The link between taxation & government spending, or the lack of it in some minds

To balance the UK books and to keep the money markets happy government spending must be funded by taxation and borrowing. When the money markets think it’s not balanced we end up in a Trussenomics mess, indeed a catastrophic mess.

The latest Tory wheeze is to cut Inheritance Tax, a tax cut that only benefits a very small percentage of the taxpaying public. The vast majority of us will never encounter it and maybe as little as 5% of us will actually pay IT. Yet this proposed tax cut is sold by Tories and their tame right-wing press so as to give the impression that it will benefit the many when it will only benefit the few.

Some of those supporting the cut, but not benefiting from it at all, fall for this political stunt. It would be more honest of the supporters of this move to say ‘put up my personal taxes instead because I don’t think Inheritance tax is fair’. I’d have more respect for them if they did because they seem to be living in a world where you can have something for nothing and decent public services whilst cutting taxes for the most wealthy.

Wrong-footing Labour

Of course, the proposed cut is also meant to wrong-foot Labour who don’t like to be seen as opposing a tax cuts so are muted in response despite such cuts putting them a worse financial mess if and when they do get control of the public finances.

Politicians have always tried to give the impression that taxes can be cut without any effect on public services and that’s one very big reason why our public services are in such an appalling state. For me Blair started the modern tax cuts/no tax rises with no consequences rot but he did so when the economy was booming so tax revenues remained high as we were doing reasonably well. But the grey man Starmer is in one hell of a hole because our economy is doing badly presently so tax revenues are not buoyant and we are borrowing to support public services and potentially even more tax cuts for the few!

It’s likely that the Tories are running the economy into the buffers, as they know they’ll lose the next election, so want it to be in a poor state thereby putting Labour in an impossible position. That’s why, in turn, Labour is backing off the very few pledges they have previously made and look more Tory by the day.

Electoral Reform

The Tory thinking will be ‘we know we’re going to take a hammering but when Labour fails to turn things around we’ll be back in business as voters will blame Starmer, Reeves and Streeting etc. for not sorting things out or seriously addressing problems such as the NHS and Social Care crisis’.

Trouble is Labour do know what’s going on but their leadership steadfastly refuses to support the only reasonable solution to having another slash and burn Tory government in 5 or 10 years’ time, electoral reform.

Decent public services

We’ll only ever have decent public services if they are funded properly, the workers in vital public services such as the NHS and Social Care are paid wages consistent with retaining them and we all accept that if we want something for nothing the consequence will be poor public services. All sounds very logical until some of us listen to lying politicians telling us we can have something for nothing and enough of us are fooled again!

The BBC

Another analogy, which follows the something for nothing line, is the TV License fee. Many who oppose it also complain that the BBC’s output is poor. A friend of mine point blank refuses to pay the License Fee and has done for years but continually complains about how bad BBC programmes are. It’s as though he does not see, or want to see, that without his contribution and that of others like him it all adds up to less money hence the poorer output! Yes, by all means suggest other ways of funding the BBC but don’t complain its output is poor when it is underfunded; that’s just daft.*

No such thing as something for nothing

The bottom line is the something for nothing line is simply nonsense, yet look at the Scandinavian countries that generally seem to get it right. Yes, their taxes are high (and so are their wages) but in the main they have high quality public services.

 

* I do have issues with the BBC’s news and current affairs output which, like the rest of its output, is clearly affected by an ever diminishing budget. But my issues are about its use of political balance which at times is bizarre. It’s as though they allow one extremist air time to say whatever nonsense they like but then try to get another opposing extremist to say just the opposite! How is that good news and current affairs output?

 

 

My review of 2023

Like any year 2023 has had its ups and downs.

I lost a friend in Tony Fenton and lovely next door neighbour George but despite being sad at these losses I like to look at the good things too.

Sheila and I had 3 lovely holidays in Derbyshire, Northumberland and West Yorkshire and I had 3 days down in Nottinghamshire watching cricket at Trent Bridge, meeting some fellow railway/local history enthusiasts (David and Geoff) in the town of my birth – Kirkby-In-Ashfield - and visiting Meccano expert and collector Jim Gamble.

