Today sees the Institute of Economic Affairs publish its own version of the Comprehensive Spending Review. The research report – Sharper Axes, Lower Taxes: Big Steps to a Smaller State – calls for a radical downsizing of the public sector and sketches out the colossal tax cuts which would become possible. Accompanying opinion poll research, conducted by ComRes, shows overwhelming public support for such a strategy.
For all the sound and fury surrounding the coalition’s fiscal retrenchment, its proposals are actually amazingly modest. In real terms, public spending will fall by a mere 3% or so between now and the next election. For every pound the state was spending when Liberal Democrats took to their ministerial offices, it will be spending about 97p by 2015. The public sector will still account for around 40% of the overall economy. The coalition intends to continue to spend more money than it raises in tax receipts and – although the budget deficit will fall – the overall national debt will rise by several hundred billion pounds. The next generation – those who cannot vote yet and even those who have yet to be born – will end up paying the bill for our continuing largesse today.
The IEA calls for the coalition to go far further and to seek to reduce the public sector to around 30% of GDP by reducing government spending by an additional £215bn. In real terms, this would mean public spending reverting to the level it was at in 2001 when Tony Blair’s government sought re-election for the first time. There would be dramatic cuts in health spending (£44bn) as well as education (£15bn), pensions (£15bn) and defence (£17bn) – but there would be ample left to cater for the needs of the poor and underprivileged.
The corresponding tax cuts which become possible are truly spectacular. In broad terms, income tax could be cut to a flat rate of around 15% and the income tax threshold raised to £12,000. VAT could theoretically be halved to 10% (although the EU would prohibit such a move). Inheritance tax and stamp duty could be done away with altogether. If this isn’t the precise sort of tax cuts package you’d like, feel free to pick another on the same sort of scale. Averaged out, the savings amount to £7,500 per household.
The opinion poll research shows that such a strategy could be hugely popular amongst the electorate. 55% of the public believe the government should aim to cut spending to 35% or less. 29% broadly favour the coalition’s strategy – the public sector being in the 35%-45% of GDP range. A meagre 14% support a level of government spending at 45% or above. Young people are particularly supportive of a smaller public sector, with 68% of 18-34 year olds supporting the state being reduced to 35% or less. Remarkably, support is very consistent amongst supporters of all three main political parties.
Given a straight choice between the coalition’s plan and the IEA’s, a full 70% of the electorate support the latter.
The last decade has witnessed an explosion in the amount of money spent by the government. The results have been disappointing to say the least. Productivity in the public sector has fallen. Taxes have increased. Debt has soared.
For those who have tended to recoil from making savings in the public sector, the question needs to be asked when would the size of government be too great to bear? 55% of GDP? 60%? More?
A smaller state needn’t be accompanied by a disregard for the poor or by a mean-spirited culture. Far from it. The barbarians weren’t at the gates in 2001 and reducing spending to those sort of levels would be a dramatic step towards liberating individual men and women. If anyone can find the political courage to advocate such a strategy, they may also find it’s a popular one.
Mark Littlewood is Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs.
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59 Comments
Hahaha, take a look at this ‘poll’:
http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/IEA_Public_Poll_Results_July11.pdf
Basically, the IEA have found that people have absolutely no idea what percentage of GDP is actually spent by the Government. Across all age groups the mean hovers around 60% with a 20% standard deviation. They then find that people believe the Government will be reducing national debt by £350bn before the next election. Then they – and this is really quite naughty – ask people which percentage of GDP the Government should be spending. This would be fine if they gave the same percentage areas as in the first question – i.e. 1-10, 11-20 and so on. Instead, they go for less than 25, between 25-35, 35-45 and more than 45. After this, they offer people a tax cut of £7,500 per year for reducing percentage spend to 30%.
Basically, they find that people have no idea how much is actually spent by the Government, give them an arbitrary range of spend percentages in which people cluster around the middle, and then take the result of people liking tax cuts as evidence of public demand for further spending cuts.
