By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982
Hi Tim,
Thanks for your post earlier today and the invitation to engage on a series of policy matters. It’s great to be able to discuss the big issues with you in this exchange between LabourList and ConservativeHome. In the world of political blogs, we often gaze too intently at our own navels and forget that the real dividing lines are across the aisle.
I think those lines are particularly pertinent on the economy and our two parties’ approaches to dealing with the recession.
Labour’s proactive response - the £20 billion fiscal stimulus, quantitative easing, the VAT cut – has been widely applauded. Those policies, oft-derided by the Tories, have saved jobs and helped begin the process of rebooting the economy. Even the right wing press are beginning to admit that!
Just as importantly, those actions have also shown that, when people need their government most, it will act. This wasn’t big, meddling government; it was just good government, targeted government.
But as we know, these actions also do something worrying: they shift much of the pinch on our wallets to a point further down the line. That means, starting in 2011, public spending will have to be reduced, sharply and in a way that we are not accustomed to after years of prosperity under this government. So public sector net investment as a percentage of our national income will fall from 3% this year, to 1.25% by 2013.
As you point out, the line “Labour investment over Tory cuts” has troubled me for some time; it's a line more suited to 2001, 2005 or even 2008.
But in 2009, it appears deliberately deceitful and doesn’t add value to the sort of politics I subscribe to. Whatever the Labour government has done to reduce the effects of the downturn today, it is clear that we will have to pay off our debts tomorrow.
A better response for a governing party would be to identify areas that seem extravagant during times of hardship – ID cards and Trident renewal are two examples that grate Labour supporters particularly – and ringfence critical and to my mind sacrosanct public services such as education, health, welfare and housing.
That’s my broad view of what Labour should do, and I believe it is something the Prime Minister will do, starting at conference if not before.
Next, you ask whether I agree that public spending cuts will be the main way in which we will return to a balanced budget.
Today, Britain has a budget deficit of nearly £100 billion. Our public sector net debt is at £798 billion compared with £641 billion a year ago. Things are not good.
But we continue to have a sound infrastructure for future growth and London remains of the world’s largest financial centre. I used to live in New York, and people there say “as long as this is a centre of global finance, America will do OK.” It’s the same here.
But we have to remember the real reason our economy is so important. It is not to create wealth for wealth's sake; it is for the benefit of the people.
So government investments in green jobs and in skills are preparing us for that economic tussle with the emerging economies that will surely follow shortly after the imminent upturn.
Because of those things, I do not share your concerns that spending cuts are the be-all-and-end-all, or even the only part of the answer, and I do not share your concerns about brain drain, at least not yet. Our economy will recover and renewed investment will be possible after a period of recovery. Because of our georgraphy, history and dynamic culture, Britain will always be strong.
That said, you have to remember that I’m a socialist, and I believe in sharing wealth amongst all those who contributed to its creation, including teachers, nurses and cleaners.
So I would favour a small increase on corporations tax to help pay for the training and infrastructure investments, and I would also support bringing the inheritance tax threshold down to £250,000.
I would also like to see - in the longer term - the decriminalisation of soft drugs and prostitution - subject to regulation that will improve education and health measures on those tricky issues, and with a tax levied accordingly.
Second, I do not favour across the board cuts. Not at all.
I do not approve of sending 50% of young people to university. It’s a utopian ideal, but the government should remember that we need vocational training as much as academic training. When we are re-growing our economy, we will need plumbers and mechanics and builders more than ever.
So I would like to see more investment in early years learning and I would like to see the current upside-down pyramid of educational investment – with more money going to universities than early years – turned on its head.
And please, please don’t get me started on the Tory pledges on Inheritance Tax!
Finally, your notion that the political classes should share in the pain is quite right; our democracy will need to be realigned both in terms of parliamentary and voting reform and the cost of its provision.
But no, I do not want to see a reduction in the number of MPs. The MPs’ expenses crisis proves that we need more democracy, not less.
That said, if I were elected Prime Minister tomorrow, the first thing I would do would be to reduce my salary from £197,000 to the national average income of £27,000. I think Parliamentarians get enough of our money, don’t you?
Looking forward to your responses on these things.
Alex
PS - How do you set the tone for Conservatives in your comments sections? Should I cut loose the trolling on LabourList?
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What we also need is short-course, continual learning. Your plumber should be able to go back to college for a one week refresher course on, say, installing solar thermal heating systems. Similarly across the board for *all* skills and professions. Continual learning will enable our country to have a dynamic, highly educated workforce. Sadly, we treat training as an employer responsibility and in times of recession training is the first thing that is cut.
It's refreshing to read debate between LabourList and ConservativeHome. I hope that the debate will remain civil and we can make some real progress. While I am a conservative, I do believe that the other side has some good ideas that make taxation justifiable.
