Osborne has to eat his words?

[sandie 11]

Andreas Whittam Smith: What the Coalition have got right so far?

 

1. It has generated the most hard fought attempt ever undertaken to simplify the welfare system and to target it more precisely at areas of genuine need. Out of the struggle between a driven idealist, Iain Duncan Smith, who is Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and a hard- faced Treasury there may come an imaginative, practical solution. The question whether the better off should receive child benefits and, when they pass the age of 60, winter fuel payments, bus passes, free eye tests and free TV licences is up for debate, as it should be.

 

2. The announcement of a reduction in government press officers weakens the army of spin.

 

3. The question is at last being asked whether it is fair that through their taxes, employers and employees in the private sector should have to fund retirement benefits for public sector workers that in the private sector they cannot afford to arrange for themselves – pensions that are inflation-linked, guaranteed and unfunded. To study this scandal, a commission to review the long-term affordability of public sector pensions has been established.

 

4. The oversupply of generals, admirals and air marshals is being tackled. It is an extraordinary fact that when organisations shrink, the first to go are the rank and file, leaving a surplus of executives. You can see the same phenomenon in the Roman Catholic Church in recent years – fewer priests, same number of bishops.

 

5. Talk about entering a no-go area. The Coalition has opened up the question whether council housing should be more closely related to need than the current system of tenancies for life allows. About one fifth of council tenants don't need subsidised housing, for they earn more than the median UK salary of £20,801. Moreover, much of the space is unused – some 430,000 social housing homes have two spare bedrooms. Yet the 1.8 million families on the list for council housing must wait an average of seven years before they qualify. Dealing with people's homes is not easy territory. No previous government has raised the issue.

 

6. Setting ambitious targets for cuts in administrative spending by government departments and quangos at least has the virtue of bringing about an overdue consideration of priorities and of long established methods of doing things. Are the same old methods really the best? Does the Government need to fund all that it currently does? These are good questions.

 

7. The axing of the Film Council and the Audit Commission has put all quangos on notice that that they have no divine right to exist. This jolt to their self-esteem will do nothing but good.

 

8. The notoriously inefficient Ministry of Defence is being put to the test. It had made plans to spend around £37bn over the next 10 years without knowing where the money is coming from, of which £20bn relates to equipment and support. And all this without having answered a question of principle: what size and type of armed forces do we need to deal with what risks? Must we always be ready to do another Iraq or Afghanistan?

 

9. Private suppliers of goods and services may less often dupe the Government now that some contracts are to be renegotiated.

 

10. The emphasis on welfare fraud has, perversely, turned the spotlight on a much bigger leakage of tax revenues – middle-class and corporate tax dodging. It is now a very interesting question whether the Coalition government can take action against the one without tackling the other.

 

11. At last we have a Secretary of State for Justice, Ken Clarke, who queries the purpose and profit of sending increasing numbers of criminals to prison. The total has doubled since the early 1990s. Mr Clarke has asked whether the public actually feels any safer as a result of the huge increase in the population. Good question. Can we hope that prisons will now become places of "education, hard work and change", as Mr Clarke says, as well as of punishment?

 

12. We are going back to the Victorian idea – and none the worse for that – that "saving candle ends" should be a duty on government departments whose only resource is, after all, our money. Public servants are being obliged to manage taxpayers' money wisely. In addition, each secretary of state is to appoint a minister with specific responsibility for driving value for money across his or her department and the role of the departmental finance director is to be strengthened.

 

13. The Government is using the power of the internet to curb waste. The Secretary of State for Communities has led the way by publishing online details of every item of departmental spending on goods and services over £500 in 2009/10. The public can now see what was purchased, for how much and from whom. Previously unseen Department data shows 1,900 separate items of expenditure totalling £314m. This includes £635,000 on taxis and cars and nearly £310,000 on catering and food. They also show the Department last year spent £16m on marketing, advertising, promotion and events. The Treasury is committed to publishing online all new items of central government spending over £25,000 from November. This is a powerful deterrent to overspending.

 

14. The notion that, by setting a multiplicity of targets and enforcing them, ministers can ensure acceptable delivery of public services, has been dropped. This New Labour idea was government by diktat and wasn't really "management" at all in the commonly accepted sense of the word.

 

15. The police have been told that they are not a protected species that can preserve unreasonable perks through thick and thin. A review of the terms and conditions for police officer employment has been announced.

 

16. The Government may at last gain full advantage from its enormous buying power.

 

17. Never before has the help of the general public been enlisted for such an exercise. Some dismiss this as mere public relations. But 100,000 members of the public haven't thought so; they have already had their say. They have provided detailed, well-informed comments and suggestions.

 

18. Finally, whatever the results of the Spending Review, good or bad, as time will tell, they will have been the product of proper Cabinet government and collective decision-making by ministers. That is a welcome change.

 

Ref: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/andreas-whittam-smith/andreas-whittam-smith-what-the-coalition-have-got-right-so-far-2056112.html

 

+ The abolition of ID cards amongst other things.