How much did you have to pay ComRes to get them to produce such godawful nonsense?
The public are in favour because you asked
“If the Government were to reduce its spending to 30% of national income, the Government would have less money to spend, but each household would get a pony and pay around £7,500 less tax on average. Would you support or oppose this reduction in government spending?”
I don’t think that most people have realised that they don’t actually pay that much in tax – and that most of the reduction in tax would go to the rich.
“Institute of Economic Affairs”
What a joke.
What does it say in the report then – I can’t actually read it without forking out £12.50, so I can’t tell how loaded the questions were that you asked. Given the bias in the article above, I have serious doubt about the impartiality of the “Institute of Economic Affairs”, but have no means of addressing the statistical methods used, which means your report mean precisely nothing.
“The barbarians weren’t at the gates in 2001 and reducing spending to those sort of levels would be a dramatic step towards liberating individual men and women.”
Why does a smaller state = more liberty. That’s a statement of simplistic ideology. You haven’t explained why, in your opinion, a smaller state = more liberty, which is fine – we all have our own uniformed opinions I guess, but what I really object to is the fact that you pass yourself off as some kind of research instsitute, when you’re clearly nothing more than a lobby group trying to push your own agenda. Personally, I’d rather listen to mumsnet.
Also, is Mark still a member of the LDs? I thought he had to leave to head up the IEA. Shouldn’t this have been an ‘Independent View’ piece?
What a joke survey.
If you ask the public “Would you like more apple pie” in an opinion poll they answer “Yes please”…
Of course in reality the question is “How much of the public service you receive are you willing to sacrifice for your extra apple pie?”
If the IEA had any intellectual honesty or credibility they would have asked questions about tradeoffs, not vague fantasy scenarios.
Wow. That’s a terrible idea if ever I saw one. Let’s move swiftly on.
How refreshing it is to get such a candid blast of full-strength fundamentalist, neoliberal doctrine, and straight from the horse’s mouth, too! This summary, and the longer piece, is a detailed working-out of a devious, deceitful fantasy. Between shaking my head and laughing like a drain, I found that the only necessary rebuttal was the following – the core function of market-free public services is to serve the needs and wellbeing of the general public, whereas the core function of companies working in the market is maximise profit/minimise loss. History is overflowing with examples that starkly illustrate what happens when the wellbeing of the public, especially the disadavantaged, the disabled, the sick, and the old, are handed over to the care of market mechanisms (and please, spare me the figleaf cant about mutuals and voluntary organisations). Also, the dismantling of public services, which dear old Mark seems so hot for, would be a shameless act of de-democratisation, especially with regard to the ethos of collective, public compassion. Thatcher once said there is no such thing as society – the Institute of Economic Affairs has produced a blueprint for the demolition of society. Sorry, Mark, but this one won’t fly – back to the drawing board.
[DEEP BREATH...]
[BEGIN RANT]
Are you really serious?
Do you genuinely think looking at the percentage of the economy accounted for by the State is in any way a legitimate measure of anything at all? Surely you understand that it isn’t the size of the State that matters, it’s what it does and how it goes about it that’s key.
The IEA calls for the coalition to go far further and to seek to reduce the public sector to around 30% of GDP by reducing government spending by an additional £215bn
Why 30%? why not 25%, 20%? Choosing an arbitrary percentage for State spending and then adjusting the tax intake accordingly in this way is just so very backwards I can’t even begin to critique it.
Have you considered the negative economic multipliers that slashing public spending in this way would bring about? Have you considered that not every penny of the money you give back to people will get spent in a way that raises living standards or increases well-being or any other measure of progress? Have you taken into account the consequences of ending the State provision of most services and the inequalities, market inefficiencies and transaction costs that would follow?
We should be deciding what it is that we want the State to do, then set about paying for it and delivering it in the best way we can, funding it through equitable taxation – not putting the cart before the horse, deciding on what is an acceptable proportion of the economy to be State-derived, then fitting everything around that…
[/RANT]
When you ask people if they want expenditure cut and taxes cut they say yes. If ask if they want expenditure that they benefit cut they so no. When people want expenditure cut they want all that wasteful expenditure that goes on other people cut not spending on their local schools, hospitals, libraries etc. And of course pensions should be cut but not their pension because they have earned that. And so on.
