Martin Seale It is clear that the issue of taxation will be important in the coming general election. The Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, will present a tax cutting budget in March and the Conservative Party will present itself as the low tax party. It is worth therefore discussing the role of tax in the UK. When … Continue reading The Role of Taxation
Martin Seale Jeremy Hunt’s November Autumn Statement was a clever piece of work. It had two objectives. Firstly, to win the next general election. Secondly, if the Tory Party did not win the next general election, to guarantee that any Labour administration would fail. Hunt’s trump card in achieving this dual objective is the fiscal rule book. Hunt, … Continue reading Taxing Issues
Martin Seale The speech by the Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to the 2023 Labour conference shows that a Starmer government could rapidly become dysfunctional. In her speech to the 2023 Labour Party conference, Rachel Reeves stated “Today, I make this commitment to you, and to the country: Out of the wreckage of Tory misrule, Labour … Continue reading Labour’s Economic Model – Trust the Private Sector
Kwasi Kwarteng is clearly a believer in animal spirits, or more specifically, the animal spirits of the UK private sector. The term ‘animal spirits’ was used by the economist J. M. Keynes to describe the spontaneous forces of vitality that drive human action. Apparently these animal spirits have been held back by too much taxing and … Continue reading Animal Spirits, Taxing and Borrowing — Editorial
Winston Churchill and the 1909 Land Tax proposals Herbert Asquith became Prime Minister on 5 April 1908. In becoming Prime Minister at this time Asquith had not been elected but rather inherited the position in mid-term due to the ill-health of Campbell-Bannerman who in fact died just over two weeks later. On 30 April 1908, … Continue reading Churchill arguing for a land tax
Editorial 1 Early on in his dismal Financial Statement Rishi Sunak said: “At a time when the OBR has said that our fiscal headroom could be “wiped out by relatively small changes to the economic outlook,” it is right that the central fiscal judgement I am making today is to meet our fiscal rules with a … Continue reading Rishi Sunak’s Financial Statement
How to Pay for it - 150,000 new council dwelling per year at social rents. By Michal Lerner To win the next general election, Labour must give bold answers to the question ‘How will you pay for it?’. Let us therefore imagine an interview between an interviewer (I) and a member of the Shadow Cabinet (L) and suggest … Continue reading How to Pay For It — Q & A
By Michal Lerner To win the next general election, Labour must give bold answers to the question ‘How will you pay for it?’. Let us therefore imagine an interview between an interviewer (I) and a member of the Shadow Cabinet (L) and suggest how the dreaded question should be dealt with in the context of … Continue reading How to pay for it. The case of Universal Credit
The most important political battle in British politics is currently taking place in the Conservative party. There is, of course, also a political battle taking place in the Labour Party, but it is of a different kind. In the Labour Party, the party machine is being used to suppress the discussion of any radical ideas. In contrast, in … Continue reading Editorial 1 — Labour Must Exploit Tory Divisions
National Debt is an Irrelevant Statistic - Editorial The unifying framework of Sunak’s budget is that the size of the national debt is a critical concern. Hence, he has done the minimum possible to get the country through the next 6 months while sending a clear signal that there will be a return to austerity and increased unemployment … Continue reading National Debt is an Irrelevant Statistic – Editorial
Labour Affairs 