Vegetarianism gains more ground.

Political Bettinghas reminded me of the infamous October interview with Andrew Marr.  Calling off the election that he had never called was an unbelievably stupid move from Gordon Brown - probably his most stupid move to date.  Indeed, during the interview, he talks over Marr as he asks “You don’t think you’ve lost your moment?”

Challenged over the brilliantly successful Tory party conference weekend, Brown tries to discredit the Tory tax announcements:

Let me just say, we will win an election because when you come to dissect these Conservative policies - i-if you throw £5bn at a problem, you know, 2p on income tax, on a problem, and do not show how you are going to fund it, then for a short moment you can persuade people that you’ve got a policy.  But when it comes to the forensic job of dissecting that policy, it will be found that the Conservative policy not only doesn’t add up, but it leads to economic disarray.

A mere eight months later, Brown is willing to get Britain £2.7bn further into debt in order to bribe the electorate of Crewe.  “For a short moment you can persuade people that you’ve got a policy… economic disarray” - indeed so, Prime Minister.  I would laugh, but it’s just not funny. Watch from 2mins 10secs.

Lesson #1 of politics: if you don’t want to answer a question, don’t accept the premise of the question.  Try to spot Alistair Darling’s denial that the £2.7bn of new public debt is a by-election swindle.  I couldn’t.

I often seem to find myself disagreeing with my esteemed colleagues here on Scribo.  It’s not something I am usually concerned about, but today I am almost incredulous at Vamp’s assessment on the subject of “Brown Caves“.

Unlike most {all, in the case of the right} I see a deviation from the former stubborness of the Labour Party to be a positve thing.

I find Brown’s latest troubles anything but a sign of an end to stubbornness: in fact, little he has done has been more stubborn.  Let’s chart events:

Gordon Brown’s final Budget includes measures that hit the poorest group of workers in the country.

Gordon Brown claims the Budget is tax-cutting.

MPs finally read the Budget and realise that the poorest people are being hit by the change.

Gordon Brown denies anyone will be financially harmed by the Budget.

Rebellion stirs among the backbenchers.

Gordon Brown tells lobby journalists that the rebellion is tiny and not an issue.

Rebellion grows.

Gordon Brown forced to break from engagements in the White House to persuade spineless PPS not to resign.

Gordon Brown still claims the rebellion is insubstantial.

Frank Field reveals the scope of the rebellion: more than enough for a government defeat.

Gordon Brown dithers for a week.

Minutes before PMQs on Wednesday, Gordon Brown reveals plans to “compensate” those who have lost out as a direct result of his budget.

David Cameron mocks him for U-turning.

It becomes clear that the U-turn was a mere sleight of hand: the “compensation” has helped nobody very much.

Gordon Brown pretends all is well with the world.

Tories get 18-point lead in Telegraph poll.

If that is not a record of stubbornness, I will emigrate when I see one.  I also disagree with Vamp’s suggestion that the opposition “were apparently jubiliant yesterday but they were denied the grand scalp of a Commons defeat”.  These events play directly into the Tories’ greatest attack - Brown is a ditherer who is completely out of touch with reality.  Brown is fooling nobody: probably not even himself.  This is far, far more valuable than a commons defeat.

For those of you who are fooled by Brown, consider the sham of a compensation package he laid out yesterday.  Direct financial reimbursement for the employed will occur through an inflation-busting rise in the minimum wage - paid for by employers.  Other minor payouts will occur, but only the Winter Fuel Allowance will be backdated to this Spring.  Forgive my cynicism, but what exactly does backdating Winter payments from Autumn to Spring entail?  Precisely nothing.

Let’s not forget that this is a tax increase, not a surcharge on being poor.  When those hit by it are not properly reimbursed and those who are receive compensation only through their employers, the state is onto a winner.  Even if every person affected by the change came out of the compensation process with as much money as they had before, the government would still have made a profit! What an absolute scandal!

