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It's all too easy to dismiss Miliband's attack on energy prices. It fundamentally blasts Thatcherism.



 

Virtually all attacks on Ed Miliband regarding energy prices begin with the statement ‘Ed Miliband is right but…” That the Conservatives might be wrong on their basic economics is politically very worrying. And yet Ed Miliband has not sought to frame the article like a convoluted Oxbridge economics tutorial. Long gone are the days of Gordon Brown using logical inferences to explain why financial recapitalisation was needed to avert an even bigger global financial crisis. Nobody seemed to care. What did George Osborne wish to do exactly about Northern Rock. He didn’t say, and it didn’t seem to matter. Labour, the allegation, spent too much, and yet staggeringly George Osborne wanted to spend as much more. When asked to identify what it was about Labour’s economic policy which was so fundamentally awry, Tory voters invariably are able to articulate the answer. When further pressed on how the Conservative Party opposed this fundamentally awry policy, there’s a clear blank.

Ed Miliband and his team can explain how the market has failed, perhaps going into minutiae about how competitors end up colluding, except nobody can prove this. They therefore rig the prices, it is alleged, so that they can return massive shareholder profit, while the prices endlessly go up. The Tories will counter this with the usual reply that the profits are not that bad, and it was Miliband’s fault for introducing his ‘green taxes’. Anyone who knows their economics at basic undergraduate level will know the problem with this. It’s all to do with the definition of ‘sustainability’. Sustainability does not simply mean ‘maintained’, although you’d be forgiven for thinking so, on the basis of the mouths of PPE graduates from Oxford. It’s all about how a company can function across a time span of very many years, acting responsibly in the context of its environment.

It’s instead been framed as ‘the cost of living crisis’. The problem with the national deficit, while a useful tool in giving people something to blame Labour for supposedly, is that when somebody goes out shopping in a local supermarket he does not tend to think of the national deficit. Likewise, much as I disagree with the ‘Tony Blair Dictum’ that ‘it doesn’t matter who provides your NHS services so long as they are free at the point of need’, voters will tend not to care about NHS privatisation unless they have a true ideological objection to it. NHS privatisation as such makes little impact on the ‘cost of living’.

Energy prices are an altogether different bag. It is perhaps arguable that the State should not interfere in private markets, but surely this acts both ways? Should the banking industry, and more specifically bankers, be ‘grateful’ that they received a £860 billion bailout from the State as a massive State benefit to keep their industry alive? Or did they not want this money at all? Even you brush aside the need of the State to interfere legitimately with prices, it is commonplace for the State through the law to interfere with unlawful activities to do with competition. The prices are the end-product of an economic process of faulty competition, poorly regulated.

And there’s the rub. Ed Miliband’s ‘attack on energy prices’ is not just a policy. It is actually a political philosophy. It is more tangible than responsible capitalism or predistribution, although one may argue that it bridges both. The attack on energy prices, on behalf of the consumer whether hard-working or not, is indeed a political philosophy. Margaret Thatcher may have gone to bed with a copy of ‘The Road to Serfdom’ by FA Hayek under her pillow, and all credit to her for fundamentally believing, most sincerely, that the markets could be ‘liberalising’. With this attack on energy prices, Miliband effectively in one foul swoop demolishes the argument that markets are liberalising. In Thatcherite Britain, consumers are suffocated by the business plans of big business. Miliband’s discourse is not a full frontal attack on any business; it specifically targets abusive behaviour of corporates. And the energy prices are symbolic of much of what has proven to be faulty many times before. Andrew Rawnsley concluded his article at the weekend, advancing the theme that the current Conservative-led government is a bad tribute band to Thatcherism, by saying simply that we know what happens next. It’s not just gas; it’s everything which has been privatised, including water, telecoms, and so it goes on. Authors in the right-wing broadsheets can go on until the cows come home evangelising how privatisation is a ‘popular’ concept, but the criticism of the abuse of privatisation is far more popular.

And Ed Miliband doesn’t want to issue ‘more of the same’ as before. John Rentoul is so exasperated he is now left to write articles on how being called ‘Blairite’ is not actually a term of abuse. But these are yesterday’s battles. The battle over energy prices is a massive explosion in the world that the market knows best. Its shock waves are to be felt in how Labour conducts itself in other policy domains, putting people primacy ahead of shareholder primacy. And there’s a plenty of evidence that this is the Most Corporatist Government yet – ranging from the reaction to Leveson to how to allow ‘market entry’ in the newly privatised NHS. The public were never offered an antidote to the Thatcherite poison from Tony Blair, and, even after 13 years of Blair and Brown, many Labour members had been left mystified as to what happens next.