Oh and of course they that what that General said about the threat to Britain was right and so defence, no that shouldn’t be cut…..
Think tanks don’t have to fight elections. They just have to try and get headlines.
Sounds like an interesting read.
The real issue, not addressed by any of the comments is how big should the state be? That is a debate Lib Dems should be having.
Good grief.
There are no words as to how happy Mark must be since leaving Liberal Vision, the IEA does indeed let his wildest dreams run riot.
@Simon:
As Prateek says, the answer to that is, “As big as it needs to be to do what we want from it.”
Is this the same Mark Littlewood who prophicised that the Lib Dem parliamentary party would suffer massive losses because they didn’t subscribe to his bizarre views.
I can’t seem to find that document on his(?) Liberal Vision website – but they have a habit of airbrushing embarrassing stuff out of existence.
Superb – I can only assume Simon McGrath posted his comment before he’d read Prateek’s brilliant rebuttal of the idea of choosing an arbitrary percentage.
I think it should be 50.1682%. That, for me, points the way to liberty and happiness for all. What does anyone else think? What’s your percentage? (I got mine by multiplying the magic ratio by the cube of pi)
Agreed with Prateek and Adam – I’m sure they’re delighted; we need to look at what we want from the state first and establish what that costs – not cut to an arbitrary percentage figure.
As for abolishing inheritance tax and stamp duty and implementing flat taxes that most benefit the rich – no thanks; I’ve no interest in making the poorest suffer to help those already living in privilege.
“55% of the public believe the government should aim to cut spending to 35% or less.”
Certainly describes me, as I would like to see public spending in the boom years account for no more than 35% of GDP.
I support this because taxing over 40% of GDP is known to substantially decrease long-term growth, i.e. the stuff that preserves for your children the standard of living you enjoy today.
http://ime.bg/uploads/OptimalSizeOfGovernment.pdf
@jedibeeftrix
“Institute for Market Economics, Bulgaria”
And here was me thinking the Institute for Economic Affairs were a bunch of jokers.
@jedibeeftrix
From the introduction of the ‘paper’ you linked to:
“Economic growth has suffered from the increase of taxation and government spending which has been above optimal levels in most countries.”
Is that what you consider scientific?
@Andrew Tennant:
I’ve no interest in making the poorest suffer to help those already living in privilege.
–
Then you’d best find another party. Some of our most sick and disabled citizens are being denied benefits now – on a massive scale which has already led to several suicides. In my charity where we help disabled people, I am finding people with 6 months or less to live being found “fit for work.” People undergoing Chemotherapy found “fit for work”. Last week I dealt with a case where, believe it or not, a deafblind man was found fit for work. Oh and don’t forget the ex-soliders who lost limbs or suffered mental distress in Iraq and Afghanistan also being found “fit for work.” Or the man who had a heart attack in the ATOS testing centre and died later that day – but still sent his family a “fit for work” notice on the day of his funeral. Yes, this cruelty started under Labour. But the coalition government has made it ten times worse.
This is a massive problem which will need cleaning up. It will cost the government more money than it saves. We are routinely denying our most sick and disabled people the help they need (and which many paid for when they were able to work).
So when you hear about more and more sick/disabled people joining pensioners who have to choose between heating and food in winter, maybe you will think again on this.
“55% of the public believe the government should aim to cut spending to 35% or less.”
Statements like this remind me of Josh Lymans, “38% of people believe foreign aid is too high and 32% believe it should be cut” (or whatever the figures were).
Hywel, yes, yes it is. I still have the print version next time you fancy a giggle. I never did do the complete takedown I planned, but in teh two seats i did look at in detail, he was completely wrong on both counts (we held one and lost one, the one we lost he’d said was perfectly safe…)
I agree with Adam, I was under the impression Mr Littlewood had left the party, regardless, this is an IEA puff piece and should be labelled as Independent View even if the head remains a member of the party.