The truth is more startling still.  The government has pulled a profit from screwing over some of the lowest-paid workers in the country, and has saved its skin by screwing over their employers.  This, I fear, is the kind of disgusting stunt befitting a government that has been hanging out to dry for far too long.  If Vamp thinks this is an acceptable way to cling to power, I worry greatly about the long-term future of this country.

No government, however desperate, should ever resort to such dirty tactics as these.  It’s intolerably shameful.  It is a matter of great regret that there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that the alternatives would behave any differently.

I read Guido Fawkes’ Blog.  I don’t expect to see shocking leaks that will bring down the Westminster machine (I like to think that Mr Fawkes assumes an alias simply because on name doesn’t do justice to his burgeoning ego) or very good gossip.  But I do expect to find some faintly amusing content about the less serious aspects of politics; the kind of stuff that’s too cheap for political journalists to put in their paper and risks lowering the tone of their blog.  It fills a gap in the free market of the internet.

It is with surprise, then, that I find myself compelled to reproduce an entire post from the site.  It’s snappy, concise, liberal with grammar, and strikingly true.  Common sense on the tax system; now there’s a rare sight!

Watching Darling spluttering explanations for abolishing the 10p rate this morning it is clear that the Brownies can’t see that their preference for taxing with one hand and then paying benefits back with the other hand is a wasteful bureaucratic merry-go-round that doesn’t work - except on paper.

Darling says “tax is complicated”. Who complicated it? Simplify it by raising thresholds dramatically. Why should people on earnings of less than £10,000 pay any tax? They only have to fill out endless forms to get it back in welfare payments. Crazy. Raising the threshold on the low paid will incentivise people to come off benefits and work. It will reduce the cost of collection which is disproportionately higher on low incomes.

The Tories are too timid, the mood of the public has changed. New Labour has always referred to “unfunded tax cuts” and demanded to know how many hospitals, schools would correspondingly be cut. The Tories should be pointing to Labour’s ”unfunded spending commitments” which have given Britain the highest budget deficit in the Western world. We can’t afford Labour’s reckless spending commitments they are literally mortgaging our children’s taxes to pay for current spending. It is the economics of the “never, never”.

Something must be wrong when the Tories attack Labour for not redistributing wealth well enough. It does lend itself to the view that progressive tax has become a universally-accepted part of British politics. It is rather a shame to see the Johnny-come-lately Tories claiming the moral high ground on this most crucial of policies.

That said, one wonders quite what Labour is playing at with the current disarray in the Treasury.

A while back (before the advent of the joy that is Scribo Ergo Sum) I flirted with the idea of a website trying to prove that everything everyone says is correct.  Admittedly, the aim would have been to demonstrate that listening to 90% of public political debate is pointless because every argument used is valid.  “Labour have raised taxes over 100 times since coming to power” / “Labour has delivered the most sustained period of stable economic growth ever”.  Not being an economist, I cannot guarantee that both statements are true, but I believe that to be the case.  I object to the fact that each side realigns the argument to one they feel they can win.  The recent Lisbon Treaty debacle demonstrated just how low public debate has gone: “Let’s have a debate on the EU Constitution” / “Let’s call it a Treaty so we don’t have to debate it” / “Let’s call for a referendum on the Treaty” / “Let’s call for a referendum on EU membership”.

I ditched the idea.  There was no practical use for it, and I could not possibly imagine anyone wanting to read it.  But the idea lives on in the back of my mind: we have a dirt poor standard of debate in this country at the moment.

With this in mind, I want to consider the issue of tax cuts, catapulted to the top of the political agenda following the Tories’ promise not to do anything too drastic too quickly.  Caution, urged by the party that derided the intolerably dull Darling Budget.  Promises of tax cuts as a principle of electioneering are remarkably volatile things, as Michael Howard found out to his peril.  Promising to cut taxes is not an own goal, but it certainly leaves the goal wide open to the obvious claim that cutting tax means cutting public services.  £10,000,000,000 in tax cuts = X fewer policemen, Y fewer hospitals, and Z fewer rubbish collections per month.  “Unfunded tax cuts” are the scourge of any party seeking to reduce public expenditure - a recent Labour document sought to prove the Tories’ proposals had no bearing on the realities of spending, asking where they were going to find places to cut spending.  As it happens, on this occasion the Tories had done their homework rather more thoroughly, and pounced back with a mock document within the hour.