The beginning of that answer definitely seems to be end of Thatcherism. The answer seems to involve a new post-Thatcherite ‘settlement’ about politics, society and economics. Whilst distinctly populist in feel, it fundamentally blasts Thatcherism to the core, and is highly deceptive. Whilst easily dismissed, it intellectually is a lethal weapon.

It makes me angry that George Osborne may be basically lying



This is verbatim the ‘Politics.co.uk’ website, quoting George Osborne:

George Osborne, chancellor, comments on the Moody credit rating agency report:

“It was a reality check for the whole political system that Britain has to deal with its debts, that we can’t waver in the path of dealing with our debts

“This is yet another organisation – in this case a credit ratings agency – warning Britain that if we spend or borrow too much we’re going to lose our credit rating.

“The idea that I’ve abandoned growth is nonsense. Of course I want growth. Of course I want to see unemployment fall. That’s what I spend every day of my life trying to bring about.

“But the truth is this. If you don’t have confidence in a country’s ability to pay its debts — as you have seen with plenty of other European countries — then you get negative growth, rising unemployment and no prospect of recovery.”

 

This is what actually happened if this article is correct (click here). However, it concerns me that the maths of this article is clearly wrong, in that the deficit certainly got worse, but didn’t go anywhere near being doubled.

“Britain’s budget deficit almost doubled in February as taxes fell and spending surged, leaving Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne little room to meet his full-year goal as he prepares to announce the annual budget.

Net borrowing excluding support for banks was 15.2 billion pounds ($24.1 billion), the highest for any February on record, compared with 8.9 billion pounds a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics said in London today. The median of 17 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey was for a shortfall of 8 billion pounds.

Osborne has rejected calls to relax his program of cuts, saying warnings from Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service that Britain could lose its top credit rating reinforce the need to stick to his plan to erase the structural deficit by 2017.”

 

And while I am typing this Cameron is lecturing Europe on trade. And the news there is not good if this article is correct (click here).

UK’s trade deficit in April 2012 was £4.4 billion compared to £3 billion in March due to a slump in both good and services exports.  Cars and chemicals were the industries most affected that led to 8.6% fall in overall exports.

The drop in exports to other European countries dropped by 6.8% in April.  The deficit in trade in goods came at £10.1 billion in April compared to £8.6 billion in March.

At the same time, the services surplus was £5.7bn in April, slightly lower than March’s £5.8bn. A 13% drop in construction output in April due to fall in government projects compounded the bleak economic news.  Analysts are now worried about a third consecutive quarterly contraction in the UK economy.

“With the trade deficit widening in April and construction output again disappointing, the chances of the economy avoiding further contraction in the second quarter are dwindling.” Howard Archer, chief European and UK economist at IHS Global Insight said.  Analysts are especially worried about the drop in exports to countries such as United States, Russia and China as they were unexpected. “

 

No wonder people are gradually not trusting the Conservatives on the economy. People aren’t stupid, I find, if these articles are correct.

The Tories are about to have their economic credibility blown to smithereens



Whilst there is outrage amongst many voters at the privatisation of the NHS, it is still unclear whether this is a ‘deal-breaker’. Labour has done well to make the arguments, not helped by the BBC which has been attacked in the social media for its lack of balance by many tweeps. It would be interesting for the BBC to be transparent about the number of complaints which they have received on this matter.

The Conservatives’ reputation as a party of economic credibility is about to blown to smithereens. Projects such as ‘Building Schools for the Future’ were scrapped, and the slow-down in the construction sector at the end of 2010 was toxic to the UK economy. Together with the increase in VAT which saw a temporary influx of tax receipts, consumer demand slumped. It is now widely expected that the UK will soon be announced to be in recession, once the ONS  figures are released officially. With exports falling, and the construction sector reporting figures unparalleled since 1963, the Conservatives economic policy, if predictions are correct, will be in tatters.

The rhetoric over Labour’s purported mismanagement of the economy is well known, with false allegations that the UK was about to become bankrupt. Whether these allegations were actually fraudulent requires one to know the mind of George Osborne. Add to this the billions which have spent on the NHS reforms so far, and a lack of clarity as to whether there was a competitive bidding process for the management contracts, as described on Dr Eoin Clarke’s blog “The Green Benches”, there is plenty of scope for Labour to go for the jugular.

