New ideas for a renewed movement: the final 25

When talking about raising the tax threshold to £10K or £12K, are we including the other tax that kicks in at a much lower earnings rate that Income Tax, NI?

The only thing this list achieves is to highlight the current paucity of ambition and imagination in the current Labour Party. Yes, there are lots of little tit-bits for everyone on the Left to tuck into (presumably in the hope that these little bribes will persuade more people to vote Labour), but where is the sweeping grand narrative? Where are the fundamental principles that need to be addressed, or the basic underlying problems that need rectifying? Where is the great Leftist vision for the future - The Good Society etc?

Exactly one year on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and in the midst of the greatest financial crisis for at least 70 years, and there is no attempt to reform the financial system. Are we all expected to go back to business as usual?

There are no measures to curb the factors that caused this current mess: the house price bubble, over-deregulation of banks and financial institutions, the over-reliance of our economy on consumer spending and debt, under-investment in science and technology, a weak manufacturing sector.

What about having policies that will make a real difference:

(i) A commitment to end homelessness in ten years.
If we can commit to ending child poverty, why not this as well?

(ii) A commitment to stable house prices, not runaway inflation.
If we can control CPI inflation, why not housing as well? It can be done simply by controlling mortgage lending! Housing caused this mess and and the last one in 1990. It needs sorting out now!

(iii) Raise the income tax threshold to 12k not 10k.
The principle being, that if the minimum wage is the least that a person can exist on, how can the State morally tax that money and thereby drag a person back below the poverty threshold?

(iv) Raise the 40% tax rate to 44% now and 49% in 2011.
The principle being this: Government spending is currently 44% of GDP and will rise to 49% of GDP in 2011. Anyone who pays less tax than this on their disposable income (i.e. over £44k) is not paying their fair share towards helping get us out of this economic mess. Given that it is the higher earners not the low paid that got us into this mess in the first place with their buy-to-let investments etc then they should shoulder more of the burden.

(v) A decent living pension for all over 70
Ring-fence the money by hypothecating National Insurance to pay for it. Currently, life expectancy in this country is 80 and most people retire at 60 or just above. That means there are only 2 workers for every pensioner. That is not enough. Raise the retirement age to 70 and ratio becomes 4:1 or 5:1, That means doubling the state pension becomes affordable. Surely the old are the most financially vulnerable in society as they have no prospect of future self-improvement through work. They need protection as much as the young do.

(vi) Civil liberties enshrined in a new constitution.
If scrapping ID cards isn't valued added, Alex, how about giving people new rights (which clearly is). The right of ownership of the copyright to their own DNA genome sequence, for example, to prevent exploitation and misuse by pharmaceutical and insurance companies, or the State?
An elected House of Lords is a good first step, but it is hardly bold. What is needed is reform of both Houses and the constitutional processes they operate under.

(vii) Wide-ranging reform of the City, not just banks.
We need to improve the whole regime of corporate governance to make it more transparent and accountable to both shareholders (small ones, not large institutional ones) and workers. New taxes should be introduced that encourage investment and discourage large bonuses and mergers. A turnover tax would be harder to avoid than corporation tax (which only taxes profits, and even then only if the company is registered in the UK). It would make private equity buyouts and going offshore uneconomic. We should also be pushing for reform of remuneration committees for PLCs. To avoid conflicts of interest, all members of such committees should be independent of the City, and should not themselves be subject to such committees for their own salary. All nepotistic practices need to be curtailed and more open competition encouraged, nowhere more so than in the commodities and futures markets. Chris Cook's article on oil price manipulation is very educational, particularly his description of the business relationship between Goldman Sachs and BP.

I would argue that these seven policies would have a much larger positive impact on this country than most of the 25 listed above.

"(iv) Raise the 40% tax rate to 44% now and 49% in 2011.
The principle being this: Government spending is currently 44% of GDP and will rise to 49% of GDP in 2011. Anyone who pays less tax than this on their disposable income (i.e. over £44k) is not paying their fair share towards helping get us out of this economic mess. Given that it is the higher earners not the low paid that got us into this mess in the first place with their buy-to-let investments etc then they should shoulder more of the burden."
This is the most innumerate paragraph I have ever read. Let me guess, you went to school under New Labour, am I right?

Bill, the numbers are Alistair Darling's, not mine. They come straight from the last budget report. How else is this country going to balance its budget? Have you got any better ideas, or do you think money grows on trees? In the end someone has to pay for this mess. I say it should be the people who created it and who profited from it, not those that didn't.

