Taxing times for the Chancellor

With the UK budget scheduled to be unveiled on March 20th, Chancellor George Osbourne is receiving lots of advice on what to do.  So I will throw in my 'two-pennorth worth'.

Essentially there are three problems.  The UK is over-taxed, lacks economic growth and is over-stretched, debt and deficit wise.

I hold to the opinion that economic growth and tax reductions are self-supporting.  Cuts in taxes (however these are labelled) will stimulate growth.  There has been talk of further bouts of Quantitative Easing - where the Bank of England prints 'money' and pumps this into the economy.  I still hold to the view that the only way such inflationary measures will work is if you actually put the money printed, directly into the hands of consumers.  Please don't tell me that the BofE buying government debt is benefiting the economy (I will return to this later).

So to tax cuts and economic growth.

Firstly, let's do something simple about employer National Insurance Contributions (NIC).  Though how something that is compulsory can be called a 'contribution' escapes me.  So, how about this.  Effective from the day that this is announced, any Small, Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) that engages a new employee, will be able to enjoy a 5 year NIC holiday for that employee.  In my mind, an SME is one that employs less than say 500 people.  That should help stimulate employment growth and reduce a cost burden on companies.

In fact, let's take it one stage further, and extend the holiday, until the new employee's 25th birthday.  So either 5 years NIC holiday or until the person reaches 25 years of age, whichever is later.

Secondly,  be bold!  Reduce the basic rate of tax to 15% and accelerate the raising of the tax thresholds.   Raise the threshold for 2013/14 to £12,000 and, here is the crafty bit, enshrine in the budget a commitment to raise it in the next 5 years by £2,000 each year.  I appreciate that this may provide a dilemma for the Labour party - will they oppose or finally stand-up for low-paid taxpayers?  This might flush out who it is that they actually represent - the workers or the shirkers!

Third, reduce the next rate from 40% to 38%, again, with a commitment to reduce this by 2% per year for the next 5 years.  That might help the squeezed middle class that politicians bleat about so often but rarely actually do anything about!

Fourth, eliminate the 'green taxes' that are currently imposed, with immediate effect.  These economically insane charges merely transfer money from masses of people to an ever-richer few.  The taxes can never work in reducing so called greenhouse emissions, the science on so-called global warming is being daily discredited (and exposed for its untruths) and the UK acting unilaterally is plainly madness.  Sorry Britannia but you no longer rules the waves and while you saddle your people and companies with ever higher energy prices, the rest of the world is getting on with making a living!

Fifth,  and this is where the equation starts to balance out and where we address government debt.  Commence a programme of real cuts in government expenditure.  In all departments, take the 2010/11 out-turn as the basis and cut all expenditure by 10% in the coming year and enshrine 2% cuts in expenditure for the next five years.  Again, challenge the tax and spend socialists to decide on whose side they are on - the tax payers or the public service unions?

Sixth, abolish the Department for the Environment and Climate Change - completely.  Oh and this is over and above the savings from the preceding paragraph!


Please stay with me, not far to go now.

Seventh, Include a measure that with effect from after the 2015 election, MPs expenses will be subject to the same tax rules as those of the rest of the population.  That is, the benefits in kind that they receive (free or subsidized transport, meals and housing support) are taxed just as they would be if these privileged few were treated the same as the general population.  Some may say this is unfair but since those standing for election know the terms and conditions under which they will be employed, I suggest we ignore their complaints.  Remember their basic salary is more than two and a half times the national average wage.

Eigth, Local Government - commencing with this fiscal year, set a limit of minus 5% on council taxes - so they must cut council taxes by at least 5%.  Those that don't will see the central government grant being reduced by the amount that they would have had to reduce expenditure  to afford this cut.  Again, enshrine this in the budget and see the socialists and their fellow tax and spend travelers squirm.

We must get to a stage where tax increases - income, NIC and council taxes - are not considered natural, quite the reverse.  We have come to a stage where a council pats itself on the back if it keeps a council tax increase down to inflation levels.  That is plain wrong - what we need is cuts and continuously so - councils, like government, need to get out of the way and only do the things that the individual can't do.

Ninth, tell all government departments to re-negotiate all of their PFI deals, with a minimum target reduction of 20% in PFI fees required.  If these can't be achieved because the financiers won't play ball, then cancel the contracts.  Walk away and give them back their schools, hospitals and government office blocks and make a court date!  

Tenth, ensure that the budget includes a measure that states that if the recently 'won' EU budget cuts are not approved by the European Parliament, then the UK will immediately cease all payments to the EU - all payments.   Please don't even bother to talk about democracy and such, in the same breath as the  EU, EU Commission or EU parliament and that such an act would be undemocratic.  These people need to understand that we, the people, have had enough.  There is no more money, as Liam Byrne said.  There is no more gravy train.  No more is going into the trough!

OK, so maybe this, when run through the various Treasury models, won't be cost neutral but since we are increasing the deficit anyway, isn't it better to do so, in order to put money into tax-payers pocket's?  That is my kind of Quantitative Easing!

When a 'treasure' is also a shame

I was in Vietnam during the London Olympics and missed much of the opening ceremony, including the, subsequently much talked about, praise-piece for the NHS.  I haven't missed, over the years the ill-informed and ignorant spew of comments from people who all stand-up and say what a wonderful service is the NHS!

Where were these people earlier this week?  Where were the unions - the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the British Medical Association (BMA)?  Why weren't these organizations out there, demanding the names of their members that had so patently and regularly failed in their basic duties - not just as so-called health professionals but as human beings?

Where too were the police?  They can find the time to undertake a never-ending investigation of hacking.  They can release all sorts of allegations about Jimmy Saville and presume guilt.  They can conspire in the unseating of a senior government member.  However, investigate abuse after abuse?  Make arrests?  Leak names of the 'guilty'.  No, they can't be bothered to investigate their 'colleagues' in the emergency services.

I am, of course, referring to the scandal at Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust.

I took the opportunity to print-out the Executive Summary (kudos to HMSO on their commitment to transparency!).  This document is 125 pages long and page after page one finds a litany of facts that shame the UK.

One of the first reactions of the political parties was to close ranks and focus on 'the way forward' and emote by expressing  wordy sympathy for the families of the victims.

While I am sure that the Conservatives would not want to stir the pot too much in case any early skeletons come tumbling out of its historical closets, I have no such inhibitions.

The bulk of these abuses happened while Labour was in power.  They happened while Labour was shoveling obscene amounts of taxpayer money into the NHS.  They happened while those 'healthcare professionals' regularly received real-term increases in incomes and membership.

Did these same professionals have their noses so far into the trough that they couldn't see what was happening?  I don't think so.  I think they just didn't care.

I have written here many times before, that in my view and based on experience around the world, the NHS is by no means a 'treasure'.  It is a shaming institution for the UK.  Over paid, over funded and over politicised.  Like an old relative with a drink problem, everyone knows he/she needs to be spoken to but rather than doing the right thing, we keep on slipping the old reprobate extra grog! 

The first inquiry, which reported in February 2010 reported.

• Patients were left in excrement in soiled bed clothes for lengthy periods;
• Assistance was not provided with feeding for patients who could not eat without help;
• Water was left out of reach;
• In spite of persistent requests for help, patients were not assisted in their toileting;
• Wards and toilet facilities were left in a filthy condition;
• Privacy and dignity, even in death, were denied;
• Triage in A&E was undertaken by untrained staff;
• Staff treated patients and those close to them with what appeared to be callous indifference.

The first inquiry report was published on 24 February 2010. It contained damning criticism
of the care provided by the Trust, drawing out a number of conclusions, including:

• There was a lack of basic care across a number of wards and departments at the Trust;
• the culture at the Trust was not conducive to providing good care for patients or providing a supportive working environment for staff; there was an atmosphere of fear of adverse repercussions; a high priority was placed on the achievement of targets; 
• the consultant body largely dissociated itself from management; 
• there was low morale amongst staff;
• there was a lack of openness and an acceptance of poor standards;
• Management thinking during the period under review was dominated by financial pressures and achieving FT status, to the detriment of quality of care;
• There was a management failure to remedy the deficiencies in staff and governance that had existed for a long time, including an absence of effective clinical governance;
• There was a lack of urgency in the Board’s approach to some problems, such as those in governance;
• Statistics and reports were preferred to patient experience data, with a focus on systems, not outcomes;
• There was a lack of internal and external transparency regarding the problems that existed
  at the Trust.

So what must be done?

Well, criminal charges for one and sackings for the second thing.  The Police must review the evidence that has been so painstakingly gathered (why they have not already done so, is maybe not a mystery!) and they must make arrests.  Dawn raids, arresting people in their jobs, anything that shows these people to the world for the shameless and self-serving animals that they are.  Harsh words?  Think about it for a moment - people were entrusted to their care and then they didn't just die, they suffered and then died.  The 'caring' service.  Do you think?

