There’s no prize at stake – just the opportunity to prove you’re wittier than any other LDV reader…
Here is Tory Chancellor George Osborne flanked by the two Lib Dem members of the ‘Quad’, Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander. What do you think might be being said or thought by or about them?
This year’s budget was, in general, a good one for Lib Dems. Most notably, the party’s number one priority of taking more low-paid workers out of tax was fast-tracked, while the controversies, and specifically the cut in the 50p top-rate at a time when pensioners’ tax allowances are being frozen, have hit their Tory backers’ support in the polls.
However, there is one lesser noticed and malign Budget change, the ‘Charity Tax’ — a cap on tax relief which threatens to cost the charitable sector hundreds of millions of pounds — which has not attracted mainstream media attention. That needs to change if the Coalition is to be talked down from a policy with Lib Dem fingerprints on it, and which will undermine philanthropic giving at a time when it is needed more than ever during the public funding squeeze.
As the national political debate around the Budget moves on, one specific proposal is continuing to dominate both the headlines and my inbox – the so called ‘Pasty Tax’. The Chancellor’s proposals to change the VAT arrangements on hot food could see the tax being levied on pasties for the first time. The Treasury are currently consulting on the idea, and there remain some uncertainties that will need to be clarified.
I certainly understand the logic behind making sure that VAT is charged on hot food in places like large supermarkets to stop them undercutting local cafés and takeaways. But aside from the inevitable pasty puns in the press, there is serious concern across Cornwall.
It is often said that the best Budgets are usually those that get the immediate negative headlines. While the press has focused on the alleged “unfairness” of the Budget, history is likely to be rather kinder in suggesting that the budget has been much fairer than it at first sight appeared.
Imagine you have something you want to keep secret. You’re going to do something, and you don’t want anyone to know.
Chances are, you’ll take a look around and make sure there aren’t any TV cameras pointed at you and rolling away live coverage to several channels. Perhaps the memory of politicians running into problems with comments caught on microphones come to mind, and you’ll take a good look around to ensure there aren’t any in the same room as you that might be used by a national radio station or two.
Then you’ll remember to check you’re alone. Don’t want to …
In a significant victory for the Liberal Democrats, the Chancellor effectively introduced a 25 per cent minimum rate of tax in the Budget.
Under the changes, he will limit how much people offset their tax bills by investing in businesses or donating to charity.
Anyone seeking to claim more than £50,000 of tax relief in any one year will have a cap set at 25 per cent of their income from 2013.
Accountants said this means the wealthiest will have to pay at least 25 per cent of their income in tax. Although the highest rate of income tax is 50 per cent, reducing to 45 per cent next year, some wealthy people reduce their bills to almost nothing using different reliefs available from HM Revenue and Customs.
The introduction of this major change to the tax system is one of the main reasons why, as I wrote yesterday, if you are on more than £150,000, you will pay an extra £1,300 a year in tax on average as a result of this Budget.
There has been a very welcome recent revival of policy thinking in the Liberal Democrats, despite the large cuts to the party’s official policy research staff. This has included a new think tank (Liberal Insight) and good work by Richard Kemp and the local government sector in encouraging imaginative plans for making use of the new legal powers going to local government.
Added to this is the Social Liberal Forum’s further foray into economic policy-making, following up on some of their successful events with their first policy pamphlet. Prateek Buch’s “Plan C – social liberal approaches to a fair, …
As Nick Clegg has recently noted, there needs to be a ‘gear shift’ in infrastructure spending. Whilst George Osborne dots the i’s and crosses the t’s on his third budget, it is worth considering how such a ‘gear shift’ may be enacted. Localis has undertaken just such an analysis, and this week launched Credit Where Credit’s Due – produced in partnership with Lloyds Banking Group – that illustrates how local government can help deliver a step-change of this type from the bottom-up. Though our report alights on many policy areas, from increasing the powers of LEPs to astute asset management …
By Caron Lindsay
| Wed 22nd February 2012 - 12:53 pm
David Laws has argued at the Guardian’s Comment is Free site that the Coalition should accelerate Liberal Democrat tax cutting plans.
