Council Tax Band Revaluation Fraud

The coalition government has postponed the revaluation of council tax bands on the totally false grounds that it would "penalise the poorest". Eric Pickles is reported to have claimed that, coming out of a recession, the government would not want to impose "an extra £1 600 of taxation on ordinary families."

This is nonsense and the government and Pickles must know it. There is no relationship between the total council tax a local authority raises and the banding values of the properties within its area. What the banding values do is determine how the payment of the tax is to be distributed. At the moment it is distributed according to property values in 1991. since when houses have increased in value. If they had all increased in value a the same rate, then the proportion of the total tax paid by each household would have remained unchanged. If in this period the value of some houses has increased proportionally more than others, then they will pay more and the others less, but an overall increase of £1 600 is ridiculous. If the total council tax levied remained unchanged then this would be a zero sum

A revaluation would penalise the poor rather than the rich only if humbler abodes had increased in value proportionately more than posh ones. If this is the case, then the simple solution would be to broaden the scope of the lower bands, A and B, add a few more bands above the present top H, and widen the ratio of the difference between top and bottom band payments above the present paltry three. Such a revision would be more equitable and sound less draconian than Vince Cable's proposal of a Mansion Tax

Of course, Liberal Democrats believe that council tax is a flawed and inequitable method of collecting local government revenues, and advocate a local income tax. Personally I am not totally sold on this idea, as I think it wrong to limit local government revenue to one source only. Local income tax along with that long standing Liberal demand for a Land Tax would be my preferred long term solution.

So bring on "site value rating," another good Liberal idea that has been ignored for far too long.

Big egos

In yesterday's Guardian Ed Milliband was quoted as saying that it would have been "fantastic to have (David) serving in my cabinet...He is my brother and as leader of my party my door is always open for him to serve in the future." (my italics)

But it isn't his party, it belongs to its members (who, incidentally, along with individual trade union members, voted for him by a massive majority of 175 000 to 145 000 - there is nothing "narrow" about his victory). The shadow cabinet, which is chosen not by him but by Labour MPs, surely belongs to all of us - it is that part of our constitution which, if it does its job properly, leads the task of holding our government to account and offering a viable alternative.

I can't remember the exact words, but Nick Clegg too, when first elected Liberal Democrat leader, used phrases such as "under my leadership the Liberal Democrats will..." and "I will lead the Liberal Democrats to..." Liberal Democrats pride ourselves on being a very democratic party, and our "front man" should be leading us in the direction where we, the members, and those who vote for us, want us to go.

Our politics will be healthier if we move away from this absurd emphasis on the personalities and characters of the party leaders and return to the custom of collective leadership where the prime-minister is simply primus inter pares, and the the opposition leader is simply first among a team of talented alternatives.

By their deeds (or lack of them) shall ye know them

It was good to hear Ed Milliband admit that three of his political heroes, Lloyd George,Keynes, and Beveridge, "were not members of our party," (though he couldn't quite bring himself to admit that they were Liberals) and that he is going to vote for AV. But the main burden of his speech was to dissociate himself and the "New Generation" Labour Party from all the errors of New Labour.

On the previous day Brother David had given an enumeration of Tory foreign policy failures from 1979 to 1997:

• halving the aid budget,
• standing to one side while tens of thousands were slaughtered on the edge of Europe,
• fighting and losing a beef war with the EU.*

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. For 13 years New labour had a substantial majority and, in the early days at least, substantial good will. Yet in this period they:

• toadied to the most right wing American president in recent history and illegally invaded Iraq,
• failed to give the opportunity for electoral reform (in spite of a manifesto promise),
• introduced only half-hearted political reform,
• further reduced the powers of local government,
• were relaxed about people becoming "filthy rich" and failed to implement a fairer tax system,
  
• burdened future tax payers with the cost of the absurd PFI system,
• presided over an increase in inequality,
• further eroded our civil liberties,
• continued the Tories' prescriptive policies in education,
• debased politics by their obsession with spin.
  

An article on religion which I read recently claimed that repentance and forgiveness are merely a desire to achieve a happier past. Liberal Democrat campaigners should make sure that Labour is not allowed to wash its hands of its past, and Liberal Democrats in government should remember that the same will apply to us.

* As reported in the Guardian, 28/09/10

To play, or not to play...

Men and women go into politics as a career, and in order to transform society according to their ideals and beliefs. These are complementary motives and not either/or choices, but surely, at least for "left of centre" politicians, the second should predominate. Even if David Milliband is not, after all, to be leader of his party, he still has ample opportunity to contribute towards the creation of what is left of the socialist ideal. If he decides not to do so then he will seem like the playground footballer who refuses to play unless he can be captain.