Nurses, Doctors, 'managers' and executives need to face criminal charges for dereliction of duty and failure to provide care.  These people need to be named and shamed and put in the dock.

Medical folks and social workers talk about people needing 'closure' - that was the term used by Andy Burnham when talking about the Hillsborough disaster - the families of Liverpool fans needing closure.  So now, how about some closure for the Mid Staffs victims?  How about senior heads rolling?  Maybe start with Andy Burnham, who was the Health Minister in charge of the NHS, during part of the period?.

Those members of the various Health Authorities must all lose their positions.  If they are still employed by the government, in any form, they must be fired.  Simple.  Their current employers needn't worry about employment tribunals.  Having these heartless people, named and shamed, will be worthwhile.

They MUST lose the honours that were bestowed!  If Fred Goodwin can lose his knighthood, why not people like Sir David Nicholson - now head of the NHS, and, in 2005/6 ultimate head of Stafford Hospital.  Hundreds of people died and suffered on his watch.  That he has no sense of decency is apparent but that shouldn't stop the Honours Forfeiture Committee being called into action!

Also, take the maximum possible action on their pensions - whatever it is, don't be nice, be mean, don't err on the generous side, punish them.

Then of course, there are all of those Labour politicians.  Those sanctimonious fools who believe that money is the solution to all problems, so long as it is other people's money.  Those same people who oppose any reform that looks to improve and only allows surface level reform that entrenches vested union/provider interests at the expense of consumers/patients and taxpayers.

Let's have a debate on this but turn this into a debate on the future of the NHS.  Cameron should set the attack dogs free so that they can tear into the hypocrites that still sit on Labour's front bench.  Those that still say the NHS is safe in their hands - in a way they are right, the organization is safe in their hands but the patients and their families that use it, aren't!

The real answer is to move away from the outdated model and adopt something similar to that which operates in other countries - a mix of public and private - but who will have the courage to do this?  This report should be the most potent weapon in the NHS reform arsenal but instead it will be buried and the culprits will go free and enjoy their knighthoods and gold-plated pensions, while vulnerable people continue to suffer and die while receiving treatment that is 'the envy of the world'.

On reflection, I am glad I missed that Olympics opening!
  

Splitting the Coalition

Recently the Coalition government looked back on the first 2 1/2 years of the 5 year parliament and just about broke their own arms patting each other on the back.

On Tuesday, this same government will push forward with the 2nd reading of legislation to re-define marriage and allow homosexuals to 'marry'.  So what?  you may ask.  Well, where is the mandate for this?  It wasn't in the Conservative manifesto.  It wasn't in the Coalition Agreement, either.  The latter document, which I quote here stated:

 The deficit reduction programme takes precedence over any of the other measures in this agreement, and the speed of implementation of any measures that have a cost to the public finances will depend on decisions to be made in the Comprehensive Spending Review.

When you look at the way the deficit reduction programme is working out, you might say, why, when the government borrowings are increasing, is the government not focused on the economy?  Does anyone really think that allowing homosexuals to 'marry' will reduce the deficit?  And please don't prattle on about any kind of civil liberties deficit - you know what I mean.





The Coalition Agreement also said:

We will also ensure that provision is made for Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain on budget resolutions to introduce transferable tax allowances for married couples without prejudice to the coalition agreement.

This was a long standing 'commitment' from the Conservatives to support, what they called the 'traditional marriage'.  Needless to say, the one promise about marriage, that they did make, they don't keep and then they introduce ones that they never made and for which they can categorically be said to have absolutely no mandate.  Indeed, 3 days before the 2010 election, David Cameron is reported (Coalition for Marriage) as to have categorically said that there were no plans to redefine the definition of marriage.  It is customary to hold politicians in such low regard that as a matter of nature, we tend to expect them to lie rather than tell the truth, but usually they have the decency to cover this in 'politico-speak' but here Cameron gave an unequivocal answer.  So why the change?

I think that given the Lib Dems, shameless and petty and spiteful rejection of the Boundary Changes legislation, the Conservatives should encourage all of their MPs to vote down this legislation, simply in retaliation.  I would like to think that they would actually vote this down on the dubious merits of the bill and the inherent inequalities that this bill brings as well as the inevitable intrusion into Church affairs but even among Tories, pandering to vocal minorities still occurs, so however you justify it, have the courage to do the right thing and vote it down.

At some point, the Coalition has to start moving apart so that by the time the next election comes, in May 2015, they can be seen to be the separate political parties that they are.  So the Conservatives should follow the Lib Dems lead.  The latter has started to move away from the Coalition, the Conservatives should do the same.