I have for some time thought that I should change the strap line for this blog.
A wry look at the big society no longer seems applicable, after all the idea of a big society seems to have gone away.
We don't hear much about it anymore.
Maybe my wry look has had an effect? Maybe I could claim some credit? After all humour is often the best form of both attack and defence.
And of course after the budget it seems, we are no longer all in it together.
The wealthy are rewarded because they create wealth and live in the Virgin Islands whereas the poor are criticised because they are always with us?
The future is being steadily privatised, all too soon we will be going through a door marked Virgin Health Services for our treatments, driving along privately managed and maintained roads, buying our books from the Amazon or iTunes or Kindle Library and wondering how and when all this happened.
But of course we are all in it together because we all at some level, at least for now, pay for it through taxation and as I have commented previously inflation is the most insidious tax of all because it catches everyone whether they pay income tax or not.
Taxation is defined as a means by which government finances its expenditure by imposing charges on citizens and corporate entities.
So apparently, neither the Chancellor nor the revenue can be bothered to continue with the 50p tax rate after all it only raises a trifling £100M because the wealthy with their troops of retained accountants can find ways around it and anyway by implication, £100M is neither here nor there unlike the size of the welfare budget.
No discussion here about finding ways to police it better and remove the loopholes, no review of Council tax banding just an increase in Stamp Duty, the obvious loophole is, don't sell your house or buy another, just extend up or down if you want a bigger garage or a swimming pool and that will be easier because the planning restrictions will be relaxed soon enough.
So the post budget knockabout rumbles on with the commentariat wringing many thousands of words out of the coverage of the Chancellors speech.
The nation is beset by word inflation.
And here I am adding my own two pennyworth.
When the raising of the tax threshold to £9000 was first proposed by Nick I wondered what would happen to the older persons threshold, would it simply be subsumed into the higher rate or would a premium continue to be added?
Now we have the answer.
I have to admit that it seems fair enough really the higher rate has not been abolished it remains more or less where it always was it's just that the standard rate has risen and will presumably overtime overtake it, I suspect that no-one will actually be worse off, but then equally few will be better off.
There is much that the Chancellor can be criticised for, this was a budget that both apparently and actually benefited the rich, it is also clear whose interests are being defended by this coalition Government and whose are not.
So I must give it all much more thought.
I have a new blog title ready to go, The Irresponsible Socialist: in which I will spin the arguments for a socialist vision of the future including higher taxes for the wealthy, a health service free at the point of need, accessible public transport, free libraries, tax free pensions for the elderly, free higher education and guaranteed jobs for young people, of course it could just as well be called, back to the future ..........
A wry look at the big society no longer seems applicable, after all the idea of a big society seems to have gone away.
We don't hear much about it anymore.
Maybe my wry look has had an effect? Maybe I could claim some credit? After all humour is often the best form of both attack and defence.
And of course after the budget it seems, we are no longer all in it together.
The wealthy are rewarded because they create wealth and live in the Virgin Islands whereas the poor are criticised because they are always with us?
The future is being steadily privatised, all too soon we will be going through a door marked Virgin Health Services for our treatments, driving along privately managed and maintained roads, buying our books from the Amazon or iTunes or Kindle Library and wondering how and when all this happened.
But of course we are all in it together because we all at some level, at least for now, pay for it through taxation and as I have commented previously inflation is the most insidious tax of all because it catches everyone whether they pay income tax or not.
Taxation is defined as a means by which government finances its expenditure by imposing charges on citizens and corporate entities.
So apparently, neither the Chancellor nor the revenue can be bothered to continue with the 50p tax rate after all it only raises a trifling £100M because the wealthy with their troops of retained accountants can find ways around it and anyway by implication, £100M is neither here nor there unlike the size of the welfare budget.
No discussion here about finding ways to police it better and remove the loopholes, no review of Council tax banding just an increase in Stamp Duty, the obvious loophole is, don't sell your house or buy another, just extend up or down if you want a bigger garage or a swimming pool and that will be easier because the planning restrictions will be relaxed soon enough.
So the post budget knockabout rumbles on with the commentariat wringing many thousands of words out of the coverage of the Chancellors speech.
The nation is beset by word inflation.
And here I am adding my own two pennyworth.
When the raising of the tax threshold to £9000 was first proposed by Nick I wondered what would happen to the older persons threshold, would it simply be subsumed into the higher rate or would a premium continue to be added?
Now we have the answer.
I have to admit that it seems fair enough really the higher rate has not been abolished it remains more or less where it always was it's just that the standard rate has risen and will presumably overtime overtake it, I suspect that no-one will actually be worse off, but then equally few will be better off.
There is much that the Chancellor can be criticised for, this was a budget that both apparently and actually benefited the rich, it is also clear whose interests are being defended by this coalition Government and whose are not.
So I must give it all much more thought.
I have a new blog title ready to go, The Irresponsible Socialist: in which I will spin the arguments for a socialist vision of the future including higher taxes for the wealthy, a health service free at the point of need, accessible public transport, free libraries, tax free pensions for the elderly, free higher education and guaranteed jobs for young people, of course it could just as well be called, back to the future ..........
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