I finally hung up my hat as a local councillor after 38 consecutive years. 30 years on Maghull Town Council (1 as Town Mayor), 20 on Lydiate Parish Council and 16 on Sefton Borough Council (7 as Council Leader) and at 65 it seemed about the right time to stand down. I enjoyed the vast majority of my years as a local councillor but your time is never really your own if you are to do the job properly so being able to concentrate on other things now has felt good. I also hung up my hat as a school governor at Maghull High School this year.

I met some great people through politics – Andrew, Roy, Robbie, Cliff, Peter, Anthony H, Shirley Williams, Maisie, Sheila N, Geoff, Nigel A, Iain BB, John P David R, David T, John D & Charles Kennedy all come to mind and there have been many others too. To have my long-service recognised by my political party in 2023 was a very pleasant surprise. A big thank you to those who nominated me for the award.

 

I’m now heavily involved in the Frank Hornby Trust and as a volunteer curator of Maghull’s Frank Hornby Heritage Centre which is a very rewarding pastime indeed. Hornby, of Meccano, Hornby Trains and Dinky Toys fame, lived for much of his adult life in Maghull and having lived in Maghull myself from 1968 to 2011 I’m delighted to be a part of celebrating the Town’s most famous resident.

Cycling is almost an everyday activity for me now and I’ve just come back from my last ride of 2023 and it was nice one in sunshine too. Keith a lifelong-friend is a fellow cyclist and through this activity I’ve also met Amby who has become a good friend. I share this activity with brother-in-law Ian and my old chum Roy although I’ve not cycled much with either of them in 2023.

As a Lydiate volunteer litter picker I’ve also just done my usual monthly litter pick of a local footpath; the last of 2023.

Assisting Lydiate in Flower and Maghull in Bloom (including a couple of hours in December playing Santa outside Morrisions in Maghull) is also a great pastime of mine which I share with Sheila in terms of Maghull in Bloom.

I've also enjoyed my time assisting Sefton Council for Voluntary Service with their local heritage projects

Our daughter Jen had a piece of her maritime historical work exhibited in London in September and I was rather privileged to be her ‘plus one’ at the celebration event. Proud Dad and all that, of course.

 

So for me 2023 has seen a couple of sad losses but many memorable things too. How Sheila has put up with me all these years never ceases to amaze me.

All the very best for 2024.

 

 

Cameron, his Brexit Referendum and how progressives unintentionally helped make it happen!

By 2015 many progressives had had it with the Coalition Government and the Lib Dems in particular because they saw their participation in that government as being far more negative than positive. They had to show their frustration with the Lib Dems by giving them a kicking at the 2015 General Election and what a kicking it was!

However, in quite a few seats the effect of kicking the Lib Dems was the opposite of what those frustrated voters wanted. I’m talking about the seats where the real political battle at each election was between the Lib Dems and the Tories. Withdrawing votes from the Lib Dems, usually to give them to 3-placed Labour, had the effect of gifting those seats to the Tories! So those frustrated voters did very much what they did not want to do.

Of course, this situation was created by our first past the post electoral system and in reality many voters actually have to vote for their least worst option at every election because the vast majority of seats are between two parties; 3-way marginals are very rare.

So the pleasure of giving the Lib Dems one hell of a kicking helped to deliver a Tory-majority government from 2015 until the present day.

The other great irony of our presently crazy political system is that Labour’s right-wing, working-class voters then went and delivered Brexit in Cameron’s wrong-headed referendum which would not have been called other than by a cornered Conservative majority government!

Yes, I’m a life-long Liberal, actually I’m a Social Liberal of the left, but I got why voters took against the Lib Dems as we progressives expect that party to always be progressive. That at times it wasn’t during the Coalition was a matter which caused me great pain and frankly it still does. We know that Labour will often drift into being anti-progressive, indeed Starmer’s present Labour Party seems to revel in presenting itself as right of centre and therefore not progressive.

Yet there is a solution to all this electoral madness – proportional representation (preferably via the Single Transferable Voting system) which would empower voters rather than many of them wasting their time participating in our electoral system when the same party always wins their constituency seat anyway!

The big ‘reason’ for sticking with first past the post is that ‘it delivers stable government’ Well we’ve not had one of those since 2015! I accept that the Coalition Government was stable but that it was highly unpopular with progressives. Having said that, despite this unpopularity it actually delivered £1b less in austerity savings than Labour had pledged to make in that Parliament had it won in 2010.