In law, you have to show there was a duty-of-care, then there was a breach which caused an event. Here, Labour has to show that the Conservatives were trusted with the economy (nobody cares what the Liberal Democrats believed any more), the Conservatives breached this duty-of-care, which caused the economy to contract for the first time since the General Election. That’s in tort of course. Or else the Conservatives had a contract with the voters over the economy, and in an ideal world the voters now would sue them for the breach of contract.

From Ian Robathan : George Osborne and the last resort of desperate governments



“Printing money is the last resort of desperate governments when all other policies have failed. It can’t be ruled out as a last resort in the fight against deflation, but in the end printing money risks losing control of inflation and all the economic problems that high inflation brings.”

George Osborne

Remember these words in a few hours’ time..

As Ian Robathan who unearthed this little treasure in his journal ‘Labour News’, words do have a habit of coming back to haunt you!

Ed Miliband's speech to the Scottish Labour Party



Can I begin by thanking you for the support and unity you have shown since I became leader.

As we approach Remembrance Sunday let me start by paying tribute to all our troops serving in Afghanistan including those from Scotland.

We owe them and thier families an enormous debt of gratitude for their bravery and commitment.

Let me say how good it is to be working alongside Iain Gray.

Iain has led this party in Scotland with a sense of values and purpose.

He has helped rebuild Labour in Scotland and helped the party regain the trust of the public.

I look forward to working with him and you to make sure he is the next First Minister of Scotland.

And I want to thank yo u all for the tremendous result you achieved in Scotland at the General Election.

Let us pay tribute to the great Scottish wins of 2010.

We won seats where the media had written us off.

Like Edinburgh South – and let us pay tribute to Ian Murray MP for his victory.

We won seats back from the SNP and Liberal Democrats.

Glasgow East – and let us applaud the absolute determination and relentless campaigning of Margaret Curran MP.

And Dunfermline and West Fife – let us congratulate Thomas Docherty MP for taking that seat back.

We increased our majority in once marginal seats.

Like East Renfrewshire which has gone from being the safest Tory seat in Scotland to a seat where Labour wins half the vote because of our brilliant former Scottish Secretary, now the Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy.

And let me also say that I will be supporting the Scottish election campaign with Jim’s excellent successor – a woman with grit and determination, Ann McKechin.

In fact, we have a record number of women in the Shadow Cabinet.

And I can tell this Conference I won’t rest until we have true gender equality in our party.

And let me pay tribute to the best fighter for gender equality and equality in every sense that our party has – our fantastic deputy leader Harriet Harman.

Let me also thank our formidable Scottish General Secretary, Colin Smyth and his team for the work they do and the dedication they show.

And I want to acknowledge the excellent work of our councillors all across this country.

We must make sure that as well as winning the Scottish elections in 2011, we also win back control of councils across Scotland in 2012.

Coming back to Scotland reminds me of the many occasions I have come here with the person I worked with for a number of years – Gordon Brown.

He taught me many things about Scotland and about politics.

It was my privil ege to work with him to help win those first Scottish Parliament elections.

He has an incredible legacy: he improved the lives of millions of people here and around the world.

I am proud to call him my friend. We should pay tribute today to Gordon Brown for his leadership of our party and our country.

I remember visiting Gordon at his home in Fife and looking over the River Forth where my father served in the Royal Navy during the war.

Along with my mum, he came as a refugee from the Nazis and built a life here.

It was his values – it is my mum’s values – that explain why I am standing on this stage today.

They taught me some basic principles: most of all, a sense of optimism that politics, that people can change our society and be a force for good.

Fundamentally this is an optimism about people acting together, and their ability to change the society in which we live.

The belief that injustice, unfairness, inequality are not immovable facts.

Our world can be what we make of it not simply what we inherit.

That is what I was taught as I grew up.

That is my family’s experience; that is their story.

That too is our story as a labour movement.

It is a story that echoes down the ages.

Keir Hardie believed that getting representation for workers in Parliament could make a difference to the lives of working people.

And it did.

Clement Attlee in the economic ruins of the Second World War had the optimism to believe that we could build a National Health Service.

And he did.

And this month, we mark the 10th anniversary of the death of someone who fought long and hard for a Scottish Parliament, for a voice for the people of Scotland within the United Kingdom, and had the vision to believe it was possible.

And it was.

The man to whom the Scottish Parliament is a living memorial – Donald Dewar.