The government’s previous plan was for the allowance to rise in steps of £630 over the next few years, to reach £10,000 by April 2015. Clegg and chief treasury secretary Danny Alexander are rightly insisting that we look to bring forward those tax cuts. This week they seemed to attract the unlikely support of Labour’s Ed Balls. But his plan for a totally unfunded tax cut is as unlikely to convince the deputy prime minister as it is the chancellor.
When Ed Miliband accused David Cameron of a “failure of leadership” over it, Cameron promptly distanced himself from the process altogether, with George Osborne claiming it was due to rules put in place by Labour.
Boris Johnson seems to be against it, as is our usually economically …
David Cameron has been lobbied by the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, on the need to rewrite the government’s flagship benefit reform to help children suffering as a result.
Clegg proposed a series of changes to the £500-a-week cap, including exempting current claimants, in an attempt to ameliorate some of the worst consequences of the change, which critics claim will make 40,000 families homeless by making their current homes unaffordable.
It is understood Clegg made his appeal during a meeting attended by the chancellor, George Osborne, and Danny Alexander, chief secretary of the Treasury. Cameron asked the Liberal Democrats
By David Thorpe
| Thu 22nd December 2011 - 2:56 pm
If I were a cleverer person than I am, I would try to create a joke with a punch line to fit the following set-up: What’s the difference between a cut in government spending and an ideological cut in government spending?
That I’m not clever enough to create a pithy punch line is of no consequence, as it is no laughing matter.
Labour have sometimes tried to trail the line that the coalition’s cuts are avoidable, that there are the product of ideology rather than necessity.
This line lacked some credence because even as they …
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 14th December 2011 - 4:45 pm
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 550 party members responded, and we’re currently publishing the full results.
Lib Dem members give thumbs-up (mostly) to Osborne’s autumn statement
Two weeks ago, the Chancellor George Osborne updated MPs on the state of the economy and the government’s future plans in his Autumn Statement as the Office for Budget Responsibility published its latest growth and borrowing forecasts.
LDV asked: Do you support or oppose the following policies announced by the Chancellor? …
By Stephen Tall
| Tue 13th December 2011 - 7:45 am
“An avoidable disaster”: that is the verdict of the Financial Times’s Philip Stephens in a must-read article examining what went on behind the scenes of the Coalition’s strategy for approaching last week’s failed European summit. And his verdict on the Prime Minister and his advisers could scarcely be more scathing:
There was no great plan for a rupture. What some Tories now see as Mr Cameron’s Churchillian moment was rather the result of an inept negotiating strategy placed in the hands of an inexperienced prime minister.
So what did happen? On last night’s Newsnight former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown set …
Having followed the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement and then watched Danny Alexander interviewed on Newsnight on Tuesday I have to say my initial reaction was “oh, what is the point?”. That was a reaction to both substance and process.
The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, as the IFS analysis demonstrates, hits the poorest hardest and those on middle and higher incomes less hard. Most would call that regressive. I’m sure some bright spark can come up with an argument that if you look at the data from a different direction – on the basis of expenditure not income, for example – then it isn’t …
The political aftershock of George Osborne’s autumn statement is just beginning to sink in: the Coalition’s 5-year austerity programme, designed to end in 2015 by the time of the next general election, is now a 7-year programme straddling two parliaments.