I mean, I’m a small state pro-market type by inclination, but this is just bonkers, and abusing polling in that way is just completely beyon the pale if you want to be taken seriously.
I think your proposals would be wildly popular; until they where put in place. At which point you’d be lucky to find anyone to support you.
@ Mike Cobley
How refreshing it is to get such a candid blast of full-strength fundamentalist, neoliberal doctrine, and straight from the horse’s mouth, too!”
It certainly comes from some orifice belonging to a horse, but I’m not sure it’s the mouth.
I remember, back in the 1980s, when I was studying economics at university, we used to laugh at some of the right-wing headbanger nonsense that came out of the IEA.
We fell for it once, this neo-liberal nonsense and now they’re trying it again. I don’t think there’ll be many takers. Or at least I hope not.
Interesting how few people have actually engaged the issues mark discusses.
Prateek the problem with your position is that there is an infinite amount of good things the state could do. You could spend the whole GDP on things which Lib Dems would approve of. So how do you decide when to stop?
Simon, it’s because his polling data is a nonsense and because short of quoting polling figures at us, there’s nothing to Mark’s article.
@Simon McGrath
“Interesting how few people have actually engaged the issues mark discusses.”
That’s because he hasn’t discussed any issues.
Astonishing. A survey finds that people don’t like money being taken away from them and do like it when they’re given money for free.
This sort of financial calculation tells us nothing about the role or otherwise of the state in society. It is a distraction from the real question, which is how much responsibility society should take in shared welfare. A subsidiary question is how much of that shared welfare should be delivered by the state, and how much by other agencies. Whatever the answer, the cost of delivering shared welfare is a tax on the common wealth.
@Andrew Tennant said: “…and implementing flat taxes that most benefit the rich – no thanks; I’ve no interest in making the poorest suffer to help those already living in privilege.”
On a flat tax (or a single rate of tax) I don’t think it is inevitable that the poorest would suffer. If, for example, we had single tax rate, say 25%, on all earnings above £10,000, someone on £20,000 per year would only be paying tax on 50% of his/her salary. Whereas someone earning £100,000 per year would be paying tax on 90% of his/her salary. It would mean that everyone pays the exact same tax rate (treating everyone equally) but, and with the provision that a great any tax exemptions are removed, the rich could actually end up paying much more, than they currently do. My point being that, at least in theory, a single tax rate could, implemented correctly, be progressive. Just a thought.
Cut public spending more and people would be forced to spend their tax savings on insurance instead. Health insurance, social care insurance, private pensions, private security, private education.
Fine for those whose tax cuts are big enough to pay for it. What about the rest?
@ mpg
The tax threshold is responsible for the benefits you mention in your post. I didn’t see any benefits from a flat rate tax.
It would simply mean less tax paid by those who can afford it and more tax paid by those who can’t.
There’s a breakdown of this IEA Report, I know this because my twitter stream is full of links from both left and right wing mocking it. A lot of the links where to http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/07/13/tory-mps-welcome-top-up-fees-for-schools-report/ .
A sample of the proposals.
” Scrap the NHS and replace it with Singapore-style private health vouchers. Introduce “top up fees for schools”, where parents pay around a quarter of the average costs of educating their children, and allow private companies to set up new schools, receive money from the government and make a profit.
Scrap all railway lines which don’t currently make a profit, and phase out all subsidies for bus travel, on the grounds that “Such transfers can be challenged on economic grounds, however, because they redistribute resources from productive individuals to non-productive individuals, thereby hampering the creation of wealth.” ”
Since you left the Lib Dem’s I’m not sure why you’re posting here as a non-guest Mark. I wasn’t sure where you’d gone but now I see that you joined the Monster Raving Loony party.