What ties together all of these struggles is a belief in human progress: that the forces of optimism can defeat the forces of pessimism that would say things cannot change.

What is the nature of this optimism?

It is about acting together so that we can change the world.

But it is about more than that.

It is about a view of human nature which says that we do care about ourselves and our families, but we also recognise that the interests of each of us is served by the flourishing of all of us.

And that politics at its best can unlock new possibilities for our world.

And what about those forces of pessimism?

They tell us that a belief that our world can change is a flight of fancy: unfairness, inequality are facts of life.

That people are best left on their own, and that government is normally the problem not the solution.

And the best thing politics can do, they say is get out of the way.

I’m afraid that is today’s Conservative Pa rty. That is David Cameron.

The fundamental difference between the optimists and the pessimists is that they believe that the greatness of a country lies merely in individual acts.

Whereas we understand that greatness lies in what we achieve as individuals and what we achieve together.

Each generation is called to this fight.

And so as we think about how we rebuild as a party after what was a bad general election defeat, let us be true to who we are.

What is the character of the party I intend to lead?

Let it be true to our values of fairness, prosperity, aspiration and justice – the values that brought me into this party – and you.

As Donald Dewar said of John Smith: “He knew politics was the art of the possible, but on the great principles he would not give ground.”

Let us understand the reasons we lost power across the United Kingdom and show humility: because we lost touch and because people lost a sense of what we st ood for and whose side we were on.

Let us always remember that we had great leaders who held power but too many great leaders who never did: there is no role for this party as one of protest; we must be a party of government again.

Let us ensure that the new generation embraces and responds to the new issues that people face in their lives: from aging to immigration to climate change.

And let us be a movement not a fan club: debating issues, reaching out to the community beyond our own party, linked to the trade unions and all of civil society and above all, a party that people want to join because of our ideals.

In this way, let us fight for optimism in our time.

This task starts with our economy and the financial crisis and the lessons we draw from it.

The pessimists want to tell you that the problem of the financial crisis was government.

That somehow a crisis that began with financial markets out of control should be seen as a cris is of government’s making.

That is why they have spent the last five months telling you that all the problems we now face are Labour’s fault.

Conference, we must stand up for the truth.

We know the story and we must tell it like it is.

There was a global financial crisis affecting every country and every country is having to cope with the consequences.

Remember, our government paid down the debt before the crisis hit.

At the same time we were investing in the schools, the hospitals, the infrastructure which had suffered chronic under-investment under the previous Conservative government.

I remember it – I went to school in the 1980s.

Conference, we didn’t just fix the roof, we built the schools.

And we didn’t just cut the waiting lists, we built the hospitals.

And we didn’t just do it when the sun was shining either, we did it all year round.

My partner is due to have our second child… any mi nute now actually.

She will do so in a brand new NHS hospital.

It was us, the optimists, that won the argument for the investment in that hospital and made it possible.

Conference, we should all be proud of this record and we should stand up for it – because it made Britain stronger and fairer.

But why did the deficit go up so much?

Not because of this investment.

But because we lost 6% of our economy due to the global financial crisis.

Because Alistair and Gordon used the power of government to stop recession becoming depression and stopped people losing their jobs, homes and savings.

That’s why the deficit rose and we should fight back against the Tory deceit.

The pessimists are trying to rewrite history.

Why? Because they don’t believe in the role of government.

They’re hoping that if they win the argument about the past, they can win the argument about the future.

What is our responsibili ty as the optimists?

To learn the right lessons of history.

That markets unchecked and unfettered in finance can spiral out of control and must instead be regulated.

That we can’t have an economy based on one type of industry. We need to lead in all of the industries of tomorrow – from bio-tech to creative industries to green manufacturing.

And we must learn the lesson that a more unequal economy is a more unstable economy.

If we don’t properly reward lower and middle-income families, they will rely on ever-increasing personal debt.

And if those at the top feel there are one-way bets worth millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of pounds, they will gamble without responsibility.

We should never let that happen again and have ordinary families paying the price.

The flaw in their plan is this, if we reduce our economic policy simply to deficit reduction, we will not build the strong economy of the future.

Of course we need to reduce the deficit.

Everybody in this room agrees about that and we would have halved it over four years if we had been in government.

We would have made some tough decisions and no doubt some unpopular ones too.

But I have to tell you this: I believe they’ve got it wrong in the pace and scale of deficit reduction.

