Author Archives: Joe Bourke

Joe Bourke

Opinion: Rock Salmon and Chips anyone?

By Joe Bourke | Tue 28th August 2012 - 1:30 pm

Fish and Chips

Before the rise in popularity of Indian curries, kebabs and Chinese take aways, battered fish and chips were considered the British national dish. Rock salmon was a staple – among the cheapest offerings in fish and chip shops around the country. However, demand for “rock salmon” devastated the shark’s population off the coasts of Britain and France, where the spiny dogfish is widely considered to be critically endangered.

The Common Fisheries Policy was introduced by the European Union in the 1970s to ensure a profitable and sustainable fishing industry – an objective in which it has completely failed.

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: Land Value Tax – an old idea with lots of modern supporters

By Joe Bourke | Thu 10th May 2012 - 5:56 pm

Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations (1776) was an early proponent of land taxes as was that great radical Tom Paine.

John Stuart Mill was an advocate and Henry George put the case in ‘Progress and Poverty’ (1879).

The economist David Ricardo gave us the concept of economic “rent” – that land or property derives its value from scarcity rather than investment.

In the debates before and after the peoples budget of 1909 both Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George argued strongly for the introduction of a land tax.

The economists John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman recommended Land Value Tax (LVT) for …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: The pensions crisis

By Joe Bourke | Mon 23rd April 2012 - 11:55 am

The Department for Work and Pensions warns that many final salary schemes have already closed down and those that survive will be closed to new entrants within six years.

The average defined contribution pot – the pension now replacing the more generous final salary scheme – is £26,000. At current rates, this fund would buy a Joint life 50%, 3% escalation annuity of less than £1000 per year.

One in six people retiring this year have not saved into a private pension or accumulated other assets, so will see their salaries replaced with the state pension only.

To provide for a pension in …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: A Mansion Tax to replace higher rate tax?

By Joe Bourke | Wed 18th April 2012 - 10:55 am

Mansion tax is not Land Value Tax, but it is a place to start down the road to shifting a significant part of the tax base from income to wealth.

There seems little argument that mansion tax would be a more effective method of taxing non-resident Non-Doms who acquired over 60% of the properties valued at over £2m in recent times.

The inequalities in wealth in the UK far outstrip inequalities in income. The top 10% of households own more wealth than the rest put together: 0.3 per cent of Britain’s population owns 69 per cent of its land.

The HMRC report …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: What do Charity tax and higher rate pension relief have in common?

By Joe Bourke | Mon 16th April 2012 - 12:24 pm

We have seen much furore over the effects that a restriction on the level of higher rate tax relief for charitable deductions may have on philanthropy. Nine out of ten charities are opposed to such a move and warn that large donations could reduce by as much as 20%. In the Lib Dem 2010 manifesto, we proposed reforming gift aid to operate at a single rate of 23%, giving more money to charity while closing down a loophole for higher rate taxpayers.

The 2010 manifesto also proposed giving tax …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: Time for the Party to propose the Citizen’s Income

By Joe Bourke | Wed 11th April 2012 - 10:55 am

The Centre Forum paper Taxing Decisions discusses the pros and cons of tax credits and tax allowances. The report reviews tax options for tackling the income and wealth disparities which have become a feature of British society in recent decades.

Reducing the level of inequality benefits everyone in society, rich and poor alike. I would argue that in an inclusive and more equal society, all citizens should pay tax on their income. Means tested benefits have not delivered for us. Child poverty, and unemployment are entrenched with the resulting societal breakdown. The way out of poverty is work. The best …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: Good borrowing and bad borrowing

By Joe Bourke | Sun 8th April 2012 - 2:35 pm

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” So says Lord Polonius to his son Laertes in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Good advice for young people starting out in life, but the modern economy of the 21st century depends on the constant circulation of money and credit. We all need to borrow to buy a house, for University etc. Firms need to borrow for investment in equipment and working capital. Government needs to borrow to finance infrastructure. That’s good borrowing.

If, however, debt is being racked up to buy imported tack or fund boozy nights out, we would think of that as bad borrowing.

There …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: Getting radical with the money supply

By Joe Bourke | Tue 3rd April 2012 - 1:34 pm

Last week the OECD forecast that Britain was about to experience a double-dip recession, for the first time since 1975. Vince Cable in his Centreforum paper Moving from the financial crisis to sustainable growth asks “How far should monetary policy now be expanded further in the UK to boost demand and head off a period of poor growth?

He goes on to say “There is no possibility for further meaningful interest rate cuts – real short term rates are now minus 4 percent. That means further recourse to quantitative easing.

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: Building an economic recovery

By Joe Bourke | Wed 28th March 2012 - 2:56 pm

Two issues on which there appears to be virtual universal consensus across the political spectrum are  the pressing need to address the UK‘s housing problems and the economic benefits of a rejuvenated construction sector. The lack of adequate affordable and social housing has been a major weakness of the UK economy and social fabric for many years.

This problem has manifested itself in seriously overpriced housing costs relative to incomes, soaring housing benefit expenditures, uncompetitive labour costs and inter-generational inequity.

The Centreforum report Delivering growth while reducing deficits – lessons from the 1930s  highlights the major part that house building played …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: Jobs and the economy must feature in Brian Paddick’s mayoral campaign

By Joe Bourke | Wed 21st March 2012 - 3:55 pm

Last weekend, in common with many Team London activists, I was out delivering literature for the upcoming mayoral election.