Also, you can’t draw anything valid from the poll you conducted apart from when asking people “Would you like the Government to give you 7500 pounds, no your not allowed to ask where they’d get it from, stop trying to look over my shoulder, would you like 7500 yes or no!”. , let alone the conclusions you have drawn.
Most of your proposals are mean spirited and you are a purveyor of terminological inexactitude.
the political silly season has began early with this. but littlewood pops up on newsnight and elsewhere as former senior dem spokesman
Simon,
I have at least taken the trouble to download the book (it’s free – so much better than having to pay £12.95 for it), and glance through it. Indeed, I thoroughly intend to read it in full at some point, as you never know what you might learn. I might even agree with parts of it, as I remain to be convinced that the State is a wholly benevolent creation.
However, Mark hasn’t really asked us to engage with it, merely attempting to blind us with some wholly bogus statistics that demonstrate, as others have pointed out, that if you offer someone lots of money, they’ll come up with an answer you like. By isolating their greed from their social conscience, he attempts to convince us all that those polled support the detail of the plan – always a tricky thing to do. And he’s done it rather ineptly.
And this is the problem that the Coalition has. Ask people if they believe that public spending should be reduced, even in our current perilous fiscal state, and they’ll say yes, right up to the point where it is perceived to hurt them. At least the Coalition is attempting to be honest in its approach – it isn’t always succeeding, but there is an effort being made. The IEA proposal does the same thing, or at least it would, if anyone knew what it was. I suspect that the detail won’t be promoted anywhere near as much as Mark is promoting himself.
So yes, engage by all means, but let’s do it out in the open, so that everyone can see. And then the people can be polled afterwards to see which they would prefer. Anyone want to bet that the pro-IES vote will still be at, or even near, 70%?
Damn, I was doing so well until that last sentence… For pro-IES, read pro-IEA…
@mark – i have downloaded, just not read it yet.
we should resume the discussion when we have read it!
Simon, I essentially have a rule of thumb for my time. If someone want to persuade me to consider something by creating bogus stats, push polling and other ludicrous ideas, I’d rather find something else to do with my time.
If that person has a history of trying to suck people in with dodgy stats, poor polls and daft proposals, then I’m even less likely to waste my time on a set of proposals that I was unlikely to favour in the first place.
“I support this because taxing over 40% of GDP is known to substantially decrease long-term growth, i.e. the stuff that preserves for your children the standard of living you enjoy today.”
Don’t you mean the stuff that results in ever-increasing standards of living – until you suddenly realise that the planet’s resources aren’t infinite?
Hadn’t there used to be a tradition of concern for the environment within the Lib Dems? Has that now been superseded by “Growth is God”?
@Hywel: the quote is “68% think we spend too much on foreign aid. 59% think it should be cut,” which Josh repeats in incredulity having been told the results of a terribly-worded poll with clearly (mis)-leading questions in it – entirely appropriate given the guff in the article above
@Simon McGrath – I wonder whether you have quite grasped the concept of democracy…? (don’t take that as a barb, sarcasm is hard to do in type on a comments thread
). It isn’t about spending a particular proportion of GDP on things Lib Dems approve of, it’s about democratically agreeing, through public debate and discourse, what it is that the State should do, then going about implementing it through elected representatives and executive arms of government.
This concept of democracy as deliberative public discourse is a genuine liberal philosophy stretching back millennia but it’s often forgotten – it isn’t about me or you or Nick Clegg deciding what to spend on and how much, it’s about us coming together as a nation and deciding what our priorities are.
In other words, when you ask ‘how do you decide when to stop?’ the answer is ‘when the people say so.’
@Daniel Henry: your point overlooks the reality that tax avoidance is something only the rich can do, and the poor can’t. Hence the poor always pay more tax proportionately than the rich actually do. Removing loopholes, especially for richer tax payers, might have the net effect of making the richer actually pay more tax, while reducing their tax compliance costs, thereby, maybe, making it more attractive for richer tax payers to stay in GB and pay a proportionately higher amount of tax. Again, don’t hold me to any of this, its just an idea. I’ve heard some very left-liberal thinkers defend such a conception of a single rate of tax, and I found interesting, they, and I, might be wrong as you say.