They’ve got it wrong because they have no plan for jobs and growth.

And they have no plan for fairness either.

Their cuts will mean half a million jobs lost in the public sector over the coming years.

A similar number in the private sector.

One million jobs lost—that’s their plan.

And how will they replace them? By hoping that things turn out OK and that the private sector fills the gap.

The Tories say we want recession or indeed that we are predicting it.

We’re not and it’s nonsense for them to pretend we are.

But there’s no plan to make growth happen and n o plan if things go wrong.

And what do they offer those people who have lost their jobs?

They say wait and see, fingers crossed.

We remember Conference the effects of unemployment which scarred communities for generations here in Scotland and all over the UK.

We have a fundamentally different view about what our economy can achieve for people and how to make it so.

We need to reform our financial system.

We need to invest in the industries of the future. We need to use the power of govt procurement to promote British businesses and we need to provide people with the skills they need.

And we say unemployment is never a price worth paying.

We say never again.

And we have a different view about society as well.

The Tories used to say that there’s no such thing as society

Now they claim they’ve wised up… now they offer something you may have heard of… the big society.

They praise the special cons table, the parent/teacher council, the tenants association, the local charity.

They say they want more of it.

But Conference, what does it really amount to?

They think if government gets out of the way, the big society will miraculously spring up.

They fail to learn the lessons of history.

Today we have more voluntary organisations than ever before in Britain; more people working in the sector than ever before; and the sector’s income is double what it was when we came to office.

Not because government got out of the way but because it supported and encouraged this important part of civil society.

I saw as minister for charities the amazing work that is being done by the voluntary sector but it was based on a vital partnership between the state and citizens.

And what happens now when budgets are being so savagely cut?

When the local day centre closes, it destroys the services on which elderly people depend.

When the local library reduces its hours, it destroys the place at which people come together.

And when people are worried sick about losing the roof over their head and moving their children to another school, how they can be active in the parent/teacher council?

And do you know what has been revealed about this government since the Spending review last week:

It’s not just economically wrong,

It’s not just unfair,

It is grossly incompetent.

And we all know it is families and children who will pay the price.

They announced a child benefit policy which is unfair and now apparently unworkable.

It’s a complete shambles.

Next came a Housing Benefit policy that their own Mayor of London detests.

Why is it fair for someone who has been doing the right thing… who’s been looking for work for a year… to lose 10% of the help with their rent?

Don’t they get it? If you drive up homelessness, families end up in bed and breakfasts, and that costs more.

Why are they showing this incompetence?

Because of ideology – they came into politics to make these cuts;

Because they’re out of touch – they don’t understand the lives and experiences of ordinary people;

And because they’ve made bad decisions in haste and stubbornly refuse to change.

A week from Tuesday we will force a vote in the House of Commons on Housing Benefit.

Our appeal is to all MPs of conscience:

Join us, vote against these unfair and unworkable changes and force the government to think again.

And there will be no better person to lead our attack than my friend of nearly 20 years, someone who really did come into politics to help the poorest in society, our Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Douglas Alexander.

The big society is one big figleaf for an old pessimistic idea: that people do better on their own.

The optimists have a different view of socie ty and the state.

We know – and this is a hard lesson – that government can be overbearing. We know the importance, particularly in the years ahead, of getting more for the money the state spends.

But we also know that the right and the best kind of government can support people to take control of their own lives.

When I visited the Wellhouse project in Easterhouse with Margaret Curran, I saw the difference that it was making to people: improving the health of young and old people, helping tenants have a real say in housing decisions and a fantastic community centre.

We understand that the good children’s centre enables families to go out to work and form bonds with others.

Good neighbourhood policing provides the reassurance and the security that is the foundation for communities to thrive.

And many of the best voluntary organisations have a mix of paid staff and volunteers.

Ours is a view about the good society where we support each other.

Let me tell you also what we understand: the good society depends on the fair economy.

If you are holding down two jobs, working fourteen hour days, worrying about childcare, anxious about elderly relatives, how can you find the time for anything else?

That’s why we need an economy which lifts people out of poverty and supports not just a minimum wage but a decent living wage.

Until we address the conditions that mean that people’s lives are dominated by long hours, then the big society will always remain a fiction.

And I tell you this also: we know the divided society cannot be the good society.

We know that from the 1980s: the last big experiment in the retreat of government.

We know that every major city across the country lost out: economically weakened, socially divided and here in Scotland it took almost twenty years to fully recover.

