Labour
Labour has abandoned its environmental commitments. Is it any surprise that UK big business is following its lead?
As the Guardian notes this morning:
Unilever is to scale back its environmental and social aims, provoking critics to say its board should “hang their heads in shame”.
They added:
On Friday, the London-based firm’s current chief executive appeared to signal a strategic U-turn for the company, which is valued at £94bn on the London Stock Exchange. In an interview with Bloomberg, Hein Schumacher confirmed plans to water down the company’s ethical pledges on a range of issues including plastic usage and pay.
There really can be no surprise here. Labour is expected to win the first term of what many will think likely to be at least a two term government this year. They have abandoned their green commitments and budgets. Why wouldn’t business do the same?
Rachel Reeves should take note. Her decisions and smooching around the City have consequences. It is by no means clear that they are good.
I’d rather be French…
This vox pop is an indictment of 14 painful years of Conservative government: So that youth can get some of its future back let us hope that Labour will feel confident enough to properly embrace what looks like the incipient reinstigation of free movement for the young – led by the European Commission! That would... Read more
Scotonomics on the Taxing Wealth Report
I was on Scotonomics last night, discussing the Taxing Wealth Report, and right at the end its relevance for Scotland.
For reasons I can’t explain the YouTube link will not embed here, but you can watch the video by clicking here.
The state has become a killing machine…
…Which is how this twelve minutes of fighting talk from Lord Prem Sikka concludes: This is all excellent stuff in my view – and although he mentions Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) in passing, he doesn’t use it in his arguments preferring just to point out all the unused tax possibilities that there are. Now I’m... Read more
There is no indication that the Labour Party has any predisposition to be radical
Andrew Rawnsley suggested in The Observer yesterday that Labour could be a radical government despite the fact that it has no money to spend.
His suggestion was that in the last Labour government policies on the minimum wage and civil partnerships were radical but nearly costless, at least to the government. He also highlighted previous administrations and their measures to reform abortion and equalities laws. None of this can be disputed. But, his assumptions really do not stack.
The parliaments of 1967 and 1974 were radical because that was Labour’s inclination at the time. We knew that these that these things were desired. That’s why most happened early in parliaments. We have heard nothing like that this time.
And important as these things undoubtedly are, they took place in most case against backgrounds where essential services were being supplied. In other words, these things could be done precisely because there was an atmosphere where this was possible because very basic things, like preventing people dying because of a lack of healthcare, were not an issue.
Rawnsley ignored that. It was a big oversight.
So too was his assumption that there is no money available a big one to make. In fact, it’s just not true. I have shown that in the Taxing Wealth Report. The lack of money is not necessary. It is by choice. And however it is looked at, it is not a radical choice.
So, Rawnsley is wrong for two reasons, although the roots of both are similar. The reality is that being radical requires a predisposition to be so, whether on social policy or spending, with the latter being intimately related to the former by the ability of tax to redistribute income and wealth. There is no indication that the current Labour Party has any predisposition to be radical, at all. In that case, to presume it might be is an act of faith stretching credibility beyond tolerable limits.
Why doesn’t Labour want to be in government forever?
I just posted this short video on YouTube, TikTok and elsewhere:
And, yes, the video does include a mistake. I say first past the post increases constituency size when, of course, it is PR that dues that.
Poor, petrified, non-doms are terrified that they might have to pay some tax
The Guardian is reporting this morning that:
“People are jumping on planes right now and leaving,” said Nimesh Shah, the chief executive of Blick Rothenberg, an accountancy firm that specialises in advising very rich “non-doms” on their tax affairs. “I am not being dramatic, they are leaving right now.”
Shah said his clients – some of the richest people in the country – were “petrified” of plans to abolish the “non-domicile” regime, through which for the past 225 years wealthy people have been able to live in the UK and not pay tax on their overseas income.
You can sense the hyper-ventilation from which Shah must be suffering oozing through every pore of this comment, largely because he senses his business model is disappearing in front of his eyes.
And what is it that his terrified clients are so frightened of? It is the risk that they might have to pay a fair contribution in tax to the country in which they wish to live and which they want to host their activities whether they are socially desirable, or otherwise.
There are three things to note. The first is that advisers like Shah are always inclined to overstatement, usually to protect their own self-interest.
Second, that said, I am sure he is right. Some of the thoroughly anti-social people he represents will leave the UK. Shah has every reason to worry about the future profitability of his firm if he is dependent upon them.
Third, he is drastically overstating his case. Some people will leave. A very few will do so straight away. But the vast majority will have good reason for staying. Methinks the man doth protest far too much.
And as for those poor, petrified clients? Maybe they should try living with the fear that you have no idea where the next meal might come from whilst being harassed for repayment of innocently overpaid carer’s allowance that you have no chance of ever refunding. Then you might find out what fear really feels like. As it is, I don’t give a damn about their fear that they might just have to pay some tax, because is exactly what they should be doing.
Modern Political Parties are Cartels
This is excellent from journalist and self-styled ‘Moet Marxist’, Grace Blakeley: Have to say that I much agree. The Labour Party is, I fear, since Corbyn, certainly not democratic and when you look at the people that Labour are ‘consulting’ on their policies, it really does look as though they are asking the people with... Read more
Is Labour ready for government?
I posted this on TikTok and YouTube today. We are now co-ordinating the release of both (and will get to Instagram in due course) and so I will be posting the YouTube versions here in future: