Skuds has dedicated a recent post to me, all about a subject which has already appeared on RMF a couple of times - the odd relationship between the media and the sex industry.
Not only is the Crawley News still advertising adult services (albeit with a 'disclaimer', which I like to think was a result of this humble blog's attention) near the back pages while reporting the case of a woman trafficked into the country and forced to have sex in a local brothel, but there was an outcry when the South Wales Echo did the same thing late last year.
As a result of a meeting with the government in November, it would seem that the Newspaper Society will be revisiting their guidelines on acceptable advertising. It would be good to know what those guidelines are, but they are available to NS members only. I can't even find how much it would cost to get the 'PERA' membership required to look at the 'Ad Points' section of the website, so I suspect it's not something I'll be buying. If a friendly journo / advertising editor happens by and can let me know what these guideline are?
Only I'm pretty sure that they already suggest that adverts for massage or escort services clearly suggest that 'extras' are also on offer, or if the publication could reasonable expect that to be the case. I'm not sure if the ads in the back of the News cross the line, but they are pretty close.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Is this value for money?
The Crawley News reports that the Tory leader of Crawley Borough Council went on a 3 day training course in South Africa, partly funded out of the Council budget.
Obviously, Lanzer will justify the cost of the trip, as he learnt a lot and was fired up on his return. The CBC payment only amounted to about £675, which is not a huge amount. The rest was from grants, which may or may not be funded by the national taxpayer.
The course involved looking at 'law and order' issues. The thing about this is that the Borough Council doesn't have a great deal of responsiblity for these. The Police Authority is a seperate body, with delegates from local authorities, but from West Sussex, not Crawley. So Bob Lanzer isn't on it. He might be on Police Liaison, but that's not really a 'leadership' position.
Of course, councillors do need to be trained up, and they should be exposed to external practices, otherwise they risk being too ingrained in parochialism. However, it appears that there will be some raised eyebrows at this particular item. Especially as the News has put it on their front page this week.
Obviously, Lanzer will justify the cost of the trip, as he learnt a lot and was fired up on his return. The CBC payment only amounted to about £675, which is not a huge amount. The rest was from grants, which may or may not be funded by the national taxpayer.
The course involved looking at 'law and order' issues. The thing about this is that the Borough Council doesn't have a great deal of responsiblity for these. The Police Authority is a seperate body, with delegates from local authorities, but from West Sussex, not Crawley. So Bob Lanzer isn't on it. He might be on Police Liaison, but that's not really a 'leadership' position.
Of course, councillors do need to be trained up, and they should be exposed to external practices, otherwise they risk being too ingrained in parochialism. However, it appears that there will be some raised eyebrows at this particular item. Especially as the News has put it on their front page this week.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Money and Politics V
To illustrate the perils of believing what you read in the newspapers, Skuds has suggested that the figures quoted in my last post (about how Henry Smith and his chums on West Sussex County Council have had large increases in their allowances despite an independent review concluding that no such increases be given) were incorrect.
Good job too, because it meant that I read the actual reports, and there are some differences.
Firstly, the Special Allowance for the Leader, Henry Smith, has gone up from £26,523 to £29,394, an increase of 10.8% (about the same as the Argus' 11%).
Secondly, the Cabinet members allowance has risen from £15,691 to £18,283, a jump of 16.5% (which is 2.5 percentage points more than reported by the Argus). Eight councillors receive this allowance.
Thirdly, it's not clear what is meant by non-Executive Chairmen, because under the old scheme there were two levels of allowance for committee chairs. For six of the posts, the old allowance was £8,375. For three others, it was £6,582. If the increase applies to all, then they will all now get £8,989. That's 7.3% for the first six, and 36.6% for the other three (The Argus report refers to three chairmen getting 24%, which I can't see from the figures at all).
Fourthly, all of the other Special Responsibility Allowances are increasing as well, by an index-linked figure, which was actually what the panel recommended for all posts. There are 32 councillors who receive these allowances, out of a total of 70. The number affected by the self-determined increases is up to 18.
Fifthly, all of the above will also be getting the standard councillor's allowance that all councillors receive - £10,546 in the 2006/7 year. I believe that this is also index linked.