Two decades on, we know that economic regeneration and social improvem ent have happened together.

And we know the dangers of going backwards.

Mr Cameron by your deeds not your words shall we know you.

There’s no point in saying you believe in the big society, if by your actions you undermine and weaken the very fabric of our communities.

But let us be the party who always stand for giving our citizens greater control over their own lives

And what greater example is there of us giving people more control than devolution.

The Scottish Parliament is one of our proudest achievements.

When Scottish Labour led the government, it pioneered historic firsts:

Free bus travel for the elderly;

Land reform;

The smoking ban.

And again at these elections ahead of us in May, as Iain will set out tomorrow, it will be Scottish Labour leading the way.

Let me say something about Iain’s leadership.

He learnt the lessons of why we lost power in Scotland.

He’s shown h ow to reconnect with people’s lives and hopes.

He has shown that values must drive everything we do.

That is why his campaigns on school standards, safer streets and apprenticeships speak to who we are and who we represent.

And what is the alternative?

If there is one lesson that the economic crisis teaches us, it is that we are stronger together and weaker apart.

The collective resources of Britain, the tens of billions of pounds that we invested to protect people’s savings and homes was only possible because we are one United Kingdom.

Where would each of us have been on our own? Scotland, Wales, England, Northern Ireland.

Let’s face it: across the world, the debate has changed since the financial crisis.

And who is left behind? The Scottish National Party.

As problems become more global, the solutions need to be global too.

As the climate change secretary, I saw the impact that Britain could have when we worked together.

We may be 2% of global emissions but we punch above our weight.

Does anyone really think any one of us would have more influence on the climate change debate if we went our separate ways?

Narrow nationalism has nothing to offer the challenges of the 21st century.

While we’re fighting for jobs and hope, they are fighting to break up Britain.

They claim that an independence referendum is a referendum on jobs.

Let us make next May’s election a referendum on the job they have done for the people of Scotland.

Never has a party promised so much and delivered so little…

Like their broken promises on class sizes, student debt and support for first time buyers.

They have let down the people of Scotland. And Scotland deserves better.

And what about the Lib Dems?

What did they used to say?

The progressive alternative to Labour.

It has taken Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander just five short months to undermine 150 years of the Liberal tradition.

Remember what they said: Vote for us to keep the Tories out.

Have they no shame?

Now they have become the cheerleaders for the worst things the Tory government does.

The VAT rise? Send out a Lib Dem.

Child benefit cut? Put up a Lib Dem.

Housing benefit slashed? Get me a Lib Dem.

No wonder Nick Clegg is choosing his desert island discs.

And let’s make sure that coming soon to an election near you is a new hit series:

I’m a Liberal Democrat, get me out of here.

And as they face the prospect of electoral meltdown, what do they do?

They try to rig our electoral boundaries.

Get this, the government that claims to care about localism is now saying local identity doesn’t matter when it comes to boundaries – unless you happen to be Charles Kennedy whose constituency gets a special opt-out.

We all care about endangered species in the Highlands and Islands, but we draw the line at Lib Dems.

Talking about endangered species, what about the Scottish Tories. What about them?

So we are the optimists, we are the only credible alternative to the pessimists who would damage our economy and divide our society.

But this election won’t be won simply by Iain, myself and other MP and MSP colleagues.

Everything we know from our history tells us that it is people that change the world.

This will be a doorstep election, won or lost by us.

It is the hard graft, the dedication, the hours we put in that will decide this election.

It is our chance to show we are back on people’s side – optimists with the right values to change our country.

This election is critical to the people of Scotland.

Four more years of broken SNP promises or a new start under Iain Gray.

And it is a vital moment in Labour’s rebuilding across the United Kingdom.

Britain cannot afford this to be anything other than a one-term coalition.

So let the message go out.

We are ready to take our case to the people of Scotland.

We are ready to take on the pessimists.

There is an alternative.

Based on our values – an optimistic future for Scotland.

Labour’s fight back has begun.

We are ready for the fight.

Let’s fight for the people we came into politics to serve

Let’s stand up for Scotland.

Let’s fight to win.

Thank you.

The BBC represents a sickening waste of public money



If the BBC represents ‘good value for money’ in this age of austerity, then frankly I am a gorilla. The way the BBC wastes its money, and its general corporate arrogance and demeanour, makes me physically sick. They have also caused me and my family no end of mental torture.