So here we are in 2023 with an unelected Cameron back in the corridors of power and made a member of the House of Lords via a hasty process to legitimise things. Let’s be grateful that the Lib Dems aren’t looking to find a way back for Clegg as that would be a step too far for this old Liberal.

And my assessment of where the major parties presently stand -

Conservative – Right wing and further right

Labour – Centre-right

Lib Dems & Greens Centre-left

The 4 letter word that’s destroying our fragile democracy

The word? - Hate

Our politics and fragile democracy has been on the slide for many years.

The once decent upstanding Conservative Party (well that’s what my old dad would have called it up until around the turn of the century) is now UKIP II.

Labour, having been holed below the water line when it elected the wrong Miliband as leader was also further damaged by UKIP when significant numbers of its right-wing, working-class vote decided to back Brexit and Boris Johnson.

And my own party, the Lib Dems? Our leadership remains stubbornly and strangely, to me at least, quiet about being pro-Europe and seems to have lost its radical/progressive edge/voice whilst, of course, also struggling to shake off being holed below the waterline by Cleggism/The Coalition Government.

So with such a recent political history is there any wonder that the right has marched in to claim to be the dominant political agenda, whilst the left has all but melted away. And with our politics being, at best, centre-right these days (and I include Labour in this) is there also any wonder that the further/far right has gained a foothold in the corridors of power?

It’s not then too big a leap to realise how an agenda dominated by division, intolerance and yes, hate, has come to the fore. Did we ever expect to see, in this day and age, a national newspaper use the word ‘hate’ in its lead headline on Remembrance Day! Did we ever expect a Home Secretary to brand a peace march as ‘hate’!

The back-tracking of progressive politicians has in my view helped the further/far right to march in to fill a political vacuum. Can you imagine a John Smith, a Shirley Williams or a Charles Kennedy allowing this to happen? You know they’d be promoting a very different agenda based on inclusion, tolerance and the very opposite of ‘hate’.

And the big question is, where will the next progressive political leaders come from who will take on the divisive legacy of UKIP which has so soured our politics? I **** to say it but the runners and riders to be our future centre-left leaders look to be few and far between presently, so the poisonous legacy of UKIP may well dominate our politics for another 10 years. 

Oh how much I hope I’m wrong and how I long for ‘hope’ to replace ‘****’ in our politics and everyday language.

 

 

Cricket has got it pretty much spot on but football has made a mess of it – VAR

OK the English cricket season is now over so I’ll take a bit more interest in football and on this occasion the shambles VAR has become; well it always has been since they brought it in!

The disallowed Liverpool goal against Spurs yesterday was criminal as VAR said it was offside when it clearly was NOT! VAR is there to correct refereeing mistakes not to endorse such mistakes but there’s a pattern to this as football has never really got VAR right in my view.

The decision should always be the referee’s with VAR being there to assist. Sounds simple doesn’t it, so why is it that a straight forward simple process keeps going wrong?

I have no love for those who run English cricket as they’ve seemingly been doing all they can over the last 30 years or so to kill the game off via far too much of it only being available via pay-per-view TV (often without even highlights on free to view TV), inflexible central contracts for the best players meaning they hardly ever turn out for their home county team and that damned 100 competition. However, one thing they’ve got pretty much right and I give them credit for is the use of video reviews. OK it’s a totally different game to football but surely there are some pointers within what cricket does which could help our football leaders put right the mess that is VAR.

I’d stick with the referee making the decisions but give each team what in effect would be a number of appeals, say 3 in each half against the ref’s decision. If the appeal shows the ref was wrong then fine change the decision and the team keeps 3 appeals for that half. If a team appeals and the ref was right the team loses an appeal. Yes of course some hot-heads would use their 3 appeals up in the first 10 minutes of a half but they'd soon learn to be more circumspect before demanding a VAR review.

There’s also some situations where the ref would like VAR help as they had not fully seen it or found it hard to judge a matter. So I’d say the ref’s can call for a VAR check. I’d stop automatic VAR checks and leave it to teams appealing against the ref’s decision or the ref asking for a review.

Trouble is if the review of VAR videos fails then it all falls apart anyway as Liverpool found out yesterday.