Links
Money and Politics IV (my previous post on this)
Original Evening Argus article
From WSCC:
The Scheme as it stood before 14 December 2007 (pdf format)
The report of the Independent Review Panel (pdf format)
The Report before WSCC on 14 December with the large increases (pdf format)
Good job too, because it meant that I read the actual reports, and there are some differences.
Firstly, the Special Allowance for the Leader, Henry Smith, has gone up from £26,523 to £29,394, an increase of 10.8% (about the same as the Argus' 11%).
Secondly, the Cabinet members allowance has risen from £15,691 to £18,283, a jump of 16.5% (which is 2.5 percentage points more than reported by the Argus). Eight councillors receive this allowance.
Thirdly, it's not clear what is meant by non-Executive Chairmen, because under the old scheme there were two levels of allowance for committee chairs. For six of the posts, the old allowance was £8,375. For three others, it was £6,582. If the increase applies to all, then they will all now get £8,989. That's 7.3% for the first six, and 36.6% for the other three (The Argus report refers to three chairmen getting 24%, which I can't see from the figures at all).
Fourthly, all of the other Special Responsibility Allowances are increasing as well, by an index-linked figure, which was actually what the panel recommended for all posts. There are 32 councillors who receive these allowances, out of a total of 70. The number affected by the self-determined increases is up to 18.
Fifthly, all of the above will also be getting the standard councillor's allowance that all councillors receive - £10,546 in the 2006/7 year. I believe that this is also index linked.
Links
Money and Politics IV (my previous post on this)
Original Evening Argus article
From WSCC:
The Scheme as it stood before 14 December 2007 (pdf format)
The report of the Independent Review Panel (pdf format)
The Report before WSCC on 14 December with the large increases (pdf format)
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Money and Politics IV
Henry Smith was apparently happy to complain about our MP's expenses. Of course, we all know that our Henry would never, ever, put himself in a position where he could be accused of putting his nose into the trough.
Or would he...
According to the Evening Argus, West Sussex Council recently reviewed the councillor's allowances. What happens is that an independent review panel is set up, and they make recommendations. The same happens at Crawley Borough Council, and when I chaired the relevant committee (the excitingly named 'General Purposes Committee'), it was certainly expected that the review body's recommendations would be taken as they stood, and certainly that councillors would be very careful before voting for more cash.
The WSCC review panel recommended a freeze on increases. So what did our elected servants in Chichester do? Did they accept a pay freeze, because as the panel's report said, "Public service, rather than material reward, should be the primary motivation for involvement in local government."
Well, er, no. They instead voted for increases. Three committee chairs will get an increase of 27% (that's about 10 times the rate of inflation). The Cabinet members, such as Lt Col Tex Pemberton, get a 14% increase (a mere five times the rate of inflation).
Henry will have to make to with only an 11% increase (four times the rate of inflation) as Leader.
Now, WSCC will claim that because they didn't spend money on a pension scheme for councillors, they've saved money. However, it's only a matter of time before such a scheme is set up, and of course it will more than likely be a final salary one, so an allowance increase now just makes the scheme more expensive when it does come in. I predict it will arrive some time after the next County elections, or before if they can suddenly pull out one of their rare low tax increase budgets (rare? they happen every four years, by some sheer coincidence).
The allowance increases are apparently backdated to April.
link
Or would he...
According to the Evening Argus, West Sussex Council recently reviewed the councillor's allowances. What happens is that an independent review panel is set up, and they make recommendations. The same happens at Crawley Borough Council, and when I chaired the relevant committee (the excitingly named 'General Purposes Committee'), it was certainly expected that the review body's recommendations would be taken as they stood, and certainly that councillors would be very careful before voting for more cash.
The WSCC review panel recommended a freeze on increases. So what did our elected servants in Chichester do? Did they accept a pay freeze, because as the panel's report said, "Public service, rather than material reward, should be the primary motivation for involvement in local government."
Well, er, no. They instead voted for increases. Three committee chairs will get an increase of 27% (that's about 10 times the rate of inflation). The Cabinet members, such as Lt Col Tex Pemberton, get a 14% increase (a mere five times the rate of inflation).
Henry will have to make to with only an 11% increase (four times the rate of inflation) as Leader.