As for the unfounded and derogatory innuendo about my educational background (which never reflects well on the person making the comment by the way), it sounds a bit hollow given your total failure to provide any intellectual substance or explanation to justify your initial criticism. What exactly is your criticism by the way? And what is your solution to this economic mess? Do you have any answers or new ideas? About anything?

Unfortunately Adrian he's right. Just because you set the tax rate at a moral level doesn't mean you get all of that return. people with the means of avoidance will avoid tax. All you do by raising the higher rates of taxation is leave a hole that the low paid have to pay because the high paid have disappeared. The EU means this is more likely than ever.

It is unfortunate, as I agree with the premise. Now Labour flows pretty much freely you can't raise high tax rates. This is one of the reasons the left was traditionally against the EU.

Excuse me! But the current top rate is 50% on earnings over £150k, which I suspect raises little extra money partly for the reasons you outline.

I'm saying scrap it and replace it with a smaller change to the 40% rate band that will be temporary, flexible and based on the economic circumstances of the economy. Most of the people affected by this will be on PAYE and will not be able to move country, so this measure will bring in far more money and will be difficult to avoid for most people earning under £150k (and also for quite a few earning over £150k as well).

The two main arguments against the current 50% rate are that it only really targets the super rich who can easily avoid it, and its arbitrary nature tends to frighten many of those it affects. It inevitably leads to a sense of paranoia that the rate could go even higher sometime in the near future.

My argument is that the highest rate should be based on the economic state of the Government's finances. This at least promotes a level of openness and candour in how it is set, and this should lend more confidence to the markets and to business. It should also lead to a belief that the rate rise will be temporary and will either come down, or at least not increase significantly in the future.

My point is that tinkering with the top rate of tax does not have the benefits you think. Raising the band by 10% does not return that amount, so it won't fill the tax role you want it to. I don't know what effect lowering it would have, but constantly changing it as the situation dictates will lead to many avoiding it all together unfortunately.

As I said before its a shame.

Here's an idea... Balance the books!

The ideas mentioned would all be lovely but there is not one single mention of the fact taxes will have to rise (more than they will already) to pay for all this. The idea of a minimum living wage is a good one but not what we need when we need to create ANY jobs.

I don't understand why there haven't been articles exposing the fact that Gordon Brown has lied continuously for months about public spending and once again has been shown to be an incompetent prat when he finally U-turns. The most pathetic PM since Heath.

Nice list. Now, is there a party out there, with this manifesto, that I can vote for?

There might be, if we get our way!

A full wide ranging housing plan to include demolition of derelict buildings and a focus on achieving the 3 million new homes target.
(paid for how? sold to who?)

A national living wage.
(Related to millions of people living the same lifestyle?)

A public share in the private profits of local green energy generation
(It already happens. It's called 'corporation tax').

A fully elected House of Lords.
(To serve what purpose?)

Lower the voting age to 16.
(Sure .. as long as you confine it to kids who can read and write)

Create universal childcare.
(Paid for how?)

A youth club in every ward.
(And you will force attendance how?)

Clamp down on tax evasion through tax havens.
(Tax evasion is already illegal. Do you mean tax 'avoidance'?)

A fully connected suburban transport infrastructure for the rest of the country to match London's.
(Underground railways in every city. That'll work)

Make advertising of Junk Food to children illegal.
(Define 'junk food')

Investment in off-site and outdoor education programmes for children.
(Already takes place)

The National Curriculum should include credit management and personal finance education.
(Indeed. I agree)

Introduce post graduate student loans.
(You mean saddle young people with more debt?)

Free minimum standard of long term care for all older people.

Make hospital car parking free in England.
(Imposed mainly by Labour councils)

Nationalise the railways.
(Another tax-payer bailout then?)

Increase the basic rate of income tax threshold to £10,000.
(Or £15,000. Or £20,000?)

Remove charitable status for public schools.
(Vicious class envy. Moving along ...)

Introduce free prescriptions on the NHS.
(Free cancer drugs would be more appreciated)

Create a national standards enforcement agency for private landlords to regulate standards.
(Already in place .. landlords no longer hold deposits and are legally bound by gas and electricity legislation. Do keep up)

Liberalise the Sunday trading law to allow weekday opening hours on Sundays.
(Already in place. has been for years)

Improve access to parenting classes and offer them free to those earning under £30k pa.
(See response to "youth clubs in every ward")

Legislate so that both parents have the option of taking shared amounts of maternity and paternity leave.
(and drive small businesses under)

Use public buildings, such as schools, for community and social events.
(Already happening - I attended a book reading at the Jewish Cultural Centre in North End Road last night)

Link a commitment to curbing domestic flights by 2025 to further electrification of the railways.
(And put thousands of airport and airline workers out of work)

25 policy options out number the readers of Labourlist by about two to one.

