taxation

At last there is clear blue water between the UK political parties in the run up to the General Election - over taxation.
And the parties are acting true to traditional form - Labour wants to raise taxes, and Conservatives want to lower them.
But the picture isn't quite so straightforward.  The Tax selected, National Insurance, is actually a tax on the poor, taxing those on low and middle income at a higher rate than those on high income.

Sir Michael Bichard is a man to listen to – his proposals are practical and usually sufficiently well supported that they make it into policy. I was listening to him on Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning (Friday 18 Sept 2009) discussing Local Government with Tony Travers of LSE. The gist of the conversation seemed to be that local government has delivered significant innovation, whereas Whitehall had offered no improvement. But local government couldn’t go any further because they are micro-managed – their income is set by Whitehall, and services are also set by Whitehall.