Now, WSCC will claim that because they didn't spend money on a pension scheme for councillors, they've saved money. However, it's only a matter of time before such a scheme is set up, and of course it will more than likely be a final salary one, so an allowance increase now just makes the scheme more expensive when it does come in. I predict it will arrive some time after the next County elections, or before if they can suddenly pull out one of their rare low tax increase budgets (rare? they happen every four years, by some sheer coincidence).
The allowance increases are apparently backdated to April.
link
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
When is rape not rape?
Apparently, according to John Redwood, rape isn't that bad if you know the woman first. Who knew? I'd always thought that 'No' means 'No' was a pretty universal truth, that it's a horrific crime whether the rapist is a total stranger or whether they are someone they though that they could trust.
Here's what he said, on his blog:
When I read that this morning, my immediate thought was what if we replaced the crime of rape with another one. The Provisional BBC beat me to it with murder. You could try it with robbery or with child abuse if you like, just in case the full ridiculousness of the MP for Wokingham's views aren't immediately apparent.
Essentially, Redwood is saying that because it's a bit hard to tell whether an alleged 'date rape' is genuine or just a woman getting revenge, we shouldn't bother to treat in the same way as any other rape.
There is this attitude from the right that certain crimes are not really crimes. Speeding, for example, even when there's pretty clear evidence and any driver ought to know what the limit is. And now it appears that rape can be added to the list of things that 'law abiding' people just happen to do, as if they aren't in control of themselves.
It's total rot, it really is.
In the same article, he argues that corporate manslaughter is being made 'equivalent' to murder (when in fact it isn't, but it is being made equivalent to manslaughter), presumably because corporate negligence that leads to a employee's or customer's death shouldn't be punished in the same way as any other deadly negligence. Under the Human Rights Act, limited companies are considered to have the same rights as people. So, under that basis, they should have the same responsibilities, surely?
Ahh, but of course the Tories don't agree with the Human Rights Act. Despite the fact that all it is incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into our law, so we don't have to keep having cases heard at The Hague, and despite the fact that it is something that their great hero, Sir Winston Churchill, was fully in favour of.
David Cameron is trying hard to convince us that the Tories have changed. Redwood is giving the lie to any such claim.
Here's what he said, on his blog:
They [the Labour government] decided to set date rape alongside stranger rape. Again, none of us want men to rape women, but there is a difference between a man using unreasonable force to assault a woman on the street, and a disagreement between two lovers over whether there was consent on one particular occasion when the two were spending an evening or night together.
Labour's doctrine of equivalence has led to jury scepticism about many rape claims, in situations where it is the man's word against the woman's and where they had agreed to spend the evening or night together. Young men do not want to have to take a consent form and a lawyer on a date.
When I read that this morning, my immediate thought was what if we replaced the crime of rape with another one. The Provisional BBC beat me to it with murder. You could try it with robbery or with child abuse if you like, just in case the full ridiculousness of the MP for Wokingham's views aren't immediately apparent.
Essentially, Redwood is saying that because it's a bit hard to tell whether an alleged 'date rape' is genuine or just a woman getting revenge, we shouldn't bother to treat in the same way as any other rape.
There is this attitude from the right that certain crimes are not really crimes. Speeding, for example, even when there's pretty clear evidence and any driver ought to know what the limit is. And now it appears that rape can be added to the list of things that 'law abiding' people just happen to do, as if they aren't in control of themselves.
It's total rot, it really is.
In the same article, he argues that corporate manslaughter is being made 'equivalent' to murder (when in fact it isn't, but it is being made equivalent to manslaughter), presumably because corporate negligence that leads to a employee's or customer's death shouldn't be punished in the same way as any other deadly negligence. Under the Human Rights Act, limited companies are considered to have the same rights as people. So, under that basis, they should have the same responsibilities, surely?
Ahh, but of course the Tories don't agree with the Human Rights Act. Despite the fact that all it is incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into our law, so we don't have to keep having cases heard at The Hague, and despite the fact that it is something that their great hero, Sir Winston Churchill, was fully in favour of.
David Cameron is trying hard to convince us that the Tories have changed. Redwood is giving the lie to any such claim.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Money and Politics II
The local press have been giving Laura Moffatt a lot of hassle recently about her expenses, and the nearby Tories have not been avoiding the opportunity to crow about it.