A recent report in the Telegraph makes very grim reading for those of us who believe that the BBC has extremely poor standards in editorial competence, in accuracy, impartiality and balance.

To add insult to injury, the BBC last year spent £31,500 on taxis, £21,000 on hospitality and £45,500 on flights.

Helen Boaden, Director of BBC News, claimed £240 for a “leaving party” which 12 people attended, but the name of the departing staff member was blacked out.

Bob Shennan, the Controller of Radio 2 and 6 Music, spent £217 on “wine purchased for the team” on February 16th, the night of the Brit Awards.

Ken MacQuarrie, Director of BBC Scotland, claimed £165 for a new aeroplane ticket having “missed previous flight”.

Mark Thompson, the corporation’s Director-General, claimed £4,449 for flights to the Sun Valley conference in Idaho, and a further £4,429 for a trip to Boston but a note claims that “this flight was not used and a refund should appear”. He also claimed £177 for a second passport.

Erik Huggers, Director of Future Media & Technology, claimed £1,242 to travel from Tel Aviv to Paris in April, claiming it was the “last seat” on the “only available flight” because of “ash cloud travel disruption”.

Alan Yentob, the BBC’s Creative Director, claimed £123.50 for a train from London Paddington to Castle Cary on the opening day of the nearby Glastonbury festival. He also spent £822 on a flight from Heathrow to Nice in the South of France, when the same journey can be booked currently for £136.

Danny Cohen, the Controller of BBC Three who is to become the Controller of BBC1, spent £1,657 on an eight-night stay in a Los Angeles hotel.

This is your money they’re playing with. And they’re the ones pedalling the cuts are necessary, not letting you know of Labour’s alternative. How sickened do I feel? Very…

Dr Shibley Rahman is a research physician and research lawyer by training.

Queen’s Scholar, BA (1st.), MA, MB, BChir, PhD, MRCP(UK), LLB(Hons.), FRSA
Director of Law and Medicine Limited
Member of the Fabian Society and Associate of the Institute of Directors

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Mind the Tax Gap! by Kerry Fairless



Many thanks to Kerry Fairless who is the guest writer of this blog post.

Those of you who have the pleasure of one my rants will be aware of the Missing Billions. Those that haven’t read on.

The main revenue collecting method used by Government is via the taxation system. It’s a complex system based on earnings and relief. Many people (you and I) pay our tax through Pay As You Earn (PAYE). This is deducted from source by the employer who then pays HMRC what is due. For people like you and I, we pay our dues. We have no choice in the matter.

For others there are other systems such as Self Assessment (SA) where the individual is responsible for payment of tax directly to HMRC; this usually involves the use of an accountant. Of course for this group of people there is a choice about to declare, how to argue reliefs and business usage. Some make mistakes, some intentionally defraud.

Businesses of course pay different types of tax, the most obvious being Value Added Tax (VAT). Much like SA, accountants are usually required and there is a plethora of complicated legislation to follow. Again, this system involves mistakes, error and intentional avoidance.

You would think that HMRC would like everyone to be paying the right amount of tax, on time. For those that can’t pay there is a Debt Management process whereby members of DMB attempt to collect backdated, unpaid taxes and over payments of Tax Credits.

Of course, thanks to the slashing of 25000 jobs there aren’t as many of us as there used to be. And thanks to reduced budgets our computer systems aren’t as robust as they should be. This recently has resulted in mayhem of the over and under payment of PAYE where the computer system combined with the lack of staff has lead to a massive amount of errors and individuals being left with hefty bills to pay. This was avoidable if the correct number of resources had been employed and a properly tested, flexible computer system had been employed. This was something PCS negotiators told the Department 3 years ago, but as usual they believed they knew best. Maybe they should be saying “sorry” to the millions effected for not listening to us. I wont, however, hold my breath.

The Tax Gap is made up of the amount of money HMRC collects through tax compared to the amount of money HMRC could collect through tax. Present estimates have this figure as between £42bn (HMRC’s figure – which does not include £28bn in written off and uncollected debt) and £123bn (PCS’s figure based on independent research by Richard Murphy). So, whatever way you look at it, we can guarantee there is a minimum of £70bn out there that should be going to pay for public services, reducing the deficit.

This money is made up by those who…….

a. avoid pay tax by illegal methods
b. evade paying tax by making errors
c. use tax havens such as the Turks and Caicos islands

These people and businesses do not fully contribute to the running of the country, yet continue to reap the benefits of living here and using services provided by those of us who do pay our fair share in tax.

