Bolitics The New Condem Government

[snowychap]

Not owt to do with the government but as some of the other 'fingers in the till' people were reported in here, I'd just like to point out the guilty verdict on Lord Taylor.

Will he get 18 months, too?

Blimey, they'll be able to get their own wing soon.

12 months.

Ex-Tory peer Lord Taylor of Warwick has been jailed for 12 months for falsely claiming £11,277 in parliamentary expenses.

The 58-year-old claimed travel costs between his Oxford home and Westminster, as well as subsistence for staying in London.

He said he had made the false claims "in lieu of a salary", and had been acting on the advice of colleagues.

Lord Taylor pleaded not guilty to the charges, but was convicted in January.

[ender4]

holy cow, 1 year in jail for fiddling expenses!!!

there are people who kill almost murder someone (dangerous driving) who get less than that!!

i need to claim my expenses at work this week... i'd better be careful!

[snowychap]

there are people who kill almost murder someone (dangerous driving) who get less than that!!

CPS sentencing manual - death by dangerous driving.

Further reading: Sentencing council document - Causing death by driving

[ender4]

there are people who kill almost murder someone (dangerous driving) who get less than that!!

CPS sentencing manual - death by dangerous driving.

Further reading: Sentencing council document - Causing death by driving

i was trying to say almost kill someone by dangerous driving, not that they actually kill them, but didn't word it very well. If the person doesn't die, then the sentence is less than the 12 months to 14 years in that link.

in any case, the point i was making was 1 year for that sounds way over the to compared to other much more serious crimes.

1 year is a correct sentence in isolation (imo), but doesn't make sense when compared to other violent crime.

[mjmooney]

Not owt to do with the government but as some of the other 'fingers in the till' people were reported in here, I'd just like to point out the guilty verdict on Lord Taylor.

Will he get 18 months, too?

Blimey, they'll be able to get their own wing soon.

12 months.

Ex-Tory peer Lord Taylor of Warwick has been jailed for 12 months for falsely claiming £11,277 in parliamentary expenses.

The 58-year-old claimed travel costs between his Oxford home and Westminster, as well as subsistence for staying in London.

He said he had made the false claims "in lieu of a salary", and had been acting on the advice of colleagues.

Lord Taylor pleaded not guilty to the charges, but was convicted in January.

Former schoolmate of mine, and a Villa ST holder.

[peterms]

Former schoolmate of mine, and a Villa ST holder.

That's a non-renewal, then.

[Danwichmann]

Former schoolmate of mine, and a Villa ST holder.

Probably paid for on expenses

[mjmooney]

Well according to him, he rarely missed a home game - so given that he lived in Oxford and was claiming travel expenses between there and London, I would imagine he claimed his travel costs to VP as well.

All this is not something I would have forseen back when we were in the 6th form!

[peterms]

I see that some economists who previously supported Mr Osborne's position are coming round to the view that they may have been a little premature in their support.

This expansionary fiscal contraction's not all it's cracked up to be, you know.

George Osborne plan isn't working, say top UK economists

Former Tory backers voice concern over government's economic policy as critics say chancellor needs plan B

Some of Britain's leading economists are warning the chancellor, George Osborne, that the economy is too fragile to withstand his drastic spending cuts and that he must draw up a plan B.

Experts, including two former Whitehall advisers and two signatories of last year's high-profile letter backing the Tories' cuts, have told the Observer that they have profound concerns about the direction of Treasury policy.

Since the chancellor laid out his plans to balance the books by the end of the parliament in his "emergency budget" a year ago, the outlook has deteriorated markedly. Growth has gone flat over the past six months and a slew of dismal data has raised fears that the UK could be sliding towards a double-dip recession, as the US recovery wanes and the Greek debt crisis rattles the eurozone.

Jonathan Portes, the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, who until February was chief economist at the Cabinet Office, advising the prime minister, said: "You do not gain credibility by sticking to a strategy that isn't working."

He said that the recent slowdown in growth was partly the result of factors outside the government's control, but insisted: "It isn't just about the international environment, it's because of the strategy the government has followed."

Another former Whitehall insider, Vicky Pryce, the head of the government's economic service before becoming a director at FTI Consulting, said that ministers would be advised to begin preparing the ground for a U-turn: "It's a very risky situation, and I think that at some stage they'll panic."