On that though, you say that you support "sharing wealth amongst all those who contributed to its creation, including teachers, nurses and cleaners". I don't disagree with the statement per se, but it seems bizarre to me that you support redistribution of wealth to the lower paid but you don't reject the taxation of their income. The current method of redistribution, tax credits, is incredibly inefficient as you tax everyone and then return what is judged to be necessary. The large problem is that it costs to carry out the 'determination of need' stage and that is why the gap between rich and poor has increased since 1997. You are taking money from the poor, taking a cut and then returning it.
These are inefficient systems that need reforming. A Friedmann 'negative income tax' achieves taxation and welfare in one step, eliminating he vast amounts of waste that tax credits result in. This reduces the cost of government without affecting public service. Although you are a socialist I am sure you recognise that in a global economy there is a limit to the amount of tax the 'rich' will accept before moving elsewhere. As they provide a great amount of our taxation it is crucial that we keep as many of them as possible. Thus anything that can make government achieve the same for less is crucial if you want to keep spending high.
Mark
The best parts of Labour at the moment, yes the economy. I believe over in the UK House prices are on the rise again and stocks seem to be rising. I have watched the exchange rate between currencies (for my own selfish purposes) between the UK and Asia and over here people think the UK is stabilising.
The rise of the pound since it's fall (made me 10% on the money I transferred back to the UK in four weeks) in Febuary has been significant and has taken away some pressure from expoting goods.
Of course this does not detract to the fact we will need to invest very heavily in innovation and technology permanently as this is an area we cannot neglect again if we want to enjoy some International success.
There will need to be cuts, but at the moment those employed in the public sector are fearful of when and where, the party to be most honest on this issue shall gain the lead for an election victory. Gordon has not started very well as again, bless him, he has failed to understand the "feelings" of people.
As I said when I challenged Charles Clarke, there is no better man to deal with the economy despite all the garbage we hear from the Tories about the World Banking collapse being his fault and the media nonesense about it originating in London. The responsibility for this was the poor judgement exercised by the bankers who enjoyed a stupid amount of power that politicians were too afaid and unqualified to question. Though GB DID question it back in 1999 and was pretty much shot down through lack of public interest.
Ironically I was one who listened to him, glad I did because now I am doing rather nicely.
There are areas that will need to be cut back, undoubtedly having worked in the NHS as a purchasing officer and alongside the MET I identified many areas where cuts could be made particularly in the administrative "managerial" areas.
It will not be easy though without some serious "close range" understanding of the function of these bodies and not to trust the words of the manager who exist to perpetually increase thier own numbers and who do not necessarily care about the "front line" services.
There is great public consensus on where to cut back (eg ID cards) but I think the Government have seen this area as a nice little earner for themselves in the long term (private personal information is worth a fortune to the private sector).
Politicians need to start sharing in thier people's pain (I agree) to enable them to understand thier people more and to make a token effort in contributing to the countries recovery. It is such a shame Ministers have such a poor history of representing those who voted for them.
- was the stimulus aimed correctly? 73% of the stimulus was used to cut VAT to 15% (see http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2009/~/media/Files/rc/articles/2009/03_g20_stimulus_prasad/03_g20_stimulus_prasad_table.pdf). Given that there's no VAT on food or childrens clothing, and petrol tax was increased to counter the VAT cut, those who spend the highest proportion of their income on food, childrens clothes and petrol benefited least, and those who spend most of their income on books, consumer goods, eating out, entertainment, holidays, etc. benefited most. It's my view, therefore, that the stimulus was aimed at the rich, with comparatively less benefit for the poor. Quite frankly, I'd rather have seen the stimulus money used to re-introduce the 10p tax band, but we know that would have been impossible for Brown, because of losing face
- cutting government spending doesn't have to hurt and doesn't have to wait until after the recession is over, as long as it is cutting wasteful government that is of no benefit to the people of this country. We all know, because Darling has told us, that we can save £15 billion a year by cutting out wasteful government inefficiencies. In dfact, I'd say we could cut much more than that, with some out-of-the-box thinking. Why have child tax credits separate to child benefit? Why have separate income tax and employees national insurance - lump the 2 together and save billions. Would it be cheaper to scrap employers national insurance and tax profits much higher instead? There's a perception amongst Labour supporters that cutting government spending is "A BAD THING", but that's too simplistic a view. Government spending is used to pay for hospitals, doctors, nurses, drug centres, ambulances, schools, teachers, books, police officers, refuse collectors, environemental health, etc. But it also pays for a lot of middle-class civil servants who count paper clips, or count the paper-clip counters, or write instructions telling nurses how to take the top off a child-proof medicine bottle, or press releases telling us that drinking more than 1 unit of alcohol in 10 minutes can make us dizzy
- I don't think it's just the pressure to get people into university that is missing the point. I think the standardisation of secondary education (everyone must get 5 GCSE at grade a to c) is wrong. Whilst there was much wrong with the pre-comprehensive system, there was a much broader base of different educational experiences contained within it, from totally intellectual courses that included latin and greek, to totally practical courses that included a real focus on practical skills, such as engineering. Both those extremes have disappeared, and I think we are a poorer nation for it, especially for children who are not intellectually minded, but who might really rise to the challenge of spending all day learning practical skills. The same goes the other way, of course - it used to be that a child from a poor background could pass the 11 plus, go to a grammar school and do latin, go to university on a full grant, get a 1st class degree in classics and get a job at the British Museum. That route is closed off, because very few, if any, comprehensives offer latin, so if A level latin is a pre-requisite of getting a job at the Museum, it can only go to someone who attended public school.
