Then Tim Mongomery at ConHome thinks it should look like this:
*sigh*
1. He's confusing 'NHS spending' with 'health spending'. The NHS waste a third of their budget on PC crap, increasing the NHS budget will just see an increase in the amount spent on PC crap, that idea has been tested to destruction.
2. As to immigration, I am right-wing and believe in 'social cohesion'. The actual number of people we let in is irrelevant, what is important is that we let in immigrants who will fit in and make this country a better place (points system etc).
3. and 4. Tim's definitely going for the Home-Owner-Ist vote with 'abolition of Inheritance Tax for ordinary families' (which is code for exempting houses from IHT) and the 'two year freeze in council tax'. While I am against IHT in principle (it's a jealousy surcharge) and do not like the way Council Tax is designed (it's almost like a Poll Tax), let's not forget that the two taxes together only raise about 4% of what the government spends every year. Why not look at the really Big Bad Taxes like Employer's NIC or VAT, that between them raise about 20% of what the government spends?
My view happens to be that we should scrap both and replace them with a flat rate tax on property values (like Domestic Rates), but that doesn't appear to appeal to the Home-Owner-Ists either, of course. What they want is no taxes on land and property whatsoever, they don't care about deadweight costs or economic efficiency or anything.
5. Tinkering with the number of MPs and so on is a token political gesture and of no real relevance to anything.
*/sigh*
Levelling Up
15 minutes ago
6 comments:
Do ionized particles encourage low-level cloud formation?
WTF?
The closer we get to the election the more depressed I get about the Tory party. Apart from some good ideas on schools I can't think of anything which fills me with any enthsiasm.
..and even more bloody quangos (if you believe his supermarket ombudsman nonsense - for example).
'Twas ever thus. Twenty or so years ago my mother was on the County Council and she was always complaining that the Tories "fiddled around the edges", making lots of little cuts to lots of little budgets, but leaving all the big stuff untouched. Maximum perceived action, minimum actual effect.
wv plueeri : I think that's Latin for "I will weep", or close enough.
Your point N2 is important. Tehre are many distinctions like this DC fails to comprehend.
JH, indeed, Tim M manages to squeeze in at least three lies, contradictions or irrelevant facts into one soundbite:
"Lower population growth..."
What about natural population growth, because more babies survive and we live longer? Does he want more babies to die and people to die younger?
"... by capping immigration..."
As I said, there is no right or wrong figure for gross immigration, it might be zero, it might be a million, it depends who wants to come here and fit in and what else is happening that particular year.
"... from outside EU."
Well, there are a lot of places outside the EU. We're not being swamped with North Americans, Japanese, Norwegians, Australians or Swiss are we (even in the absence of any particular restrictions), so that's not an issue. If he'd like to be a bit more specific about which countries he means..?
To be fair, this is not actually Dave C talking, although his ten point plan was not much different.
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