Historians will ponder why it was the Lib Dems when faced with an unpopular Labour Prime Minister and a unpopular Conservative leader, didn’t exploit the position better and they will alight on the role of Mark Littlewood, then Lib Dem director of communications. It was Mr Littlewood who first publically floated the idea that Proportional Representation would no longer be a deal breaker for coalition negotiations – well look what a mistake that was.
Perhaps the key sentence though is:
“If this isn’t the precise sort of tax cuts package you’d like, feel free to pick another on the same sort of scale. Averaged out, the savings amount to £7,500 per household.”
So how much would the median household on £25,000 a year be better off from the cuts inheritance tax or stamp duty or a 15p income tax rate ? And how much worse of because of the cuts to spending on health, education and pensions ? I’ll have a wild guess, it won’t be £7,500 a year.
And lets try it the other way, not exactly you back of an envelope spending cuts – try these instead: Leave the EU, end overseas aid, end housing benefit, cut other benefits to 25%, restrict treatments available on the NHS, bring back the death penalty slashing prison costs, introduce tuition fees for A levels, etc etc
I should be sympathic to some of the alledged aims of the IEA, but when it comes to the crunch, they line up with an extreme Tory world view everytime.
Actually, looking at this page again. Why is this bloke not put down as a guest? Even if we was a LD once then he’s clearly not one now – this isn’t economic liberal territory, this is insane ultra-libertarian territory (except without considering competition). If he still has any connections to the party, I’d advise the powers that be to drop him like a stone.
Wow, people say ‘yes’ to free cash – astonishing. Try asking questions about what level of reduction in public services people would be willing to accept in return for their ‘spectacular’ tax cuts.
You may or may not have something interesting to say in amongst the propaganda, but while you lead with such nonsensically skewed polling it’s hard to take you seriously.
Go and spend some time reading Anthony Wells’ very good UK polling report blog, then try to use your opinion polls properly and then perhaps people will engage with your arguments. Or just ditch the ‘our polls show that everyone will love it’ line and try to explain why you think your proposals are the right thing to do.
Sorry for the rant, but polling is a legitimate and useful method of testing opinion and every time someone skews the results to try to prove a point as you’ve done it (unfairly) diminishes the credibility of polling in many people’s eyes.
All I will say is well done Adrian Sanders.
“Mark Valladares
Posted 13th July 2011 at 10:24 pm | Permalink
Mark hasn’t really asked us to engage with it, merely attempting to blind us with some wholly bogus statistics that demonstrate, as others have pointed out, that if you offer someone lots of money, they’ll come up with an answer you like”
It might do for people to remember the circumstances which preceded Mr Littlewood’s cessation of employment with the Liberal Democrats. His axe is hardly the sharpest tool in the drawer.
@Prateeek – what you are suggesting is the mirror image of what Mark is suggesting. He talks about the savings from tax cuts without mentioning what services would be cut, you wnat the services without talking about the taxes.
If democracy is “about democratically agreeing, through public debate and discourse, what it is that the State should do” then you need to address the fact that some areas of public spending are clealry very unpoular. Increasing foreign aid for example is immensely unpopular and if you gave people a chocie between lower taxes and spending more money on aid we all know what they would vote for (I am not suggesting we should cut aid).
What we actually need is a debate which says ‘this is how much these things will cost, and this is the effect on your taxes. ‘ We in the LDs came closest to this with the policy of increasing income taxes to pay for more education spending.