Pie in the sky.
Come back again in 14 years' time

“A national living wage.”
Set to which part of the nation? London? Dunbar? A living wage in Cornwall is very different to one in Kensington.

“Lower the voting age to 16.”
Moronic idea with huge drawbacks (age of driving, pornography, drinking, smoking, mortgage, etc) which will be a victim to the Law of Unintended Consequences.


Given that Labour suspect all adults of wanting to rape and murder each others children, how will these youth clubs be staffed?

Very sad to see that the increased spying and intrusive powers of the state aren't to be curtailled. I guess freedom isn't that important.

There were lots of suggesitons for scrapping ID cards, etc, but this is a value-added series.

Alex,

On the surface of things your proposed system certainly sounds attractive and good on paper, in its apparent guarantees of security and 'things' for everybody. I mean it seems to be offering an alternative to an individual having to struggle for survival all on his own. In theory, your system will provide food, shelter, schooling, healthcare etc to all; give a sense of purpose, and a lifting of responsibility from making life-directing decisions for oneself.

Your idea of Paradise is bad news however. The idea that you will be more secure in the arms of the state than if left to your own devices is an illusion and and utterly false. What the state can give, the state can (and will) take away: just wait for the next round of 'cuts'. If the state fails you, you have no recourse.

In writing this piece you appear to be assuming that you know what is best for everybody, which would make you an insufferably arrogant know-it-all. Is there ever likely to be a person who really can know enough to be the best arbiter of everyone else’s fate?

What right does the state have to seize what is mine and bestow it on someone else? Maybe you have worked long and hard for it, but nevertheless the state ordains that someone else who didn’t work for it has at least as much right to it as you have, or more. That’s the immorality of wealth redistribution, or ‘social justice’, or whatever you want to call it.

Have a look at where these egalitarian ideals have been pursued, be it by ‘socialists’, ‘liberals’, ‘progressives’, ‘greens’, 'Islamists' etc, all have been a colossal failure wherever they’ve been tried in practice.

Your system prevents people from truly growing up and learning to wipe their own backsides. The only real security lies always in your own ability to act for yourself and your dependents. It is certainly not easy, yet most who try succeed in the end. The more freely you can act for yourself, the more safe and secure you are. The state’s only legitimate role is to safeguard you while you pursue your self-chosen aims, either by protecting your country from enemies, and you personally by enforcing the law.

The state will always be a threat to freedom. It accumulates power and encroaches on the freedom of the citizens insidiously. The state invents new crises as a way of increasing power: take global warming; never has there been such a gift of an excuse for socialists to organize the rest of us. We must all, they insist, live, work, play, travel, dress, eat, and house ourselves as they tell us to if we are to survive.

DON'T BELIEVE THEM!



All the problems you think you can overcome are a result of too much government, not too little.

Bejeesus. So many ideological cliches in one rant. It would take a while to fisk them all - but to no avail: this kind of libertarian thought is a self enclosed circular loop which no amount of fact or argument will break. Popper warned of the dangers of closed thought systems, and I'm finding it strange that libertarians have turned into doctrinaire zealots much in the way Marxists were last century.

Funny how global warning is now a de facto conspiracy for the state to encroach on our lives. What if it were also happening? Where would that leave you? As a natural born sceptic I'm open to the evidence, and while the case for man made contribution to climate change is not 100 hundred per cent certain, there's even less certainty about your alternative credo, that human activity is NOT causing climate change.

But like a medieval scholastic or a Marxist commissar, you'll happily skirt round any fact that doesn't suit your ideology.

You say the state is totally unaccountable: how about 200 years of civil rights and expanding suffrage? The state no longer has the right to execute you for a capital crime, nor deny you divorce, civil partnership, freedom to travel abroad. It has also removed the rights of others to hold you as a slave. Or would you say that emancipation was just another state run conspiracy to make us mental serfs?

You monomaniacal world view, with its simplistic black and white thinking, falls apart as soon as you inspect it.

Oh no you don't Peter.

200 years of civil rights, reduced to pulp by New Labour. Doubt me? Go and read a list of war dead out loud outside Parliament. Be prepared to lose your DNA and your liberty.