However, as Skuds shows, there are two sides to the debate about the cost of someone's work - the output. For example, Laura has voted in 89% of Commons divisions. That sounds a bit low to you?
Well, Nicholas Soames, who we remember fondly as our MP before 1997 (when he agreed with cuts at Crawley Hospital in a way that Laura has never done), manages 46% in his new capacity as MP for Mid-Sussex. Francis Maude barely manages to represent the voters of Horsham a third of the number of times that he could. Both claim lower travel expenses than Laura Moffatt, but should we be surprised if they don't bother to exercise their votes, and so don't need to go up to Westminster as often as more committed parliamentarians.
Why are these MPs absent so much though? Could it be that they have something better to do? Oh, it turns out that Soames and Maude are pretty active outside their jobs as MPs. Seems that Soames has five other jobs and Maude has eight. They presumably are spending some of the time that could be used for representing their constituents out earning money that they don't need (the MPs salary is fairly generous). If they aren't doing what they were elected to do, no wonder they don't generate as much of an expenses bill. However, despite the fact that Maude votes about two-fifths as often as our MP, his expenses are proportionally much higher.
Laura costs more in expenses, but on a per-vote basis, Skuds' figures show that Maude is far worse value for money.
However, as Skuds shows, there are two sides to the debate about the cost of someone's work - the output. For example, Laura has voted in 89% of Commons divisions. That sounds a bit low to you?
Well, Nicholas Soames, who we remember fondly as our MP before 1997 (when he agreed with cuts at Crawley Hospital in a way that Laura has never done), manages 46% in his new capacity as MP for Mid-Sussex. Francis Maude barely manages to represent the voters of Horsham a third of the number of times that he could. Both claim lower travel expenses than Laura Moffatt, but should we be surprised if they don't bother to exercise their votes, and so don't need to go up to Westminster as often as more committed parliamentarians.
Why are these MPs absent so much though? Could it be that they have something better to do? Oh, it turns out that Soames and Maude are pretty active outside their jobs as MPs. Seems that Soames has five other jobs and Maude has eight. They presumably are spending some of the time that could be used for representing their constituents out earning money that they don't need (the MPs salary is fairly generous). If they aren't doing what they were elected to do, no wonder they don't generate as much of an expenses bill. However, despite the fact that Maude votes about two-fifths as often as our MP, his expenses are proportionally much higher.
Laura costs more in expenses, but on a per-vote basis, Skuds' figures show that Maude is far worse value for money.
Money and politics I
What can anyone say about the ongoing scandal concerning party funding?
As a member of the Labour Party, I have to say that I'm absolutely hopping mad about the Abrahams 'dodge' of paying through third party's, and utterly disgusted that people at the top of the party organisation knew about it and didn't think it was a problem. I'm no expert on the law, but I think it's pretty obvious that this is a no-no.
Personally, I don't care how high up they are, if people working for the Party knew about this and didn't question it, then they should be sacked.
The problem of how we pay for our political parties will not go away, although I think that stiffer spending caps would be a good way to reduce the pressure and would mean less expensive adverts cluttering up the screens.
The media are loving this, and there's always potential for an error (such as Hain's campaign not fully registering all donations properly) being blown up into part of the mire. It's quite clear that the person who makes an illegal donation is the prime wrongdoer. If due diligence is carried out and a problem is not carried out, then the recipient can't be blamed. However, if they did know that the donation was iffy, then they have acted outside the law. If they didn't check and a such a check can reasonably have been shown to show something up, then they have at least been negligent.
However, it's strange that all this focus is put on to one party. The Lib Dems had a real problem with a major donor who turned out to be ineligible - and quite possibly giving them other people's money. The Tories are being very quiet about Lord Ashcroft (who was ennobled after he started bunging them large amounts, but apparently 'cash for honours isn't an issue for him) who appears to still be a tax exile, despite promising to regularise his affairs with HMRC, and who gives the Party a lot of money through third parties - companies, not individuals - as well as flying the leader and shadow cabinet out on top-class jets all over the world at bargain basement prices.
Of course, Labour would have less of a problem with money if the income from the unions and members wasn't on the slide. My view is that the decline of union participation is not something that the Party has taken seriously enough. For some reason, the unions have been regarded as trouble-makers (when often they have been the stalwart supporters of the leadership against us uppity full members). Party membership has slipped over the past ten years, and I detect that quite a bit of that is down to disappointment with the course of the Government, and with the way that the party changed under the New Labour ethos of centralised control.