This poses problems for the future of the Coalition, and for the Lib Dems in particular, encapsulated here by the FT’s Philip Stephens:
Here’s the paradox. The effect of sticking to economic plan A has been to shred the coalition government’s original political strategy. In the heady days after the 2010 election the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats signed up to
By Stephen Tall
| Thu 1st December 2011 - 11:35 am
Paul Walter’s LibDemVoice review of yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions mentioned the Ed Miliband soundbite which has been picked up by much of the media… but so far without the disbelief it’s due. Here’s what the Labour leader said:
The difference is that, unlike the Prime Minister, I am not going to demonise the dinner lady, the cleaner or the nurse, people who earn in a week what the Chancellor pays for his annual skiing holiday.
A quick reminder for those who don’t live in the Westminster bubble that, last January, it was revealed (by which I mean I read it …
How did George do then? The Chancellor needs to walk the line between providing stimulus on the one hand and protecting Britain from the bond markets on the other. It really isn’t easy to decide which side he should err on.
The bond markets are currently a ravenous pack of hyenas who have tasted blood in Greece, Italy and Portugal. Although they’re currently distracted by Belgium, Spain and now France even the slightest hint of weakness on Britain’s part will draw their perilous attention our way.
That said, protecting Britain from a bond market savaging must not be done at the expense …
Over at the London Evening Standard, Lib Dem MP for Yeovil and former Treasury chief secretary, David Laws, has a piece urging the chancellor to maintain the coalition’s deficit reduction plan to avoid importing the debt-driven eurozone crisis to Britain.
Here’s a sample:
Before the general election, many people said that a coalition would be weak and unstable. They don’t say that any more. By comparison with the eurozone and the US, our Government looks strong, stable and united. It is set to stay that way.
The Chancellor will be able to report that borrowing has been falling as planned. Borrowing from April
By Tony Dolphin
| Fri 25th November 2011 - 3:48 pm
Ahead of every recent budget and autumn statement, the right-of-centre think tanks have come out with a set of recommendations that support the broad thrust of government policy and argue for more of the same. True to form, earlier this week Reform made the case for sticking to Plan A on deficit reduction, abolishing the 50p tax rate and cutting workers’ employment rights.
But, with the economy having grown by just 0.5 per cent over the last year, and the Prime Minister hinting in a recent speech to the CBI that the government’s deficit reduction plan is being blown off course, …
The Financial Times this weekend reported what it labelled ‘one of the fiercest and most fascinating political battles of the year’ — a battle which looks set to pitch David Laws and Nick Clegg against George Osborne and the Labour leadership.
The issue concerns the amount by which the Coalition should increase benefits: based on September’s inflation figure, this should be 5.2%. The Tories are pushing for a below-inflation settlement, but Mr Laws — co-editor of The Orange Book, and firmly identified as an economic liberal — is urging the Lib Dems to reject such a move:
Like London buses, Tory / Liberal Democrat disagreements are coming along all bunched together at the moment:
Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has criticised “climate sceptics” and others who he argues are decrying the UK’s potential for renewable power … His comments are being interpreted by some as a riposte to Chancellor George Osborne who is believed to be more sceptical about the investment needed. (BBC)
Vince Cable rejects proposal to abolish unfair dismissal laws: Business secretary said plan devised by strategist Steve Hilton was unnecessary and unlikely to improve labour market flexibility (The Guardian)
News last week that the Big Six energy firms are raking in bumper profits while the nation struggles with soaring fuel bills was just the latest electric shock to hit cash-strapped families.
Ofgem’s revelation that energy firm profit margins have risen to £125 per customer per year, from £15 in June, will crank up pressure on the Government to act – and rightly so.
But if Ministers really want to get to grips with soaring fuel bills we must also tackle the root cause – our nation’s reliance on increasingly expensive gas, coal and oil and the failure of the Big Six
In a wide-ranging interview with the Observer, Featherstone said it was vital the coalition delivered on its family-friendly rhetoric … In a forthright attack on some of the advisers shaping government policy, she criticised the role of Adrian Beecroft, a venture capitalist tasked with reporting to the prime minister on how to cut regulation on business. Beecroft is understood to have recommended a U-turn on government policies on shared parental leave and flexible working.