The economics of tax cuts remains a very decisive issue.  I suggest boiling it down to these two arguments:  some argue that taxing less will make the country more prosperous, others believe that taxing more will make the country a better place.  I can certainly see the merit of heavy investment in public services, as was necessitated by Tory neglect pre-1997.  But I can also see that the average guy on the street is suffering rather from a high tax burden.

To quote a wonderful line from The West Wing, “every once in a while - every once in a while there is a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always end in body-counts”.  Tax is a grey area, and in the current political climate I cannot quite decide what side to take.  I hope to provide some logic to my conclusive indecisiveness.  As David Starkey once quipped, “Why do Englishmen like to sit on the fence?  Because they like the sensation…”.

I belive that it is politically wrong to promise tax cuts.  If the Tories promise tax cuts, as the right-wing of the party have persistently called for, they risk pegging their credibility on the economy.  Will voters trust a party with no solid record to deliver tax cuts without harming public services?  The Tories know that seeking election on a promise of tax cuts raises a trust issue, and Labour has won the economic competence argument for over a decade.  The tide may be turning, but it is not a complete switch.  Labour is seen as the party of mismanagement, but the Tories have not earned any trust in its place.  Promising tax cuts now would be stupid.  They must promise to limit growth, and curb waste, remaining “ideologically supportive” of tax cuts.

I believe that it is economically necessary to cut taxes.  The economy is reaching a bit of a dip.  The public sector is bloated, with far too much money being squandered on useless projects and policies of no conceivable benefit to anyone.  It is only a matter of time before some of the millions of pounds spent on management consultants starts yielding reports suggesting cutting waste on management consultants.  I believe in small government.  When Labour invested so much in 1997, it was to meet a direct need.  Today it is hurling cash at an obese public sector.  I want to target public cash to places were it is needed; to nurses and equipment, not bureaucratic management and the obligatory management consultants.  I reckon I could halve the national budget and deliver better public services.  More importantly, though, the tax level is at such a height that it is beginning to affect how people live their lives.  Stealth taxes ruin small business.  Before long, the welfare system will have to expand to encompass those hit by paying for the welfare system.  That is stupidity of the highest order: taxes ought to be lowered, with no cut in real public services.  If there are a few redundancies in the bureaucratic sector along the way, so be it.

I believe that national debt should be reduced before taxes are.  Great Britain ranks among some of the most indebted countries in the world.  Much of Brown’s “stable economic growth” came at the cost of common sense rules on public borrowing.  National debt is rising faster than personal debt.  There is no reason on earth why a government should borrow money to pay for its own public spending.  There is a simple issue of balance here: Labour is spending more than it is earning back in tax.  This cycle must end or we will be left literally bankrupt.  Any responsible government would begin paying off this debt, and should only cut taxes either once debt is repaid or to stimulate excess money to pay off debt.  There is no excuse for government debt at this level; it is unbelievably irresponsible.  But, as always, promising to pay off someone else’s debt is a shocker at the polls.

I hope you can see why the country is going up the spout.  It is political suicide to promise tax cuts or a reduction in debt, but these are both vital to future public expenditure.  Political suicide, but economic necessity.  That’s never a good compromise.

Briefly, as I have a sizable essay on the Tory Party and One Nation politics to do before tomorrow:

A summary of the Budget is here.

Much of the Budget was empty air.  This was to be expected.  The Chancellor is worried that the world economy is going to take a shit and die, and that there’s very little he can do about it.  He thus doesn’t want to make any economic promises that will go disastrously wrong.

Those promises were also predictable, and forcedly optimistic.  Darling doesn’t exactly have much choice, politically.  The economy is not dead yet, saying it was going to die would only kill the government - and possibly the economy, given how prone investors are to acting like panicky sheep.    We’ve already discussed how to avoid a recession; doing the opposite will go a long way to helping it happen.

