yield as much as £50bn, enough not only to help our strained public services but to unfreeze those income tax personal allowances.

12.Hutton reminds us of the famous dictum of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr that “taxes are the price we pay for a civilised society.”

A Bitterly Disappointing Year

 

During my week’s holiday (walking in Conwy with an Anglo-German group) I’ve completed reading two short books which I picked up almost by accident during my stint as a volunteer in our local library.

The first, by Michael Peel (a journalist with the Financial Times and formerly their foreign correspondent), has the rather lengthy title  “What Everyone Knows about Britain, Except for the British” and argues that we look at ourselves domestically  though a trick mirror, but from abroad we are seen not as the “Great Power” we think we are (and maybe used to be) but as a seedy, incompetent "has-been"and something of a laughing-stock.  The book is, in my view, uneven, and spends rather too long on uncomplimentary comparisons with such as Thailand and Nigeria, but is packed with useful information and perspectives.

Here’s one: “In 2023 the [Conservative} government raised the personal pension investment annual tax-free allowance from £40 000to £60 000 – a perk worth up to £9 000.”  (footnote on page 24).   

For the past 48 hours our Labour government has been desperately trying to reduce the money we spend on allowances for disabled people but, as far as I’m aware, has as yet done nothing to reduce this absurd favour for those rich beyond most people’s wildest dreams.

The second book is a novel by the former Labour MP and Minister Chris Mullen entitled “The Friends of Harry Perkins.”  Published in 2019, three years after the Brexit referendum, it tells  the story  of what the history of the Labour Party, still in Opposition, might have been.

After an unstated time period the fictional new Leader of the Opposition addresses the Shadow Cabinet as follows:

“. . .[We] have to go into the next election with an economic programme  entirely distinct from that  of the current management.  We all know that Brexit is a disaster.   An increasing number of our voters are waking up to that reality.  The issue can no  longer  be  fudged.    An handful of zealots have manoeuvred our country into this position and it is time we stood up to them.”

Instead, in real life,  Sir Keir Starmer and his  Cabinet has spent their first year on a programme which  seems largely indistinguishable from that of the “previous management."

To be fair there have been some progressives moves.  The minimum wage has been increased and the remaining hereditary peers have been kicked out of the House of Lords. 

 But we continue to tax the wrong things (employment with the increase in NICs); fail to tax the right things (land, pollution, extraction of scarce resources)); waste money on vanity projects (the Lower Thames Crossing,  fancy aircraft to carry H-bombs we shouldn't use but  can’t anyway  without America’s permission); maintain poverty-creating measures  (the two-child benefits limit and harsh elements of the PIP system); kowtow to the US (a Royal visit for Trump!); fail to make any substantial overtures to our nearest in dearest in Europe (rejoining the Erasmus scheme if not the Customs Union); and cut back on our “green “credentials  (issuing licences for the further exploitation of North Sea oil and permitting the expansion of airports.)

Although Sir Keir Starmer continues to give some projects aggrandising  titles (“Great” British Railways) and to make his announcements  flaunted between two oversized Union Flags, the government  continues connive at the damage being done to the four areas in which the UK can still validly claim to be among the world leaders.  These are:

 

1.    1.  Information: The BBC is the jewel in our crown, still the world’s  most trusted source of information, yet the funding of its overseas services is reduced, the domestic service similarly threatened with “defunding” and bullied by accusations of  impropriety because it “accidentally” allows a few inappropriate criticism of the  IDF to be broadcast.

2.    2. Higher Education: Our universities still have great international reputations (though not for much longer if they continue to debase the quality of their degree classifications), yet they are starved of funding, some to the edge of bankruptcy , and overseas applications to study here are impeded in order to reduce headline immigration figures.

3.    3. Overseas Development: Again, a reputation of effective development assistances among the best in the world, but instead of reversing the Tory cut of funding from 0.7% to 0.5% of GDP, funding is further reduced to 0.3% of GDP, much  of that spent in the UK to house asylum seekers – hardly development.

4.    4.  The Arts: British  TV programmes (especially comedy), films, music both “pop” and classical, are  admired and enjoyed in many parts of the world, but defunded, hamstrung by visa restriction and squeezed out of the school curriculum

Truly a bitterly disappointing first year.

 Things can only get better. 

On one way for them to do so would be for labour’s leaders not only to listen to their own MPs, but also to the Liberal Democrats and Greens. (See previous post, “The Vision Thing” 4^th November 2024).

Government by “winner takes all” fiat  is failing  even when the intentions are good.  Now we need to move on from talk of “U turns” towards democracy which is “government by discussion.”