Fun Online Polls: HS2 vs the Graduate Tax; When did The Big Ship sail?

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

If the UK govt had £60 billion to spare, what's a better use of the money?

Spend it on the HS2 railway - 16%
Waive the 9% Graduate Tax - 84%

Good, that's what I thought.

A low turnout on an obscure issue. Some people missed the point - at present the UK government probably doesn't have £60 billion to spare, in which case it should do neither.

This was just a dig at the Tories who insist that HS2 is a good investment (if Labour were in power, no doubt they would say the same, having dreamed up this crap pre-2010) but that writing off student loans/waiving the Graduate Tax is unaffordable.
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Something else that has been bugging me recently is, when did The Big Ship sail on the Ally-ally-oh?

The way we sang it when we were at school, it was the Nineteenth of September, but that's a long time ago, and it didn't strike me as very important, being a silly nursery rhyme.

However, having Googled it recently, it turns out that some people sang that it sailed on the Last Day of September.

Hmmm.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

... thus neatly disproving her own point.

From City AM:

As a member of the Customs Union, Britain applies the same import duties on goods as all the other members of the union, and we trade freely with our allies in the bloc.

When we exit this arrangement, our tariffs will change overnight. Importers will have to start paying extra for goods coming in from the EU, which make up 70 per cent of our food imports, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Yes, 70% of food imports, but food imports in turn are just under 40% of all food we eat by value i.e. less than 30% of food we eat by value. most of that is fancy stuff not necessary to sustain life, i.e. luxuries. Nice to have but costly, if it ends up costing a bit more, so be it.

If we don’t negotiate a new trade agreement by March 2019 (the “no deal” scenario), then the new tariffs will be those we have lodged with the World Trade Organisation (WTO)...

Yes, but we decide our own tariffs, they are not imposed by the WTO, as she then says herself:

It is possible for the UK to eliminate tariffs on goods coming from the bloc, however, under WTO rules, it would have to extend this tariff-free access to all members of the WTO.

Which would be a very good thing indeed, overall, the price of food (and pretty much anything else) would be slightly lower.

And, if we removed all tariffs, we would have no basis on which to negotiate new free trade deals with the likes of the US and Australia.

Maybe, maybe not, but these free trade deals are a contradiction in terms. If a country unilaterally abolishes tariffs, quotas and all but a sensible bare minimum of domestic regulations (like cars having to pass an MOT, rechargeable batteries not being liable to explode etc), that is about as free as trade will ever get. Trade between people in two such countries is vastly freer that trade between people in two countries with a free trade agreement (which is just thousands of pages of detailed rules to shut out people in third countries).

Then the author resorts to this statistical flourish:

The British Retail Consortium has warned that if Brexit secretary David Davis walks away from talks with “no deal”, the effective tariff rate on some items could rise by as much as 80 per cent. Tariffs on Italian mozzarella and Irish cheddar cheese will jump by 46 per cent and 44 per cent respectively.

1. Hang about here. Isn't the current tariff on Irish cheese imported into the UK precisely zero? Have I missed something? So any new tariff would be an increase of infinity per cent.

2. We need absolute not relative figures. If a tariff goes up from 1% to 1.5%, that's no biggie - it's not an increase of 50%, it's an increase of 0.5%.

That episode of "Casualty" filmed in one take

The story was fairly typical "Casualty" fare, but on a technical level it was superb.

The son and I looked out for a reflection of the cameraman in mirrors etc, nothing. The bit where the cameraman is lowered over a banister was especially awesome.

They used to have very long shots in "ER" as well, but only three or four minutes, not a whole hour.

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (418)

As soon as anybody mentions upping the take from taxes on land/buildings, the landowners in London and their cheerleaders squeal that this would be "a tax on London".

I'm not sure why it's a KLN in the first place - London is only about one-tenth of the population, and only half of those own their own home/business premises, meaning that for 95% of the UK population, this is an argument in favour. To quote Uncle Vince, the best kind of tax is one that somebody else pays.

Turns out, it's not an argument for or against anything in particular, being entirely without substance.

1. As BenJamin' calculated last week, the total value of land excl. buildings in London is about one-third of the total value of all UK land, so one-third of any flat rate national tax on the value of land would be on land in London, and paid by whoever chooses to own it.

2. As it happens, about one-third of taxes on land/buildings and other private wealth are from land in London ('not enough' Council Tax, cancelled out by 'too much' SDLT, Business Rates, Inheritance Tax and obscure stuff like ATED or non-dom levy). So a flat rate national tax which replaced the lot would make little difference to how the tax is shared geographically.

3. Ben later emailed me a link to an article by Centre for Cities saying that one-third of all UK taxes are from 'London' (payable by of people who work there and those who own land there; the two groups are fairly distinct).

The CFC draw this conclusion:

The report highlights the potential risk to the UK exchequer of relying heavily on one city to generate such a large portion of national tax revenues, warning in particular that a slowdown in London’s economy would pose major challenges to both the capital and other places across the country...