The proposals, outlined in a white paper, would allow couples greater freedom to co-ordinate maternity and paternity leave. A separate proposal would make it
The Chancellor has infuriated No. 10 and Cabinet colleagues by refusing to endorse a key component in the policy to boost renewable energy.
In an extraordinary move last week George Osborne was rebuked by David Cameron’s aides for failing to come on board for a key green policy.
At a meeting on Monday the prime minister’s most senior official, Jeremy Heywood, gave a dressing down to an Osborne adviser over the Chancellor’s failure to rubber stamp the new price that power companies will pay for renewable energy such as solar, wave and wind power.
By Prateek Buch
| Thu 29th September 2011 - 3:53 pm
Leading commentators on the political economy must have been flattered to hear many of their principles and policies given lip service by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls this week in his speech to the Labour party conference. Flattered only to be deceived, sadly, as lip service is all he paid; underneath the rhetorical support for a reformed political economy promoted by the likes of Will Hutton, the Institute for Public Policy Research, Ha-Joon Chang and others, Balls’ prescription for the UK economy amounts to little more than tinkering with the same old policy levers that haven’t worked in the past.
By Ed Randall
| Tue 27th September 2011 - 12:28 pm
Having just left one party conference, where I was able to deliver my message on the shortcomings of the Coalition Government’s strategy to revive the UK economy and to promote my alternative take on the official Lib Dem approach to party policy development, in advance of the next General Election, (see Facing the Future ), I am now waiting to hear what George Osborne has to say at the Tory party conference in Manchester, in just a few days’ time.
Labour really is – as Alistair Campbell has recently put it – the third most interesting party in the …
The public’s attitude towards gloomy politicians is a curious one: only too happy to mock politicians who only talk up the positive but also frequently going off politicians who talk up the negatives. It happens across all parties, as we saw in the last Parliament where both Alistair Darling and George Osborne tried talking gloomily about the country’s economic difficulties and, far from being met by public support for their frankness, saw widespread criticism and slipping poll ratings. Journalists may love knocking politicians for not having been gloomier during the 2010 general election, but all the nearly all the signs …
Tim Farron is probably the Parliamentary Party’s best funny speech maker (though I’d pay good money to see him head-to-head in a laugh off with Alistair Carmichael), so it’s not a surprise that Tim’s speech to Liberal Democrat conference caught the headlines mostly for his humour and his stress-testing of political marriage analogies to destruction.
Yet there was a significant section about how Liberal Democrat ministers act and his own role:
There are 18 Liberal Democrats who don’t have the luxuries that I do.
They can’t just sound off if they don’t like government policy or trot through the no lobby on
Mr Clegg made clear that the Liberal Democrats would back abolition of the 50p rate in the long run only if it is not raising much revenue and if it is replaced by new taxes on “unearned income”. These could include a 1 per cent annual “mansion tax” on homes worth more than £2m, a land tax, and restricting tax relief on pensions to the basic 20p rate.
Tom Arms I meant to say that the UK supplies the nuclear warheads for its deterrent....
Tom Arms There are some areas where the US is likely to dominate for a very long time. Space is an obvious one. Ukraine would be up the proverbial creek without America'...
Ruth Bright @Paul is surely right, do we have age breakdowns for stats on members and active supporters?...
Tom Bailey Alex Macfie says:
"He [Farage], has just seized on one case of supposed “anti-white bias” by the police (the only one available)"
So the 3 decades of Brit...
Alex Macfie @Simon Robinson &c: Please stop pretending Nigel Farage is acting in good faith. He has just seized on one case of supposed "anti-white bias" by the police ...
Boris Johnson seems to be against it, as is our usually economically …
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Knaptoft: The very heart of England
We do have a two-tier policing system but it is not what our homegrown racists think it is.
From Norman settlement to a civic square
Tom Arms 
Ruth Bright 
Tom Bailey 
Alex Macfie 