As far as Trident and ID cards go, of course you're right, and it's only Brown's stubbornness that hasn't seen them ditched long ago. Let's just hope Mandelson takes over the Party before it's too late to bring in some decent policies! OK, maybe not Mandelson, but somebody, anybody, other than Brown.
Sorry, but I think Alex is more than qualified to comment on any debate he chooses to enter. He has proven again and again that he will listen to every aspect of a debate provided it is done in such a way that is reasonably polite and doesn't contain anything that could be deemed as grossly offensive.
If he changes over night, feel free to have a pop on whether he is impartial or not, but that isn't going to happen. The very fact that your comment was published should prove that point.
However, bbJ is one of our commenters that, with his swearing and offensive direct insults at me and others, is moderated more often than not.
Believe me, you wouldn't want to read of what he says. Unfortunately, I do.
If people want to see biase they should redirect to various political websites that give one view and one view only. Here on the LL I have actually found myself agreeing with those of a Conservative mind and you know what, the Conservative minds occassionally agree with me. Now that is progressive politics in anyones books.
The sooner both Labour and the Conservative party accept that good ideas can come from either direction, the better. Of course there will always be a divide, otherwise I would not be Labour minded, but with a certain amount of consensus, a certain degree of common sense and give n take, we may actually get somewhere.
Think about the amount of time that is wasted on both sides trashing the other when it is obvious, there are two stances (or there should be) and you choose in life which one you stand behind. There are other parties and democratically they are more than valid, but when it comes to frontline politics, do you back the party that will look after those with the money already, or do you back the Party that will help those who are trying their hardest to get one rung up the ladder?
I realise how bizarre that last paragraph is when you put it in context of the current people on the front bench, but seriously, should it be the right of the few to live the good life or should everyone who puts the effort in be allowed a decent and fruitful lifestyle and a dignified place in society?
Nay, my man.
Put him (her) in the limelight with a special article devoted to the 'Comments of bbJ' and let's see him (her?) for what he (she?) really is.
After all, there is such a concept as 'freedom of expression' .... 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.'
Good. May I suggest a title : 'The Little Blue Book -the Thoughts of bbJ?'
Why do you think it gets this way? The reason is that some of the comments are brilliant, others are morose, stupid, illogical and poorly argued. Moreover the ego's of the posters come into play. Half the crap here is driven by the desire to get something published as opposed to saying something genuinely important or that needs discussing. The other 50% or so is party political. How much original thinking has there been?
People set themselves up as experts when they have limited to no experience. Just read their profiles, it’s a laugh a minute as they paint themselves as the high and mighty. “Mr Executive Director and strategic government relations executive at a leading public affairs and crisis management consultancy” agency you know who you are. Also Mr freelance journalist and blogger; by day he works in IT and marketing for a travel agents. I would re write this as "works in IT and marketing for a travel agents and writes crap in the evening coupled with publishing pictures of himself”.
The main issue in play is the editorial bias which manifests itself in the following way:
1: The editor holds back posts that he wants to exclude some from the debate. Posts might get through but later when the argument has moved in the direction Mr Ideologist wants it to go in.
2. Non Labour posters are moderated even when they are making a genuine point. Especially if you make a killer point that completely defeats the lefty author or commentators point.
So junior is effectively manipulating the debate and my charge is that this makes him a propagandist. Things will get heated as a result!!
Junior has a real problem though, there is practically no one here and the reason is the quality of the articles and the resultant debate – or lack there off. He may work hard on this site; however I see his performance in a different light. There is no denying the passion that Alex throws at this site, but he has failed to raise the game on the quality of material, there is a lot of sillyness published and I wonder what this site is actually achieving. This is not his fault but attributed to the life experience he has.