On most of the issues - child poverty, education, benefits - Darling kept up what the government have been saying for the past ten years.  It was mostly a continuation of what’s gone on before, or in its spirit.  So, not much new to say there.

Housing: We need more than 70,000 new houses, Mr. Darling, and will need more social housing.  Those old people aren’t letting go of their houses, and won’t do unless they’re forced out when their mortgage goes kaput.  Which may well happen in the next year, needing social housing.  Actually, that’s really too little of what I mean to say on housing, and not very coherent.  But, no time, no time!

Non Doms: I discussed my feelings on this when I analysed Cable’s speech.  A flat rate isn’t enough, it needs to be progressive taxation.

Flah, more fluff, less time.  I’ll skip to the bits the media is focusing on - perhaps wrongly, given that they aren’t necessarily the most major parts of the budget.  But they’ll hit more people, I suppose.

So, hitting 4×4s and gas-guzzlers with a whopping great tax.  I really can’t object.  They’re bad for the environment, they’re bad for the lung, they fill up the road, make navigating certain parts of London a nightmare,  are often underfilled and look hideous.  I could understand complaints from people for whom such a vehicle is absolutely essential to their trade: otherwise, I have little sympathy.

I’m less comfortable with the idea that they’re putting aside funding for road-pricing.  How many times do the public have to pay to use public property?

Right, now alchohol.  I object, very much.  It’s a practical issue, if nothing else: increasing taxes on alchohol just won’t have an effect.  If someone wants to do hideous amounts to their body in the name of enjoyment, then they’ll find a way to do so.  If that involves paying more for alchohol, then, well, they’ll pay more for alchohol.

Or, more likely, they’ll find something cheaper.   Something waffling at me on the news earlier told me that this now included most tablets, a line of cocaine and more besides.  Through the government’s unelightened policy towards drugs on the whole, these are in the hands of organised crime.  Do they really want to drive people off into paying for that instead of binge drinking?

Meanwhile, the drinkers who do just want one or two pints a week on a Saturday afternoon suffer.  They’re the most likely to stop, as it’ll begin costing them more money for something that isn’t that big a part of their lives.  So alchohol consumption will drop, but not where it matters.   The only thing that would stop that is the removal of the desire to go out and binge drinking, and that requires both education and a serious look at the social causes of alchohol abuse.  If Darling wants to deal with alchohol anywhere in the Budget, it should be there.

Now, must dash!  I’ve wasted enough time as it is.

Apparently the claims that the recession would damage the affiliation with the environmentally friendly were overblown, for Darling intends to splash the colour far and thick.

Interestingly though it looks like more than a mere paint-job {just a quick, fun little game to play amongst your friends: name five actual policies the Tories announced to deal with climate change, quick. What came to mind there? Dave and some huskies? Dave looking pious? Any actual content? At all? No, didn’t think so} and Darling is even sticking with the 2p fuel rise because “he thinks it would go against the grain of a budget that is trying to limit carbon emissions”. Rather curiously he seems to be one of those “Consistant” politicians I’ve long heard stories about but rarely actually encounter. Or rather, has become. Perhaps the Northern Rock dithering used up his deception quota for the year.

Regardless, this exposes them to the ghastly opportunistic strikes that the Tories staged last time they held their own over fuel price rises, so it is good to see them knowing that and still sticking to their guns. I wouldn’t count on Cameron keeping as consistant as Labour have and refraining from attack over an issue he tried to lay claim to, and I suspect that they also know this. Perhaps they just knew that they could count on the Clegg Dems absence.

To me this seems like further advancement of the ideology of environmentalism, the rise of which across this decade has been both astouding and entirely underrated and discussed. It seems that what is unquestionably amongst the youngest political philosophies has taken by stealth, or at least exerted an extreme influence over, the rhetoric of all three of our major parties. I suspect that the empirical evidence supporting its validity is the cause of this as only irrational big oil apologists like Mick Hume and outright, long-standing idiots such as Peter Hitchens currently deny the obvious. There is a lot more to be said about this and I will do so shortly.