The most urgent task of the present parliament, for all parties, not just the coalition, is to restore respect for politicians and confidence in the political process. If David Milliband decides to quit, that will add to public cynicism rather than restore respect. Service under a younger sibling may mean that a certain amount of pride has to be swallowed. I can't think of any exact parallels, but there are several examples of politicians continuing to serve under former juniors. Alec Douglas Home continued as foreign secretary under his former junior Ted Heath, as does William Hague under Cameron.

If David Milliband decides not to continue in front line politics he will confirm the suspicion in many people's minds that politicians are "only in it for what they can get." I hope that he will decide to stay and put what remain of his principles first, however misguided I believe them to be.

A post script: a young man in our Co-op appears to be reasonably interested in politics, and, I believe, represents the staff on a regional committee. When I asked him yesterday how he was, he replied that he was worried about where Ed Balls might lead the Labour Party. With a recognition factor like that Ed Milliband needs all the help he can get.

Two Liberal Democrat "prizes."

On Tuesday mornings at 9 am there is a Radio 4 programme called "The Brown Years." This week's was largely devoted to the inside story of whether or not to call an election in the autumn of 2007. Both private and published opinion polls were pored over and apparently the crucial factor in making the decision not to call an election was that not enough southern middle class voters were thought not to be likely to vote Labour. Now that the coalition is to introduce fixed term parliaments the gross unfairness, and time consuming burden, of allowing one contender to choose the date of the election at a time thought to be most favourable to his own party is now rightly consigned to the dustbins.

I am reading the second volume of Chris Mullin's diaries ( a fascinating read, as is the first.) On page 158 (15th march 2007) he records: "...I heard the other day from someone in the Lords, that David Cameron has privately told the Tory peers that Lords reform is a 'third term issue'. So the Tories new found love of democracy in The Other Place is, after all, entirely bogus." Gossip, I know, but given that Cameron's pragmatism rivals that of Harold Wilson, I have no reason to suspect Mullin's judgment.

That a wholly or largely elected second chamber is now firmly on the agenda of this parliament' is another "prize" for Liberal Democrats in coalition.

Those of us distressed by Liberal Democrat complicity in the Tories' obsession with cutting back the state through the bogus need for immediate "savage cuts" should not forget the the triumphs of achieving these long overdue constitutional reforms.

Inudstrial democracy

Vince Cable's statement of the obvious truth that "markets are often irrational or rigged" has produced injured bleats from the CBI et al about over-emotional language with might frighten the horses (by which they seem to mean foreign investment.) How does the right reconcile its belief that trade unions should be hedged aground with all sorts of regulations which restrict their activities, while capitalists should be free to do as they like?

Actually I'm not necessarily a great fan of trade unions. In the 1960s we Liberals had all sorts of ingenious plans for industrial democracy and worker participation. One I liked was that boards of companies over a certain size should comprise one third shareholder representatives, one third employee representatives and one third community representatives. No single bloc would therefore have a majority. These imaginative plans, which, had they been implemented could have transformed the British industrial scene and avoided the horrors of the eighties, were always opposed by the trades union movement, which saw them as a threat to their power base. They preferred confrontation to co-operation.

I am pleased to see hints of a revival of potential co-operative ideas in Vince's speech: mentions of an employee shareholder scheme for the Royal Mail, and the promotion of mutual ownership by Ed Davey. I should like to see ideas about industrial (and commercial) democracy return to centre stage. We shall not obtain a fair society until power is exercised in the interests of all, rather than one "side" or the other.

234 year old revelation makes news

One of the many things that annoy me about present-day society is the way the media devote so much time in the so called "news" programmes on speculating on what is going to happen or be said rather than what has actually happened or been said. So Vince Cable hasn't actually said it yet, but is allegedly going to say:"capitalism kills competition when it can."

Why this statement, familiar to any student of "A" level economics (it's an aspect of what is now called "market failure") should cause consternation is baffling. Adam Smith was possibly not the first person to recognise this truth, but probably expressed it most vividly when over two centuries ago he wrote:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." (Wealth of Nations, Published 1776, page 116 of Everyman's Library edition.)

(It is perhaps a sign of the times that more recent sixth form studnts seem to have been less interested in the economic significance of the observation and more in the exact form the "merriment" might take. I suggested pork pies and brown ale, but their conjectures were more exotic.)

So Cable's comments are not Marxist, as some commentators on the BBC's "Today" programme are claiming, but from the mouth of the economist now claimed as the guru of the right. The Adam Smith Institute is highly selective in the prescriptions they choose to adopt from the master.

Just as it was, to Jane Austen, "(a) truth universally acknowledged , that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in search of a wife" it is universally recognised by impartial observers of the workings of the market that entrepreneurs prefer collusion to competition. In the 21st Century and the days of massive international corporations (News Corporation?) it is more than ever the government's responsibility to regulate not just the banks but the market itself to ensure where appropriate that producers and providers practise the competition they vaunt but do their best to avoid.

All power to Vince's elbow.