Professor John Muellbauer of Oxford University, an expert on the housing market who signed the letter to the Sunday Times last year supporting the Conservatives' approach, said: "Things are going badly. I had hoped that the focus in the budget would be on improving growth in the places where there are growth prospects, and also maintaining infrastructure investment, and that they would tackle failures of planning."

Tim Besley, a former Bank of England monetary policy committee member who orchestrated the letter, said: "Everybody has been disappointed with growth." He still believes that the chancellor must stick to his guns, but complained that the Treasury had failed to articulate where growth would come from in the months ahead. "The disappointing growth has almost nothing to do with the fiscal plans of the government – I'm coming to the view that it's just a long, slow, hard slog – but what I would like to see from the government is a much more clearly defined growth strategy." Danny Blanchflower, another former MPC member, said: "Economic policy is in disarray."

The increasingly bleak prospects for recovery have also prompted more than 50 prominent leftwing academics to write to the Observer to demand that the government pursues a plan B, to boost jobs and growth. The signatories – including Sir Tony Atkinson and David Marquand of Oxford University, Marcus Miller of Warwick and Richard Grayson of Goldsmiths in London, a former Liberal Democrat policy director – say that if Osborne keeps to his policy, there will be "a lot more pain and a lot less gain". They call for a crackdown on tax evasion, a targeted industrial policy – including investment in green technologies – and higher taxes on the rich to create jobs and growth, saying, "these are the foundations of a real alternative".

A Treasury spokesman said: "We haven't seen anything that makes us question what we are doing." The political argument over who can be trusted with the economy has intensified in recent days. Osborne's predecessor, Alistair Darling, accused him on Radio 4's Today programme of being "mendacious" in insisting that the government had to slash spending or risk a Greek-style meltdown.

Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, said: "The disappointing figures we've had, particularly on manufacturing, seem to be further evidence that the economic recovery is stalling. We're now set for slower growth, higher inflation and higher unemployment than was forecast a year ago. And the result is that the government is now set to borrow £46bn more than they had planned."

Ivan Lewis, the shadow culture secretary, writing on the Observer's Comment is Free website, says that Labour needs a credible economic and fiscal strategy of its own. He concedes that the party did not spend "every pound wisely", but insists that the deficit was caused by the global banking crisis, rather than spending.

[Dale]

but insists that the deficit was caused by the global banking crisis, rather than spending.

No the deficit was entirely caused by spending more than taxation. The extent of it was driven upwards by the crisis - the reaction was IMHO correct though. As would following a slower deficit reduction plan especially if it included a different blend of tax increase (on rich) vs. spending reduction.

[Awol]

prompted more than 50 prominent leftwing academics to write to the Observer to demand that the government pursues a plan B, to boost jobs and growth....... They call for a crackdown on tax evasion, a targeted industrial policy – including investment in green technologies – and higher taxes on the rich to create jobs and growth, saying, "these are the foundations of a real alternative".

What an original prescription from a bunch of lefty bongo bashers - borrow more we can't afford, tax the poop out of anyone earning more than £5.60 an hour and then spend what we haven't got.

Clearly "academic" is quite a subjective term.

[drat01]

:-) @ Jon. Amazing how if anyone cares to disagree with his Tory party they suddenly become this group who should be ignored. Whereas only a few months back any politically motivated letter from people who are in industry (but obviously most have donated to the Tory party) is seen as some sort of vindication and justification for the cuts that so many are now showing to be wrong

The reality is this, for all the marketing spin that Gideon and his backed millions put out, the facts are that his "plan A" is not working - nor would it ever have done. Ideologically led massive cuts and attacks on front line public services were supposed to be compensated by a magical backfill from private industry. It was and is pure fantasy which the LibDems got suckered into supporting when all along it was nothing more than an opportunity for the Cons to implement long standing attacks on certain elements in society while supporting others such as their supporters. Jon it's a bit rich you moaning about Taxing people considering where you live

[Awol]

Jon it's a bit rich you moaning about Taxing people considering where you live

Mate I watched the last Government utterly dry bum the country and after moaning for a long time decided to do something about it and work abroad for a while. That doesn't mean I can't comment.

All more tax will do is drive those who (unlike me at the time) actually have money and assets in the country to do the same. Soaking the "rich" is bloody stupid lefty ideological nonsense that simply doesn't work.

What would you do, lower the 50% threshold, create a higher band, what?