Simon,
Actually, the book does make specified suggestions as to where the spending cuts would be made…
http://liberalbureaucracy.blogspot.com/2011/07/alright-mr-littlewood-enough-with-dodgy.html
“For all the sound and fury surrounding the coalition’s fiscal retrenchment, its proposals are actually amazingly modest. In real terms, public spending will fall by a mere 3% or so between now and the next election. For every pound the state was spending when Liberal Democrats took to their ministerial offices, it will be spending about 97p by 2015. ”
are you an idiot.? the demand on public sector will have increased massively by 2015 from 2010 (pop. growth, ageing pop., rising standards of living) and spending would have to increase to keep to current standards, however it is falling by 3% and given it is impossible to cut come areas (pay wont decrease, nhs, elderly care) many regions of public spending will suffer large cuts with rising demand hardly modest. this report proposes abolishing the nhs, free education and privatising roads (because it worked so well on rail) – a social and economic catastrophe. you asked the question to get the answer you wanted – people have no clue about % of gdp and want both smaller taxes but better services. if you had said end free education and free healthcare you would have 95% + against. lastly “Government spending – even in areas such as research and development, investment and education – has little or no beneficial effect on economic growth.” is right wing rubbish – no matter how low taxation if you dont have the skills, facilities provided by government research you will never generate investment and growth. in fact no study has ever found a link between high taxes and low growth (see sweden, germany)
@ex-lib dem
Exactly, not that your rational, evidence-based reasoning will have any effect on the Mail-reading fraternity.
This man is a lunatic! What is he trying to do? Plunge the country back into the dark ages – no NHS, no first class schools, no local services, no public housing, etc etc etc – all so that the rich can have more money. It doesn’t work, trickle down economics failed in the 1980′s and the areas decimated by the cuts implemented then that he wishes for now are still trying to recover thirty years later.
There is a very good critique of his madness if you follow the link:
http://www.allthatsleft.co.uk/2011/07/the-institute-of-economic-affairs-lies-damn-lies-and-right-wing-think-tanks/
Even were it true that cutting the size of the state to 30% of GDP from the current 40% would be a popular economic policy that is no reason to advocate it.
Populism might win an election, but the true legacy of a regime is measured by the scale and scope of any lasting effect not by the ability to gain and hold office.
If you do something you do it because it is just, fair and proper, not because you can point to indications it might be popular. Fake popularity is built on the back of empty reactionary promises, real popularity comes when people see the results of far-sighted positive policies.
I’m not immune to sympathising with arguments in which the state can be seen as too large or too small, but I’d like to see some more analysis of how policy challenges could be met through effective reforms before calculating how this could be paid for and how much it would cost – before you choose your cloth you have to decide what clothes you’re making.
Although I’m happy that the debate is happening here rather than elsewhere I think it would lead to a more productive outcome were there alternative suggestions to counterbalance Mark’s – after all LibDems have a hard-won reputation as the only party to credibly balance principled and pragmatic approaches.
Frankly, the consensus that tax-and-spend questions are the crucial issues is looking completely 20th Century with the continuing triumphs of liberal democrat ideals over corrupt and repressive dictatorships in Eastern Europe, Arab society and in the corporate world – the real question is which sector can be most securely deliver services to those who need them while maintaining the pace of social, political and economic integration?
Tax-cutting is only beneficial in proportion to the level of equity an individual holds, so without measures to ensure wealth is distributed equitably by applying standards to the widest possible number of people then it will inevitably exclude the groups who eventually turn into the ‘barbarians at the gates’ it is so easy to dismiss whilst they remain invisible to those imprisoned in their ivory towers.
The sovereign debt crisis engulfing Greece and others is fundamental to our future now that UK trade is overwhelmingly undertaken with our EU partners, and it will continue until we all shoulder our responsibility. Further afield the same old evils of famine and disease and war and brutality mark an ongoing human tragedy and hinder growth of the global economy – failure to contain and address these issues will result in a loss of leadership and make any respite we see nothing but a temporary illusion.
The IEA’s vauted faith in free trade might make a little more sense if their spokespeople were less naive in assuming the current global institutional architecture is sufficient – as current events are showing, even our own Metropolitan Police aren’t up to the job.
Is it just me or does this piece sound like a researcher from Family Fortunes has decided that their methodology is an appropriate way to make decisions about the nations finances.
it’s a shame that Mr Littlewood doesn’t have the courage of his convictions to come back and respond to the pretty mercilless critique of his daft ideas. Even Rebekkah Brooks and Rupert Murdoch agreed to answer their critics!