No State executions? Remind me what happened to the killer of Menezes. Six State bullets killed him, yet no one has been tried for it.

Does Gay Glitter have the freedom to travel abroad? Nope, his passport has been revoked, even though he has served his sentence. People are sitting in jail because they refuse to live where the State tells them to live. Groups of more than two people can be "dispersed" on the word of a Policeman. Every phone call, every Email, every website visited checked by the State to ensure we are "not a threat". Endless innocent citizens details and DNA on criminal databases. Endless CCTV cameras. Endless surveillance, endless new laws, endless government agencies can now enter your house at a whim. One in four is now enslaved by the State, paid Danegeld benefits to behave themselves. Millions more trapped in poverty by minimum wage and tax credits or a failed edukashun system that produces worthless certificates instead of worthy citizens.

Just because the State is not applying it's grasping tentacles to YOUR throat doesn't mean it can't if it chooses or isn't doing so to someone else. And soon enough, it will be your turn to find out how that feels.

East Germans had more freedoms than we do. Every time I have to interact with this corrupt and totalitarian New Labour State, I feel the need to shower in Dettol. Hundreds and thousands of my readers agree with me.

The sad thing about your hyperbole on this is that you actually undermine the genuine civil rights you want to see protected.

1. Menezes was a victim of stressed and misinformed policemen. This was not state sanctioned capital punishment complete with judge and black cap. Capital punishment ended in the 1960s doncha know?

2. The state sometimes grabs power, and under democratic pressure cedes it. Hence many rights won back for the individual in the last 200 years, including the banning of slavery?

The slavery issue also highlights the fact that threats to your liberties don't only come from the state, but from other individuals or institutions, like sugar plantations.

3. Your points about electronic surveillance do contain some genuine concerns, but let's not forget: many of the sources of that information are private and commercial. How best to protect your privacy? As with medical records it will require laws i.e. the state will pass the legislation to protect your privacy.

You're wrong about the Stasi. They had 180,000 informants and the right lie to suspects, imprison them for YEARS without trial. Try a visit to the stasi archives in East Berlin. I've researched there, and your manic exaggerations once again undermine the validity of your other cases.

Hundreds of thousands of readers might agree with you, but that does not make them right, any more than the millions who ask for more intervention in family life after the Baby P case.

Millions of Americans still think Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks.

That's not convincing. It's stupefying.

Really OH. You can do better than this.

"Funny how global warning is now a de facto conspiracy for the state to encroach on our lives"

Yes, isn't it terrible? Official figures also show that ordinary families bear the brunt of environmental taxes and households are paying almost four times more than businesses for every ounce of pollution they create. Despite generating only 22% of UK greenhouse gases, consumers are paying 52% of environmental taxes.

"The state no longer has the right to execute you for a capital crime, nor deny you divorce, civil partnership, freedom to travel abroad. It has also removed the rights of others to hold you as a slave."

In other words, you are saying that the state can no bully and coerce its way into doing the above, and that this a good thing. And there was me thinking you were disagreeing with me.

"But like a medieval scholastic or a Marxist commissar, you'll happily skirt round any fact that doesn't suit your ideology"

My way thinking often gets up the noses of leftists, but I've yet to see any facts or counterarguments from you. Feel free to supply some.

Andrew

Had you bothered to read my argument you will see two simple connected statements. I agree with you that the state can be a threat to civil liberties. But I also point out something glaringly obvious which your monochromatic mind view won't let you accept: other people and other non state organisations can pose a threat to your civil liberties. Indeed, in those instances such a slavery or the vote the state had an active right in protecting individual liberties against threats from other people.

This is basic stuff, Andrew, and I'm frankly amazed you can't grasp it.

You call me a leftist, but since I'm pretty much a liberal centrist, it just shows how far name calling goes... i.e. not far. You'll notice I've actually engaged in your arguments, rather than just calling your a libertarian loon, even though your obsession with the state alone marks you out as someone who has failed to grasp the basics of politics post 17th Century.

Liberties are protected by law. More of them should be I agree. But then who underwrites that law? Whether it's criminal, civil or commercial, I don't see you and your dependents being capable of enforcing the laws of privacy or the laws on contract on your own.

"I'm pretty much a liberal centrist"

LOL don't talk bullshit, you are a leftie. That's perfectly cool by me, each to their own etc. Just don't pretend to disown what you are, it fools no one. On the other hand, Blair managed to do just that for a short while...