What a load of rubbish none of the dribble you replied with has been implimented. You feel that all these proposals are good news, well I do beg to differ we are on a collision course to unrest and disaster. Not sure where you "cut and pasted" your comments from but is as much use as a chocalate fire guard it stinks.

 

Putting people out of work will not help us grow, without people in work the tax income goes down and the benifit bill goes up even you should understand that.

Edited August 27, 2010 by sandie

[artisan 10]

In serapis's post above reference is made to the Police no longer being in favour with the Tories.

They should remember who made the Police a special case.

Thatcher.

She used them as a private army of thugs to demoralise and batter the Northern working class, and espescially the miners.

I well remember the cockney coppers being sent up here to swagger round the streets of our towns and villages like some occupying force.

Our own coppers were then tarred with the same brush, and it was then that respect for the Police force was lost, and the base for the current lawless situation was laid.

 

It really matters not who is running the show with the Tories, they will never be trusted by the people again whilst ever the architect of all our problems is alive, and so prominent in their party.

[mossdog 10]

He's all heart is that lad. Save's the taxpayer £xxx and makes him self a cool£72k a year. No flies on Dave!

 

He's already 'worth' a supposed £30M, why are these people always looking to make even more money, aren't they ever satisfied?

Well!.............why not ask the Socialist King of cash.......the great Teflon ?

[emma royd 10]

They wouldn't if I was in charge - fortunately for them I'm not.

I also wouldn't pay footballers enough for them to worry about the tax bill.

 

I'm sure they would be in tears throughout their flights to Barcelona, Madrid, Rome etc etc...

 

So how would you propose to tax Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button etc?

[mj.scuba 10]

The majority should share the majority of the burden. Seems daft for the majority to expect a minority to pick up their share.

[emma royd 10]

Well!.............why not ask the Socialist King of cash.......the great Teflon ?

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/propertynews/7822976/Blairs-property-portfolio-reaches-14-million.html

 

Quote..

 

Blair's property portfolio reaches £14 million

 

unquote..

 

I was particularly intrigued by how Euan Blair had bought his £550,000 flat 2 1/2 years ago when he hadn't started work, the gift tax rules being what they are. Now it seems he has outgrown that one and despite working for only 2 years on a £30K salary has managed to buy a place costing £1.2 million..

Edited August 27, 2010 by emma royd

[Organgrinder 1,946]

I'm sure they would be in tears throughout their flights to Barcelona, Madrid, Rome etc etc...

 

So how would you propose to tax Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button etc?

 

Easy - anyone who works in this country would pay tax on any money they earned here.

If they want to work elsewhere - fine.

[artisan 10]

Tony Blair, in his new found Catholicism must deep down be hoping there is really no afterlife where he has to face God.

 

He would do well to remember the old saying

'When you sup with the Devil use a long spoon'.

Tony's spoon has a very, very short handle, at present.

So much so that he is almost kissing the Devil.

 

Someone earlier called him a Socialist.

He has never been a socialist, he may have been a fellow traveller for a time when he was younger, but he is a lost cause now.

[emma royd 10]

Easy - anyone who works in this country would pay tax on any money they earned here.

If they want to work elsewhere - fine.

 

I'm sure that it would do wonders for our teams chances in European Super League.

 

You still haven't said how you would tax Grand Prix drivers. Whilst you are at it how about Tennis Players Golfers and Olympic athletes.

[artisan 10]

I'm sure that it would do wonders for our teams chances in European Super League.

 

You still haven't said how you would tax Grand Prix drivers. Whilst you are at it how about Tennis Players Golfers and Olympic athletes.

 

Are you saying that the Exchequer should let them all off paying tax because they are rich and famous?

Sounds a bit like France in the 18th century, where the rich paid no tax, and the poor paid for it all.

And we know how that ended up.

[emma royd 10]

Are you saying that the Exchequer should let them all off paying tax because they are rich and famous?

Sounds a bit like France in the 18th century, where the rich paid no tax, and the poor paid for it all.

And we know how that ended up.

 

I said nothing of the sort. I said that if UK Premier League players were not allowed to declare themselves "Non Dom" for tax purposes they would require salaries twice as high to make up their take home pay. As UK clubs could not afford to pay that money the high rollers would clear off to Europen clubs where they can take home more from lower earnings. A lot already have. It wouldn't leave our teams with much talent for European competition.

 

I still await someone telling me how to force taxes out of golfers, tennis players and Grand Prix drivers.

[wednesday1 10]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/propertynews/7822976/Blairs-property-portfolio-reaches-14-million.html

 

Quote..

 

Blair's property portfolio reaches £14 million

 

unquote..

 

I was particularly intrigued by how Euan Blair had bought his £550,000 flat 2 1/2 years ago when he hadn't started work, the gift tax rules being what they are. Now it seems he has outgrown that one and despite working for only 2 years on a £30K salary has managed to buy a place costing £1.2 million..

 

 

Atleast Blair made his own wealth, his wasn't given to him on a plate by his folks or by marrying the daughter of a wealthy aristocrat, like Cameron.