They have completely missed the point. If somebody relocates from a low wage/profit area to a higher wage/profit area, then - as depressing as it is for the emigration area - the overall tax take goes up. That's A Good Thing overall.

'London' is not magically or qualitatively different to the rest of the UK, it is part of it, and depends on/leeches off a massive hinterland, all national taxes (other than poll taxes) have the effect of returning some of that flow.

Readers' Letters Of This Week

From The Evening Standard (Thursday):

WHY is no mention made about the thousands of brilliant nurses from Commonwealth countries who staffed our hospitals in the Eighties and Nineties?

Most of these professionals were forced to return home when their two-year visas ran out. They were replaced by nurses from the EU, many of whom struggled with working English for quite some time.

If there are sensible working visas that encourage medical and nursing staff to come over here - from the Commonwealth, the EU and further afield - Brexit will not be a problem for the NHS.

Sophie Clement-Jones

From The Evening Standard (Friday):

Contrary to your headline ["Brexit fears of NHS staff crisis", July 25], the real crisis is one of retention of NHS staff who cannot afford to live in the capital. NHS nurses in London typically work a 12-hour shift but if they live outside the capital they have to travel for two or more hours a day. This is unsustainable.

Looking to Europe for a solution to a British-made problem seems an off move, especially as there is a shortage of nurses in Europe at present.

Dr Kate Brown.

There are inherent logical flaws in both letters, but they appear to be based on facts/experience and both are asking the right questions.

Reader's Letter Of The Day

From City AM:

Rajesh Agrawai, London's Deputy Mayor suggests that London should stay in the Single Market to maintain its "global financial crown", but then acknowledges that the real competition to London comes from New York Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore - all of which are outside the Single Market. Curious!

Charles James Stewart.

The article to which he refers is here, and yes, he did say exactly that.

"It’s not a takeaway when we do it, say middle class people"

This bit from an article by The Daily Mash has me slightly worried:

Museum curator Helen Archer said:

“The news about these awful diets is so sad. I’m just glad it’s something that I’m able to avoid. I’m super busy so I’m always on Deliveroo – usually Szechuan, pan-Indian, or Five Guys – but it’s not really comparable, because when it arrives I put it on plates.

We get takeaways every week or two (usually Chinese or Indian, like everybody else) but we always serve it nicely on plates and use cutlery, why would you not? They put it all into separate plastic tubs, so you have to, unless you want to alternate between spoonful of rice from one tub and spoonful of sauce from the other.

Does that mean we are middle-class? If we get fish and chips, we use the fish forks and fish knives, maybe that'll help you answer the question.

"High Court judges said [the UK] was failing to meet EU pollution limits"

From the BBC:

New diesel and petrol cars and vans will be banned in the UK from 2040 in a bid to tackle air pollution, the government has announced.

Ministers have also unveiled a £255m fund to help councils tackle emissions, including the potential for charging zones for the dirtiest vehicles... The timetable for councils to come up with initial plans has been cut from 18 months to eight, with the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) wanting to "inject additional urgency" into the process.

It follows the government being given its own deadline of 31 July after High Court judges said it was failing to meet EU pollution limits.

I thought we are on the way out of the EU, so why did they even take that into consideration?

Also, the government can get away with persecuting smokers because non-smokers are in a significant majority, but the fact is, most households own at least one car; those who don't probably take the bus; and surely everybody buys stuff in shops that was delivered by diesel-powered lorries.

Daily Mail on top form

Council boss leading the Grenfell Tower disaster response owns a £1million 'second home' farmhouse on the Isle of Wight linked to an offshore tax haven

Fun Online Polls: Influencing the goverment; HS2 vs student loan write-offs.

The results from last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Which is the better strategy for influencing Labour or Tory policies?

Join the party and agitate from the inside - 11%
Vote for another party whose policies you agree with - 89%

Which is what I have observed. I'm relieved that so many agree. Thanks to all who took part.
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I know that it is silly to match receipts from particular taxes with particular items of government expenditure, but it's sometimes useful to do so to put things into perspective.

Last week, the Transport Secretary insisted that the white elephant vanity HS2 railway line would come in on time and on budget at £55.7 billion.

Most are agreed it is a waste of taxpayers' money, of benefit only to a very few (the construction companies and some landowners) and nobody in his right mind believes it will be on time and on budget. In fact, we know it won't, because the original budget set in 2010 was £32.7 billion.

The Tories then went on the offensive and claimed that it would "cost" £100 billion to write off student debts, forcing the innumerate Labour education spokeswoman into an embarrassing and unnecessary climb down. That's the nominal amount of the outstanding loans, but they will be collected via a graduate tax and lots will be written off, so what's relevant here is the net present value of the tax receipts, let's call it £60 billion in round figures.

So you could argue, future graduates are paying 9% extra income tax on income above the £21,000 allowance in order to fund HS2.

Which I hope most would agree is completely bonkers.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.