As you will no doubt know, the Chancellor announced his Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). This will have a detrimental effect on everyone be it through services no longer being provided, reduced welfare, higher unemployment, poorer education and poorer health as billions of pounds will be cut from budgets.

There is an alternative, collect those Missing Billions.

Now for the mathematics part….

The below table is based on the PCS figure and the HMRC figure, the population estimates are taken from wikipedia. The Compliance Officer figure is taken from a Parliamentary Question tabled a couple of years that identified that everyone in Compliance makes £658k a year clear profit (ie, salaries and overheads are already taken off).

If you divide the tax gap figure by the population, you will see how much each person in the country would need to pay to clear the tax gap. By PCS estimates its £1983 and by HMRC figures it is £677. If you then multiply those figures by the population of the town (and of course this is just Southend, it doesn’t include places such as Benfleet, Rayleigh etc) you will identify how much the tax gap is locally. Take that figure and divide it by the $658k a Compliance Officer can collect and you will identify how many additional people it would take to collect that money. This of course does not include any of the processing staff or contact centre staff who would need to be employed in the back office to ensure payments are processed and queries dealt with.

So, at a time where we are facing a 15% cut in staff, we should in fact being looking at an increase of somewhere between 169 and 495 in Southend and as many as 186930 nationwide.

PCS Tax Gap Figure £123billion R&C Tax Gap Figure £42billion
population 62041708 population 62041708
per head £1983 per head £677
Southend 164300 Southend 164300
Tax Gap Southend £325.7m Tax Gap Southend £111.2m
compliance officer £658000 compliance officer £658000
additional jobs Southend 495 additional jobs Southend 169
additional jobs UK 186930 additional jobs UK 63830

Whilst the Government continue to cut jobs from HMRC, the Tax Gap will continue to grow. The entire basis of the CSR is to reduce the national deficit by cutting. The alternative is to properly invest in HMRC and collect the Missing Billions.

The Tax Justice Campaign has been running for several years now. Foreign media are very interested in it, some MPs are very interested in but the UK media does not want to publish this national scandal. Ask yourselves why. Look at who owns the national media, look where they bank, see how much tax they pay!

Write to your MP now and ask why the Missing Billions is not being collected.

Letter from Alan Johnson before the CSR



As I post this message from Alan Johnson MP, I am watching a really dreadful performance by David Cameron on the BBC in Prime Minister Questions.

Shibley,??

I wanted to say something to you today, before I deliver our response to the Coalition’s Comprehensive Spending Review. George Osborne will insist that there is no alternative to his huge and unnecessary cuts – that is simply not true. There is a better way and that’s where you can help.??

This is about saying, “No. There is an alternative”. ??I’m going to be honest with you, being in opposition does not mean that we can oppose every cut, or pretend to be in government. But it does mean setting out a clear alternative to what we regard as a reckless gamble with growth and jobs – a balanced approach that gets the deficit down without endangering the recovery.??You’re the expert on your local area, or how your family will be affected, so click here to tell us your better way ??Today’s reckless gamble with growth and jobs runs the risk of stifling the fragile recovery. Our alternative will be fair and will recognise these are central to our economic strategy – not a side issue. It will treat the public as intelligent enough to understand that bringing the world economy back from the brink of catastrophe is not the same as paying off a credit card bill.??

We all know that we must tackle the deficit, but we must protect growth, public services, and all of us caught in the middle enduring the most unfair of these cuts, too.??

Alan??

Dr Shibley Rahman is a research physician and research lawyer by training.

Queen’s Scholar, BA (1st.), MA, MB, BChir, PhD, MRCP(UK), LLB(Hons.), FRSA
Director of Law and Medicine Limited
Member of the Fabian Society and Associate of the Institute of Directors

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The Comprehensive Spending Review



I will be assessing the impact of the CSR this afternoon. Already, the party lines appear to have been drawn in the Twitter sand, with some interesting emotions emerging, ranging from the BBC to social housing.

Dr Shibley Rahman

Miliband Aid



@gideonsaysyah suggests that Miliband Aid could plug the deficit; a sensational pop concert to raise billions for the UK economy. Would this work?

Dr Shibley Rahman is a research physician and research lawyer by training.

Queen’s Scholar, BA (1st.), MA, MB, BChir, PhD, MRCP(UK), LLB(Hons.), FRSA
Director of Law and Medicine Limited
Member of the Fabian Society and Associate of the Institute of Directors

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