@londonliberal (and others). Sorry not to have responded to the wide range of comments above. I am drafting two articles at the moment, one of which is “Sharper Axes, Lower Taxes: Responding to Liberal Democrats”, which will address all (I hope) of the serious points raised above. I will be sure to post a link here. As a few people have raised the question, I resigned my memebrship of the LibDems when appointed director general of the IEA in late 2009, as the IEA is a non-partisan body.
On whetehr this is an “independent view” or a “guest column” or whatever, the IEA asked LDV if they’d take an article on this subject from me. They said “yes” and I wrote it. How they packaged it, or described me, or headlined it is entirely a matter for LDV’s editorial team.
We’ve been here before and the revival only began when some folks went off to form the IEA. Personally I’d rather they’d stay there
http://birkdalefocus.blogspot.com/2011/07/free-market-think-tank-madness-sadly.html
What an interesting post from Oranjepan, just chock full of assumptions. I love this bit – “If you do something you do it because it is just, fair and proper, not because you can point to indications it might be popular. Fake popularity is built on the back of empty reactionary promises, real popularity comes when people see the results of far-sighted positive policies.”
So….empty promises give rise to fake popularity, while the results of far-sighted policies lead to real popularity. Hmm. Does that mean that the party’s current unpopularity is actually a fake unpopularity, and when we reach the end of the first Five-Year Plan the People will suddenly realise the wisdom of all those job losses and public services cuts, and a rapturous, genuine popularity will then ensue, along with songs and waving flags etc?
Did I get that right?
Yes, that’s it Mike – when in the polling booth choosing between those that made the country stronger and those that nearly brought it to ruin.
Mike,
fortunes in politics are fickle. So I’m sure you don’t need to be told to be cautious of following crowds. LibDems don’t slavishly follow crowds, we try to make clear-headed decisions having considered all the options – which can be much more difficult than you might hope in the Westminster pressure cooker.
But if that means challenging public opion to create debate and facing some unpopularity in order to sharpen up some ideas, just as Mark has done here, then it chould be welcomed as a good way of illuminating where and why points of disagreement remain to get a better picture of the direction forwards through the fog of noise.
Disagreement is good – if it is done with a cooperative intent. It should be embraced, not shunned, as a sign that each side are willing to see if they have something to learn from the other. So I’m surprised you chose to make a personal response rather than consider the questions in the topic.
As far as I’m concerned I don’t think any government I’ve ever read about, current or historical, home or abroad, has ever met the requirements worthy of rapturous approval and I’d be worried about what it’d say about progressive politics if one ever did. As a result I’ll take your criticism as a graceless compliment – and if the economy starts hitting the right notes, particularly on employment, I think there’s significant numbers of people who will see it too.
Surely its a sad state of affairs for a liberal party when questioning that the size of the state should be significantly smaller than 51% of GDP (its current size) is something that is demonised with ad hominem attacks and not even worthy discussion.
Do the critics in this comments thread want to disown Gladstone, Mill, Cobden et all. They all presided over states that were under 10% of GDP, I’m not saying that they were necessarily right to do so but it seems a remarkable jump that suddenly now talking about 51% being too big is seen as some looney right wing idea.
If the state was 71% would saying it should be 51% be a looney right wing idea?
Or is it just that suddenly 51% is now the EXACTLY right level the state should be at, so anyone who suggests otherwise is going to damage this utopia we live in now?
Also another person who is not a liberal….Lord Beveridge…Sadly his report during WW2 called for an insurance based national health care, not one where the state produces healthcare…how sadly right wing of him.
@Mark Littlewood
Magificent! By proposing cuts that would have appalling consequences for the poor, you’ve succeeded in uniting the pro-coalition and anti-coalition posters on this site – despite the best efforts of a few, who, with a little coalition-baiting, have tried to drag the thread off topic.
Except, I can’t help but wonder if you’re actually serious about what you’re saying …