The main issue that I have about the centralised control links back to the start of this piece - that they may think that they know what they are doing, but at times the organisation of the party leaves a lot to be desired. The historic problems with membership systems appear to have been solved after many years of complaints, but regional and central offices really are not responsive and as we have seen, have been complacent about something as fundamental as keeping within the law on donations.
Luckily, the party central office have very little to do with the Government. However, with civil servants ignoring the Data Protection Act at the same time...
As a member of the Labour Party, I have to say that I'm absolutely hopping mad about the Abrahams 'dodge' of paying through third party's, and utterly disgusted that people at the top of the party organisation knew about it and didn't think it was a problem. I'm no expert on the law, but I think it's pretty obvious that this is a no-no.
Personally, I don't care how high up they are, if people working for the Party knew about this and didn't question it, then they should be sacked.
The problem of how we pay for our political parties will not go away, although I think that stiffer spending caps would be a good way to reduce the pressure and would mean less expensive adverts cluttering up the screens.
The media are loving this, and there's always potential for an error (such as Hain's campaign not fully registering all donations properly) being blown up into part of the mire. It's quite clear that the person who makes an illegal donation is the prime wrongdoer. If due diligence is carried out and a problem is not carried out, then the recipient can't be blamed. However, if they did know that the donation was iffy, then they have acted outside the law. If they didn't check and a such a check can reasonably have been shown to show something up, then they have at least been negligent.
However, it's strange that all this focus is put on to one party. The Lib Dems had a real problem with a major donor who turned out to be ineligible - and quite possibly giving them other people's money. The Tories are being very quiet about Lord Ashcroft (who was ennobled after he started bunging them large amounts, but apparently 'cash for honours isn't an issue for him) who appears to still be a tax exile, despite promising to regularise his affairs with HMRC, and who gives the Party a lot of money through third parties - companies, not individuals - as well as flying the leader and shadow cabinet out on top-class jets all over the world at bargain basement prices.
Of course, Labour would have less of a problem with money if the income from the unions and members wasn't on the slide. My view is that the decline of union participation is not something that the Party has taken seriously enough. For some reason, the unions have been regarded as trouble-makers (when often they have been the stalwart supporters of the leadership against us uppity full members). Party membership has slipped over the past ten years, and I detect that quite a bit of that is down to disappointment with the course of the Government, and with the way that the party changed under the New Labour ethos of centralised control.
The main issue that I have about the centralised control links back to the start of this piece - that they may think that they know what they are doing, but at times the organisation of the party leaves a lot to be desired. The historic problems with membership systems appear to have been solved after many years of complaints, but regional and central offices really are not responsive and as we have seen, have been complacent about something as fundamental as keeping within the law on donations.
Luckily, the party central office have very little to do with the Government. However, with civil servants ignoring the Data Protection Act at the same time...
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Can Tories add up?
Got Henry Smith's new leaflet through my door. It's very nice, a shiny full-colour A3 folded jobby (must have cost Lord Ashcroft a few quid for all of them across town).
There are lots of pictures in it. Lots of them. And in most of them Henry is grinning at me. Great, we know he can smile at a camera. But what else can he do?
Well, adding up and sums might be a bit of a problem for someone.
Taxing sums
There's a bit on the front page slagging off the tax credits scheme, claiming that 'fraud and error' have cost the taxpayer £5bn. However, checking the latest National Audit Office report, I can see that the outstanding debt from overpayments from 2003 (when the scheme was introduced) to 2007 was less than that - £3.9bn, of which only about £0.7bn has been written off. A further £1.6bn has been allocated to underwrite the possibility that not all of the remainder can be collected. That's a total of £2.3bn on the worst case. Half of Henry's figure. Not that I'm saying that it's a good thing, but the Tories are inflating the effect, and have come up with a nice round number to scare us poor taxpayers.
He also claims that the money could build 150 hospitals. Hmm. That works out at less than £35M per hospital. If we look at the figures used by Henry's Campaign for Pease Pottage Hospital, we see that the hospital he's telling us he can get built would cost £168M, about five times as much. And to run it for one year would cost nearly £100M. So, assuming that you want to run a hospital for some time after you build it, £5bn would pay for more like 20 hospitals.