Sure other people can probably pose a threat to civil liberties if they want, don't know anyone personally. But you'd have to agree state funded thuggery is far more of a threat: Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao, Ceaucescu, etc. Probably tens of orders of magnitude worse.

I call bullshit back. If a leftie means being in favour of civil rights in the manner of Tom Paine or J S Mill, then call me a leftie. If economically it means open markets, Keynes during economic dysfunction and Hayek during market booms, call me a leftie. But you know nothing, and have to revert to an attempt to define my politics by name calling (as if you had any idea who I am) because I've skewered your meagre thinking and you have no riposte.

As for that that lurid rogues gallery of Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao and Ceaucescu. Any idiot can see that the common thread was not the state per se, but the hijacking of it by violent demagogues and dictators who didn't believe in either democracy or diversity of opinion.

But your thinking has something in common with all four. They were also totalitarians and absolutist. Your fixation with the 'state is always evil' is ABSOLUTIST. And you simplistic definition of the world through this totalising equation, is nothing other than TOTALITARIAN in outlook.

No wonder you need to demonise me as a leftie. Your share their intolerant apocalyptic philosophies.

Are you joking? These aren't my suggestions! They were offered by other people, and other people will vote on them! This isn't my system, it's a collection of separate ideas for a manifesto. I don't support all of the ideas on here, and I'm sure very few others do either - that's why it's going to a vote.

Yes we should increase the tax threshhold rather than altering rates of tax, but we should also increase the pensions threshold. When I retired I was just £6.49 above the threshold and had to pay part of the costs of Glasses and Dental Treatment; now my Son is going to University and my Pension & pension Credit put me at £3.49 above the amount the government says I need to live off, Because of this I am now having to pay an extra £64.00 per month, yet my total income is only £8,020 per year. Doesn't make sense.

Here we go from a Libertarian perspective

A full wide ranging housing plan to include demolition of derelict buildings and a focus on achieving the 3 million new homes target. - Three million new homes? Why?

A national living wage. - We have one. It traps millions in poverty

A public share in the private profits of local green energy generation - Theft. Pure and simple

A fully elected House of Lords. - Mandelson and Ahmed won't like that

Lower the voting age to 16 - Why not make it 10?

Create universal childcare - More family breakups, more State ownership of the child

A youth club in every ward - State sponsored Youth Wing? No thanks

Clamp down on tax evasion through tax havens - Again, more theft

A fully connected suburban transport infrastructure for the rest of the country to match London's - agreed

Make advertising of Junk Food to children illegal - Ye Gods. More stupid laws

Investment in off-site and outdoor education and exercise programmes for our teenage children - What the hell is "outdoor education"? Marching perhaps?

The National Curriculum should include credit management and personal finance education - agreed

Introduce post graduate student loans - keep them in debt, that's the way

Free minimum standard of long term care for all older people - Nothing is free

Make hospital car parking free in England - That'll save the world.

Nationalise the railways - No, just make them work properly

Increase the basic rate of income tax threshold to £10,000 - abolish income tax.

Remove charitable status for public schools - agreed.

Introduce free prescriptions on the NHS - I keep saying it. Nothing is free

Create a national standards enforcement agency for private landlords to regulate standards - Yay! More databases, more laws!

Liberalise the Sunday trading law to allow weekday opening hours on Sundays - agreed

Improve access to parenting classes and offer them free to those earning under £30k pa.- Nothing is free. If a parent can't be bothered to raise a child, what makes you think they can bothered to attend parenting classes?

Legislate so that both parents have the option of taking shared amounts of maternity and paternity leave - More laws! Hurrah!

Use public buildings, such as schools, for community and social events - When can I book Westminster?

Link a commitment to curbing domestic flights by 2025 to further electrification of the railways - do not retrict my freedom to travel. It didn't work in East Germany.

Hi Labourlist

some good ideas there , If i may just comment on one of them the house of lords, I dont want a elected house of lords it will be a copycat of the house of commons , whenever i see debates in the upper house they are thoughtful , independent and wise , The problem would be solved by a simple thing check the bills in the commons , so many times clauses and amendments are not even checked because there is not enough time .

we need to slow down a bill is for life not just nextweeks headlines .

ricki

I agree, scrap the Lords (or have it only meet for state openings), have a more democratic Commons. If MP's knew they couldn't use their friends in the Lords to put in ammendments maybe they'd put their name to them in the Commons. Scrap the Lords and Mandy would be able to contest to be an MP again. Get rid of GB and he might win one.