In a recent Ipsos MORI poll, commissioned by BBC London, some 59% of respondents cited jobs; growth and the economy as the most important issues that Londoners say will help them decide who to vote for in the upcoming mayoral election. This chimes with my own experience of feedback on the doorstep.

Tackling crime (49%), improving public transport (38%) and building cheap homes (37%) were the other top issues.

During the 2008 election, our candidate Brian Paddick, polled a little less than 10% of …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: Let’s raise tax threshold to £10,000 for all taxpayers

By Joe Bourke | Thu 15th March 2012 - 8:57 am

To keep the cost down, the increase of £1,000 in the personal allowance this year excluded higher rate taxpayers and over 65’s. Also, the higher rate threshold was reduced to bring more people and income into the 40% tax band.

The 2011 budget announced an increase in the personal allowance for under 65’s by £630 in April 2012, with the higher rate threshold unchanged. The freezing of the higher rate threshold brings more people and a greater proportion of existing earnings into the higher rate band – so-called fiscal drag.

This process seems consistent with the aim of increasing the personal allowance …

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Joe Bourke

Extending the LibDem youth contract to self-employment

By Joe Bourke | Mon 12th March 2012 - 10:54 am

Small and medium sized businesses account for 51% of turnover and 55% of employment (DTI figures). They primarily employ UK based staff and pay full UK tax on the value generated here.

Equipping young people with the training and skills for self-employment has the advantage of developing a more flexible and resilient workforce, better able to adjust to a fast changing economy, as well as enlarging the pool of entrepreneurs capable of starting and growing small business concerns.

An enhanced Liberal Democrat youth contract aimed at developing a base of budding entrepreneurs, would establish a core of upwardly mobile, aspirational self-starters, a …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: Job Guarantees – an economic stimulus worth considering?

By Joe Bourke | Thu 1st March 2012 - 5:56 pm

India introduced a job guarantee programme, for the rural poor in 2005. It was dismissed by many as fiscal folly. Yet this developing country has weathered the financial storms of the economic downturn far better than most European countries. Argentina ran a successful programme in the wake of their debt default and Canada has had a good experience with such programmes.

Job guarantee as an economic policy builds on the concept of employer of last resort. The policy requires that the public sector offers a fixed wage job to anyone willing and able to work. The job pool expands when private …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: guaranteed employment for young people

By Joe Bourke | Sun 26th February 2012 - 10:45 am

This is part two of a two-part post regarding policies to tackle youth unemployment – part one is here.

Welcome as the youth contract initiatives have been, I do not believe that they are yet comprehensive enough to adequately address what has been and remains a long-term endemic problem with youth employment in the UK.

For 16-24 year olds not in education, training or employment, we ultimately need to be able to offer a guarantee of paid work within a structured training program, albeit at minimum wage, even if this is in the public sector. The jobs and training would …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: tax and benefit reform to help tackle youth unemployment

By Joe Bourke | Fri 24th February 2012 - 6:00 pm

In a two-part investigation, Joe Bourke looks at youth unemployment. Sunday’s part two will have details of policies designed to provide guaranteed employment for 16-24 year-olds. In part one, we discuss changes to the tax system that would make such policies affordable.

If the 2012 budget sees the personal allowance increased to £10,000 we will have achieved a key plank of the 2010 manifesto and provided some welcome relief to the squeeze on incomes that has come not least from the increase in VAT to 20%.

Whether the increase in the personal allowance is achieved in this budget or subsequently, we will soon need to …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: Foreign policy lessons for the Lib Dem approach to Iran

By Joe Bourke | Thu 22nd December 2011 - 4:26 pm

The Green movement in Iran after the presidential elections in 2009 was the first of the recent popular backlashes against entrenched corruption in authoritarian regimes. That was followed by the Arab spring, continuing upheaval in Egypt and now a similar movement in Russia and elsewhere.

At the time of the electoral protests in Tehran, Iranian staff at the British embassy were being accused by the Iranian authorities of treason and fomenting unrest. There was only muted support for the reform movement in Iran from the international community.

Last month we saw the British Embassy in Tehran ransacked and vandalised

…

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: Why we should all be 40% taxpayers!

By Joe Bourke | Sun 18th October 2009 - 11:10 am

With the Liberal Democrats now committed to raising the annual tax personal allowance to £10,000, thoughts must turn to ways and means of following through on this pledge.

As I see it, there are three principal areas to be fleshed out.

1. Should the benefit of this proposed £700 per person tax reduction be extended across the board or restricted to the approximately 4 million taxpayers earning below the level of the minimum wage?
2. Should we seek to eliminate both tax and national insurance payments for the taxpayers earning below the level of the minimum wage?
3. In light of a continuing projected structural budget deficit of circa 80 to 90 billion per year, how is the cost of this tax measure best absorbed while simultaneously seeking both tax increases and spending cuts?

National insurance is now purely an additional tax. There is no insurance scheme in the accepted sense. Only around one-half of social security and health service costs are financed by national insurance contributions.

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: Why the Liberal Democrats should propose a Flat Tax

By Joe Bourke | Fri 24th April 2009 - 9:02 pm

The pre-budget announcement that the party will pledge to raise the income tax personal allowance to £10,000 by closing tax loopholes exploited by big businesses and the wealthy has been well received by members and by the mainstream press.

The headline cut in income tax of £700 is based on the increase in the personal allowance from the current level of £6,435 to £10,000 at the basic rate of 20%. No mention however, has been made of increasing the national insurance threshold by a similar amount, to effectively take out minimum wage earners from the tax net altogether.

A single combined …

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