That time of year again

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I’m on the last page of my calendar and so it dawns on me that we’re at that time of year again, when smug adverts from the government will have “friendly” cartoon chaps or amusing eccentric types telling us that handing over vast chunks of our money for the government to piss up the wall is actually quite a pleasant thing to do. I am of course referring to the traditional “tax needn’t be taxing” campaign which comes around to brighten everyone’s Christmas.

That’s right apparently the tax man taking 70% of your earnings isn’t really so bad, you know paying the (reportedly) Top tax rate in the world is really cool, given how much we get for it. It is in fact so much fun to pay that since the Government brought in the 50p rate two thirds of millionaires have left obviously paying that much tax was too much fun for them. I suspect that having gone through the effort of upping sticks like that they’ll not be in a rush to come back, and Thomas Pascoe makes a cogent argument that the innovators just starting out are probably buggering off as well before they set down roots in this country. After all why innovate in a country which is going to take a minimum of a third of what you make upfront before you even get started, with the promise of taking even more the better you do your self. Oh and that genius 50p rate wheeze has already reduced tax revenue by 7 billion so that worked well.

We’re told that it’s all the fault of big bad companies not paying taxes here, but instead paying them in cheaper tax regimes in Europe – which is seen as the companies fault when it’s a design feature of the very EU our great and good and uk-uncut types seem so keen for us to remain part of. Even that though neglects the problem that comanies don’t pay taxes, people do, which to my mind makes the moral argument against high levels of taxation even stronger. Oh and that “minimum pricing” I’ve been banging on about that will raise inflation raising benefits meaning we’ll all get taxed more to cover it.

Beyond all that it’s worth remembering that even paying all of your taxes like you’re told to isn’t always enough to stop the taxman randomly destroying your livelihood. Still I suppose someone has to pay for all those cheery friendly advertising campaigns to tell us how easy it is to pay taxes.

Update If the above wasn’t enough they’re now checking to see if you’re spending more than they think you should be able to. Don’t mention that our MPs are still fiddling their expenses whilst lecturing us about a small minority not paying their share and cheating the system.

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A good day

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Cobb tree catkins in frost It’s almost December and today saw the first proper frost of the winter down in my neck of the woods, leaving a shimmer on the bamboo and Cobb nut trees in my garden (pictured), and despite everything today has been a good day. For the first time in ages I almost start to wonder , like Snowolf did a while back if maybe there may yet be change in the air.

Despite Mr Clegg showing once more why they should be called the illiberal democrats (and people may be noticing) by teaming up with Mr Milliband to clamor for state regulation of the press Mr Cameron seems to have had a few braincells fire and worked out that this is a bad thing[tm]. The Spectator very nicely stuck two fingers up at the idea of regulation as well.

UKIP came second in two by-elections (and just for poetry third in a third) and so are starting to be credible as a political party, but better than that have further given lie to the fallacy of there being such a thing as wasted votes (unless you count every vote against the winning party as wasted) and have shown that the “big three” are guaranteed to have it all go their way. Enough “upsets” like this and the other political parties might start remembering why it’s a good idea to listen to the electorate and actually try to represent them, not loot our pockets all the time whilst passing needless laws and nagging us to death.

Even there on the nagging front there’s hope. Whilst minimum pricing is till being pushed through and for now fake charities are getting our money to lobby government for what the government wants, they’ve been told to stop it. And closer to home as Leg Iron so kindly reports after just a week Drinkuary has almost twice as many people signed up on Facebook as the state funded properly organized “Dry January”. Of course it’d be nice to have people throwing a few more coppers into the beer mat fund over there as 1,000 mats won’t hit many pubs – but that’d just be icing.

Today is a good day and now I’m going to go get a pint and for now ignore the bad news they buried

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What would Stalin do?

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What would Stalin do? Over at Dizzy Thinks, there is a rather fine article asking if it’s time to apply the Stalin test once more. It’s well worth reading the whole thing, but it poses this very simple question, which I’ve paraphrased as “What would Stalin do?” being more eloquent he sums it up as:

“The purpose of the question is to ask ourselves what the potential future enabling power of our actions might be.

In fact, we don’t have to use Stalin. We could as easily use someone closer to home, our own authoritarian and totalitarian dictator, Oliver Cromwell and his puritanical zeal. Would he like the idea of statutory regulation of the press?”

This is the question I find myself asking every time a new bit of legislation comes out to protect this, save that or control the other. What is the worst possible way this legislation could be applied, if someone in power had it in for me how could they use this legislation against me, or any other group of people. At the moment we’re assured that everyone in Government, the judiciary and civil service are terribly nice chaps and wouldn’t possibly ever stretch a law to target a group that the law wasn’t actually aimed at. Now even ignoring that for the patent nonsense it is, lets suspend disbelief for a moment and assume it’s true, can we always assume that it will be true in future? Or should we be asking our legislature to perhaps not pass laws that some future unpleasant sort might decide to use in less terribly nice and maternal ways?

If a contract had a clause in it which said that the other party could at some point rip out your spleen for using a proscribed word, you wouldn’t sign it – would you? Even if you were assured that the current management who you get on with terribly well only have it in place due to some terribly terribly horrid things some rough sort once said, and that obviously it would never apply to you. So why do we accept the same sort of self amending catch all laws from our Government and more to the point why do they keep passing them? Today it may be press regulation, but how that’s regulated and what counts as the press is all terribly nebulous and easy to change. As has been observed all the terribly phone hacking and such was already illegal and people are getting charged for it, why do we need yet more legislation and more bureaucrats (at more cost) to gild it? So would Stalin like to have a statutory body to regulate the press, I suspect he might. Even if it’s not made of politicians who’s going to appoint the body? Will the people on the body perhaps want to keep the person who appointed them sweet to stay appointed and remunerated? Of course I’m not saying a regulated press in the UK will become Pravda, but it would be putting into place the frame work to make it a lot easier and more likely that it future it might do.

I’ll leave the last word to Dizzy:
“Right now we live in a democratic country. We vote, and we can, at least every few years, remove the Government and put in a new one. As you mull over whether you agree with the statutory regulation of the press remember this, it might not always be that way, and if it isn’t do you think such regulation will be a friend or enemy of any future tyrant? “

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