[blandy]

What an original prescription from a bunch of lefty bongo bashers - borrow more we can't afford, tax the poop out of anyone earning more than £5.60 an hour and then spend what we haven't got.

Clearly "academic" is quite a subjective term.

Possibly so, but you rather ignored the bit about all the economists who previously supported the cuts changing their minds. I expect they had too many lentils for tea and came over "all funny like".

[peterms]

prompted more than 50 prominent leftwing academics to write to the Observer to demand that the government pursues a plan B, to boost jobs and growth....... They call for a crackdown on tax evasion, a targeted industrial policy – including investment in green technologies – and higher taxes on the rich to create jobs and growth, saying, "these are the foundations of a real alternative".

What an original prescription from a bunch of lefty bongo bashers - borrow more we can't afford, tax the poop out of anyone earning more than £5.60 an hour and then spend what we haven't got.

What, you think "higher taxes on the rich" means anyone above £5.60 an hour? Weird.

And you don't think investment in jobs, industrial recovery, sustainable technology is worth doing? Better sit and hope that plan A works, then.

All more tax will do is drive those who (unlike me at the time) actually have money and assets in the country to do the same. Soaking the "rich" is bloody stupid lefty ideological nonsense that simply doesn't work.

What would you do, lower the 50% threshold, create a higher band, what?

The reason there's a call to crack down on tax evasion is that the people you claim will leave the country if we dare to tax them at the same rate Thatcher did, is that by and large they don't actually pay tax to begin with.

Like the often-repeated threat of the banks to move away, it's an empty threat. If they want to go, let them. But regardless of where they live, make sure we tax assets and activities in a way which gets the wealthiest paying more, not less, than the less well off.

[Awol]

prompted more than 50 prominent leftwing academics to write to the Observer to demand that the government pursues a plan B, to boost jobs and growth....... They call for a crackdown on tax evasion, a targeted industrial policy – including investment in green technologies – and higher taxes on the rich to create jobs and growth, saying, "these are the foundations of a real alternative".

What an original prescription from a bunch of lefty bongo bashers - borrow more we can't afford, tax the poop out of anyone earning more than £5.60 an hour and then spend what we haven't got.

What, you think "higher taxes on the rich" means anyone above £5.60 an hour? Weird.

No Peter, it was sarcasm. Presumably if they want more tax from the "rich" they can only do so by lowering the threshold of what constitutes being "rich" - or create another 50%+ band entirely, which neither the coalition or labour would do while they continue trying to sell themselves as suupporting the aspirational part of the population.

And you don't think investment in jobs, industrial recovery, sustainable technology is worth doing? Better sit and hope that plan A works, then.

It would be lovely to pump billions into a new industrial policy, trouble is that the money isn't there. That leaves even more borrowing as the alternative and the markets then deciding our sovereign debt interest deserves some unwlecome attentionbecause we aint bovvered about the deficit. They might be a bunch of capitalist vultures but they cannot be ignored. So ultimately yes, we probably will bump along with marginal growth one quarter and negative the next for quite a while yet. There is no magic bullet to get out of this imo.

The reason there's a call to crack down on tax evasion is that the people you claim will leave the country if we dare to tax them at the same rate Thatcher did, is that by and large they don't actually pay tax to begin with.

As I recall Risso has pointed out (and been ignored) several times that a serious crack down on tax evasion has already taken place. I don't buy into this idea that if we just tax the 'rich' a little bit more then everything will be dandy.

[Gringo]

As I recall Risso has pointed out (and been ignored) several times that a serious crack down on tax evasion has already taken place. I don't buy into this idea that if we just tax the 'rich' a little bit more then everything will be dandy.

I may have missed those - but I thought the only real effective change was closing the loophole of employee benefit trusts - and as Risso has pointed out the ingenius offshore accountants have simply replaced these with alternative trusts or remuneration schemes.

[peterms]

Presumably if they want more tax from the "rich" they can only do so by lowering the threshold of what constitutes being "rich" - or create another 50%+ band entirely, which neither the coalition or labour would do while they continue trying to sell themselves as supporting the aspirational part of the population.

The starting point is surely to collect what is meant to be collected now. That means tackling tax dodging. It's not only the rich who dodge taxes, but they dodge the most.