The article ends with a Henry quote:
Umm, we have one hospital. I thought we needed a better hospital, but maybe Henry's less ambitious for us than he'd like to think.
Swings and roundabouts
Also on the front page it says that Henry
Yes, Henry did get one of the largest swings, but not the largest. On it's own a small inaccuracy, but given that he can't work out how much a hospital costs, or count how many we have, perhaps there's a pattern emerging...
Costs of investments may rise as well as fall
Page 2 now. It's welcome that West Sussex County Council has invested money into new schools. The figure quoted is £80 million. However, according to a press release from 2003, it was a £54 million PFI project. The remainder of the money was found by selling off land (largely school playing fields), and the PFI part of the deal will still have to be paid off over the next 30 years. Some of the capital will have come from government grants anyway, and WSCC could not have done all of that work without help from the Labour government. Besides, I remember the pain we had to go through in Southgate when involved in the scheme were plans to close one of the local primary schools. Thanks to local opposition (and I like to think I helped the parents out there) we retained both primary schools.
Also, we are getting a 'state of the art' library. Wonderful though I expect it to be, the Tories and County Hall have been promising us a new library for over 15 years. I know it's that long, because I was working in Crawley Library on Saturdays in 1992. And it was considered to be long overdue then. So thanks, Henry, for finally coming through, but let's hope it doesn't take 15 years for anything else to happen.
Of course, one local invesment that Henry's leaflet completely misses out is also one of the most well known: Fastway. Why could it be that a West Sussex County Council led project, investing millions of pounds into local transport infrastructure, is not worth shouting about? The plans were launched by Cllr David Dewdney, the Tory councillor from Pound Hill, and were set to cost £30 million.
Perhaps Henry doesn't want to be associated with Fastway. Maybe it's related to the events of spring 2005, when the County Council found that it had gone over budget by £6 million. It was known at Easter that year, but apparently Henry, then the leader of West Sussex County Council, was totally unaware of the overspend until after May. Coincidentally, he was at the very same time standing as the Conservative candidate for Crawley in the General Election. As far as I can see, he either did know but decided it was a bit embarrassing, or he really didn't know, which begs the question as to whether someone who can avoid knowing about a £6 million snafu is really in touch with what's going on under their own noses.
Blimey, numbers and money really are not Mr Smith's strong points, are they? I've only got to the first column on page two, and my confidence in the guy is shot to pieces...
There are lots of pictures in it. Lots of them. And in most of them Henry is grinning at me. Great, we know he can smile at a camera. But what else can he do?
Well, adding up and sums might be a bit of a problem for someone.
Taxing sums
There's a bit on the front page slagging off the tax credits scheme, claiming that 'fraud and error' have cost the taxpayer £5bn. However, checking the latest National Audit Office report, I can see that the outstanding debt from overpayments from 2003 (when the scheme was introduced) to 2007 was less than that - £3.9bn, of which only about £0.7bn has been written off. A further £1.6bn has been allocated to underwrite the possibility that not all of the remainder can be collected. That's a total of £2.3bn on the worst case. Half of Henry's figure. Not that I'm saying that it's a good thing, but the Tories are inflating the effect, and have come up with a nice round number to scare us poor taxpayers.
He also claims that the money could build 150 hospitals. Hmm. That works out at less than £35M per hospital. If we look at the figures used by Henry's Campaign for Pease Pottage Hospital, we see that the hospital he's telling us he can get built would cost £168M, about five times as much. And to run it for one year would cost nearly £100M. So, assuming that you want to run a hospital for some time after you build it, £5bn would pay for more like 20 hospitals.
The article ends with a Henry quote:
the sick irony is that Crawley only needs one hospital
Umm, we have one hospital. I thought we needed a better hospital, but maybe Henry's less ambitious for us than he'd like to think.
Swings and roundabouts
Also on the front page it says that Henry
achieved the highest national swing from Labour to Conservative (over 8.5%)but he didn't (assuming that what they actually mean is 'highest swing from Labour to the Conservatives in the country'). David Burrows had a higher swing (8.7%) to win in Enfield Southgate. Sir Patrick Cormack had a higher swing (9.1%) when he held South Staffs.