 Unfortunately they are weakening the non-dom crack-down {Anatole Kaletsky has a whole page about it in the Times business section, just for that paper’s legion of wealthy foreign readers and those considering joining them} but on the upside aren’t scrapping the targets for child poverty annihilation, although I imagine that they’ll miss them. If they end up doing good than a puny “pragmatist” would have, though, then that doesen’t matter.

Rather shockingly the city aren’t so keen on somebody who will chase them when they run across national borders away from the Taxman and nationalised industry. What an unpredictable bunch those stock market monkeys are.

 Meanwhile, back on the right, Osborne blusters:

“We will be squeezing budgets like welfare, which are a drag on the British economy. This country has more children, a higher proportion of children, in workless households than any other country in Europe. And that is not acceptable.”

Because nothing says small government liberalism like social engineering…

Regardless of my previous cartoon on the matter, I do feel that the plight of the pig farmers is a serious matter.

It’s serious on several counts. First, and most obviously, the farmers will lose their jobs - and their livelihoods. It’s not as if they can just pick up another job again. Setting up and maintaining another farm where they could use their skills costs, I suspect, lot of money. They’re unlikely to have that if their farm has just gone bust. Coming on the tail of a report telling us 1 million rural households live in poverty, that can’t be good.

This also threatens the production of slightly more ethical pork. While the ethics of rasing animals for the purpose of killing and eating them is questionable - and that’s speaking as a serial carnivore - abusing, killing and eating animals are unquestionably unethical. We’re told 2/3rds of imported pork wouldn’t meet legal rearing standards. I’m not really comfortable with the idea of eating a pig that’s been raised in a hutch and then simply bludgeoned to death.

But what can be done? At first, it looks like the farmers are caught in the terrible trap of supply and demand. Seed prices are rocketting. Our stricter animal welfare laws mean raising pork is more expensive here than in the rest of the EU. Costs multiply massively for the farmers. Cheaper, imported, less ethical pork undercuts them. The free-marketeers shrug, and rub their hands, and sigh, and say they’re very sorry, but there’s nothing they can do, it’s the economy.

Of course, it’s not that simple. The government can try to help. This potentially involves several groups; supermarkets, consumers and farmers.

The price of pork in supermarkets is going up at the moment. And yet the farmers are only seeing a tiny fraction of this - barely above market price. Presumably, it’s going straight back into the supermarkets; hardly a fair deal for the farmers. Legislation designed to force buyers to pay farmers a minimum percentage of profits in order to cover higher costs. If nothing else, it’s a matter of sharing out the profits fairly. It might hurt the supermarkets, a little - but not enough to crash them in the same way this is doing to the farmers.

The government could go straight to the farmers. Aside from the simplicity of the concept that these farmers, having fallen on hard times through little fault of their own, deserve support, there is a case for government intervention anyway. The farmers’ rising costs are in part sparked by legislation demanding better rearing standards. Foreign competition has become increasingly difficult to deal with. Given that the government is partially responsible for their plight, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that it should provide some support while times are hard because of it.

And perhaps we could get something from the CAP too…

Banning imports of pork which does not meet the same ethical standards as are law for British farmers could help. Free-marketeers might squeal. But it’s not so much protectionism as putting British farmers back on a level playing field - with the benefit of that playing field being more ethical. It’s not stopping foreign competition - it’s making sure it’s ethical, and actually competitive.

Actually, I’m not sure if that’s possible in the EU - or, indeed, with imports from outside the EU because of the customs-union. If it’s possible, then great. If it’s not, then there’s a very strong cse for going to Brussels and shouting about it very loudly - it’s what the French do, isn’t it?

Perhaps most easily, we can go to the consumers. A campaign of labelling ethically raised pork prominently could make a major difference - as could a public campaign on the issue. The expositions into the horror of battery farming on Channel 4 made, I suspect, quite a difference to those that watched them. If enough people were converted, then life might get a little easier.

I’ve no idea the degree to which any, or all, of those would work. I do know they’d be better then the current situation of sitting around and watching farmers’ lives collapse. Unless rural poverty is your kind of thing, that is.