It would be lovely to pump billions into a new industrial policy, trouble is that the money isn't there. That leaves even more borrowing as the alternative

Investment isn't funded by money which has been saved up. That's true both of private and public investment. The notion that investment can't happen because money "isn't there" is just nonsense.

Do you think the bank bailout was funded by a store of money previously accumulated? Or that bank loans come from a vault? I'm pretty sure you don't, from your previous comments.

Borrowing to fund public spending is a convention, not a necessary fact. If it's a big concern, a government could fund spending without borrowing. Or they could proceed more conventionally.

As I recall Risso has pointed out (and been ignored) several times that a serious crack down on tax evasion has already taken place. I don't buy into this idea that if we just tax the 'rich' a little bit more then everything will be dandy.

What serious crackdown? The number of tax inspectors has been cut. Private Eye regularly points out deals between the head of HMRC and tax dodgers where they are let off previously unpaid taxes; the latest is Goldman Sachs, it's not the first. And of course the UK fails to take effective action against tax havens and other dodges.

Here are some suggestions from someone who has studied this in some depth over quite a long time:

...I think there is good reason for thinking that whilst plugging loopholes is important it is not enough. And that if that’s true then we need something much more robust to tackle the problems of evasion in particular, and avoidance to a lesser degree (because evasion is bigger than avoidance, lest we ever forget, and whatever the government chooses to do when spinning its statistics on this issue).

Evasion is invariably based on deliberate non-disclosure of data to H M Revenue & Customs. I estimate it’s £70 billion a year. I know full well that HMRC says it’s less. But then they base their estimate on the tax returns they receive. Which of course means they underestimate the issue. Tax evaders don’t submit tax returns. This glaringly obvious point explains much of the difference between their estimate and mine.

So to tackle tax evasion we don’t need new legislation. We need existing legislation requiring that information be submitted to be enforced. And we need new sources of data on who might be hiding their tax affairs from view. And we need resources to be made available to ensure that evaded tax can be collected.

All of this is possible. We could require that banks tell HMRC when they open bank accounts for limited companies and pass legislation allowing HMRC to demand that bank account information when the hundreds of thousands of companies that do not submit corporation tax returns and accounts each year fail to meet their legal obligations to do so. We could provide more staff at Companies House to chase the 500,000 companies that disappear from view each year. We could ensure that more than 45% of companies submit a corporation tax return each year. How much do you think that might raise? I suggest the less if £16 billion. Suppose we got a quarter back?

We could demand automatic information exchange from tax havens. I’ve designed a simple form of this. It’s based solely on data tax havens / secrecy jurisdictions must hold. It requires no data on income to be exchanged. It just requires that every offshore account held by a UK resident in a tax haven would have to be disclosed to the UK tax authorities under the teems of new international agreements – agreements that HMRC opposes for reasons that are extremely hard to understand.

We could do more: we could reconcile Yellow Pages with tax returns. How many businesses do not pay?

We could send tax inspectors to car boot sales to police illegal trading.

We could monitor e-bay for undisclosed trading.

We could demand that the purchase and sale of all shares for a value of more than £10,000 be disclosed to H M Revenue & Customs, automatically.

Every business could be required to submit the names and addresses of its top ten customers and suppliers to HMRC. If they can’t say they’re at risk, or a cash business. That also means that they’re at risk.

This is all easy stuff to do. Well within the bounds of possibility. It needs resources, but the yield would be enormous. And the argil cost of employing people to do the work when we have 2.5 million unemployed is tiny – as benefits are saved and tax paid out of wages paid. The contribution to deficit cutting would be enormous.

So don’t tell me cutting the deficit without cutting services is not possible.

And don’t tell me we can’t tackle tax evasion.

We can do both.

But it needs political will.

The will to take money from cheats and give it to those who need it.

That’s all it takes.

But Osborne has not got that will.

And the right question to ask is why he prefers cheats to the poor, disabled, young, unemployed, pensioners, sick and students (amongst others). Because by his actions we know he does.

[Risso]

Oh my god, you didn't just link an article from Richard Murphy did you? Oh christ, you did. That man knows **** all about anything, and is one of the biggest tossers to ever draw breath.

[Awol]

Sorry I'm pretty rushed and have got time to read the article pasted yet but I assume this proposed spending is to be furnished by rolling the virtual printing presses yet again? QE isn't working out very well for the US where it was used as the primary weapon to keep 'investing'.