Call me what you will. Too many here live in la la land and that includes the manglement.
I suspect you'd also set every MP salary at the same figure?
That stops anyone in the ABC1 class every seeking political office again unless they already had serious wealth before entering politics.
Hard to believe that Alex you would take us back to the 19th century situation of only independently wealthy individuals standing for Parliament.
I've got some sympathy with Cameron's proposal to reduce the number of Westminster MPs, perhaps by the Scottish and Welsh assemblies instead sending a mandated delegation. Otherwise Alex, I'm with you all the way!
I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion on the idea of decriminalising drugs and prostituion.
Anyone got thoughts on those?
However what amazes me is the fear of politicians to seriously address the drugs issue by not going top down in dealing with it....
Utterly spineless.
Hard to believe that Alex you would take us back to the 19th century situation of only independently wealthy individuals standing for Parliament."
I imagine that would be ideal for you, Guy. Seriously, though - please explain the logic that leads you to this bold assertion.
Simple, a professional white collar worker who is sucesfull is likely to earn far more than £27,000 pa.
His mortgage and other outgoings to support his family will be paid for by said higher salary. To expect him or her to move to becoming an MP and taking a pay cut of 50%, 60% or 70% wouod entail loss of home, standard of living etc. In other words 99% plus of the professional classes either wouldn't do it or would acquire enough private wealth before standing to make the cut irrelevant.
As always with socialists the fact that a large % on the non Labour voting base earn far more than the average wage is both a mystery and a gross scandal in fairness at the same time.
It's simple numbers and if you can't either see it or realise it all this does is show how out of touch with non Labour voters you are. I hope any non Labour voters reasing this realise how the Labour party were never the friends of the middle classes and never will be, so don't vote for them
Good positive article.
Given that you won't be elected Prime Minister next year (but may be in with a chance circa 2025), I'll hold you to your £27 grand - RPI index linked, of course ....
A Prime Minister gets free accommodation, free food, free transportation and pretty much free everything else, so why not take the medicine they deem fit to dish out to everyone else?
Personally if I was so politically minded that I would take up office, in the unlikely event that the electorate didn't view me as a window licking mentalist, I would gladly do the job for £27k. Why not? Being in politics and making decisions for the good of the country, in the interests of the electorate does not need a competitive wage, it needs a realistic wage to ensure that Members of Parliament realise what it is like for the average voter.
I'm not sure whether Alex wrote it in jest, but I think its a damned good idea. Let MPs live like the average person lives for a year, make them pay council tax, remove expenses and get them to commute into London at their own cost and lets see how long some of the more punitive taxes last.
My bets are, given that scenario, we'd have much lower traveling and living costs within a matter of months.
A realistic wage is one that a comparable individual could command in the private sector.
£27,000 is not comparable and if you truly want only the rich or those for whom £27,000 is a good wage to stand for parliament then you will richly deserve the politicians you end up with.
I would not stand for any political position for £27,000, I wouldn't put my family through the drop in income and living standards and no one I know in my position would unless we were already wealthy.
Are you suggesting Bill that unless my family and I give up our house (couldn't pay the mortgage on £27,000 pa) I can not stand as a MP?
What a great system you'd end up with.
No it isn't. What DO you do Guy? I can't imagine any job needing a pompous mono-maniac that posts on the internet for 23 hours a day. The thought of you having any power whatsoever is a scary thought so 27K it is then.
(Yes, another vote for the excellent job Alex does, can't wait for a few contributors getting to the end of their 'contract' though (o;)
Sadly for you and happily for me that's whats about to happen.
Personally the thought of having anyone so tiny minded and envious in power as you is a scary thought, so GE defeat for Labour it is then.
tory 'look at my potty, aren't I clever' troll has the same problem.
*That* is why socialist command economies fail... They rely on a ruling elite 'knowing' what is needed... but that ruling elite will never get it.
So *you* can't imagine... so what? that is probably your loss - if someone can generate wealth in ways you can't even understand, and then contribute to the tax system what is your problem?? it is money you can't even imagine being created, and you are getting a cut for free...
I would have more respect for socialists if they were logical - but they aren't - they deny everything until they have worked out how to enslave it to their cause.
Politics isn't about an easy life and with all due respect, you know that only too well Guy. Your views are ridiculed, pulled apart and spat on here on the LL, sometimes by me, but you stand firm and although I may not view you as an ideal dinner guest, I respect that you continue to return and air your views. You don't get compensation for airing your views here, but no matter what anyone throws at you, you return to air those views again and again.
I personally believe that politics should be just that. Not about the money or the gain, but about believing in the issues to such a degree that you will sacrafice things to be able to do that.
I suspect you'll disagree with me Guy, but when you look at it logically it does make a little sense.