Yes, Henry did get one of the largest swings, but not the largest. On it's own a small inaccuracy, but given that he can't work out how much a hospital costs, or count how many we have, perhaps there's a pattern emerging...
Costs of investments may rise as well as fall
Page 2 now. It's welcome that West Sussex County Council has invested money into new schools. The figure quoted is £80 million. However, according to a press release from 2003, it was a £54 million PFI project. The remainder of the money was found by selling off land (largely school playing fields), and the PFI part of the deal will still have to be paid off over the next 30 years. Some of the capital will have come from government grants anyway, and WSCC could not have done all of that work without help from the Labour government. Besides, I remember the pain we had to go through in Southgate when involved in the scheme were plans to close one of the local primary schools. Thanks to local opposition (and I like to think I helped the parents out there) we retained both primary schools.
Also, we are getting a 'state of the art' library. Wonderful though I expect it to be, the Tories and County Hall have been promising us a new library for over 15 years. I know it's that long, because I was working in Crawley Library on Saturdays in 1992. And it was considered to be long overdue then. So thanks, Henry, for finally coming through, but let's hope it doesn't take 15 years for anything else to happen.
Of course, one local invesment that Henry's leaflet completely misses out is also one of the most well known: Fastway. Why could it be that a West Sussex County Council led project, investing millions of pounds into local transport infrastructure, is not worth shouting about? The plans were launched by Cllr David Dewdney, the Tory councillor from Pound Hill, and were set to cost £30 million.
Perhaps Henry doesn't want to be associated with Fastway. Maybe it's related to the events of spring 2005, when the County Council found that it had gone over budget by £6 million. It was known at Easter that year, but apparently Henry, then the leader of West Sussex County Council, was totally unaware of the overspend until after May. Coincidentally, he was at the very same time standing as the Conservative candidate for Crawley in the General Election. As far as I can see, he either did know but decided it was a bit embarrassing, or he really didn't know, which begs the question as to whether someone who can avoid knowing about a £6 million snafu is really in touch with what's going on under their own noses.
Blimey, numbers and money really are not Mr Smith's strong points, are they? I've only got to the first column on page two, and my confidence in the guy is shot to pieces...
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Inheriting the wind
Inheritance tax. Apparently, it's a bigger issue for voters than any other political subject.
Why would this be? After all, currently less than 10% of estates are liable to the tax. When it comes to tax, it's far less widely felt than VAT, National Insurance, Income Tax, or duties on fuel, alcohol and cigarettes. Of course, everybody who owns a newspaper is likely to be affected. Many of the senior journalists on national newspapers and on the TV could potentially be. I'd be surprised if most of the Tory front bench are not likely to need to pay some death duties.
However, the vast majority of people will be totally unaffected by increases to thresholds for Inheritance Tax. So why are people so worked up? Of course, everybody hopes (can I use the Brownite word 'aspires') to be rich enough by the time they die to leave a substantial amount. More to the point, everybody secretly hopes that aunty Mabel is sitting on a pile of cash and that she's put it aside for us. However, the reality is that the average person is unlikely to be so fortunate. Even if you are lucky enough to inherit, say, a 1 million pound estate, the current taxes would still leave you with over £700,000. If aunty Mabel was only worth half a million, you'd get 84% of the value.
The Tories may have wanted to get rid of it completely, but have come up with a new threshold of £1 million. Given that it's the super-rich who are likely to be able to spend a bit of time and money on tax planning away much of their obligations, and they'd be getting a cut of £280,000 anyway, this would be a long way towards removing the tax completely. Given that the Tories are not telling us that we can cut overall taxes, that means that billions would have to be found somehow.
Alistair Darling has announced changes, which effectively mean that the £300,000 allowance is transferred to a widow(er). As no inheritance tax is liable on estates passed between husband and wife (or, I believe, civil partners), it means that when the remaining partner dies, the estate gets an allowance of £600,000. Fine if you're married, a but annoying if you aren't.
Skuds has an idea - rather than tax the estate, why not tax each inheritor according to how much they get? Lateral thinking there.
My feeling is that Inheritance Tax is fair - it's no more unfair than any other taxation at least - although the quick increase in property values has caused people to worry that the middle classes might come under the cosh (and we can't have that now, can we?). I think that it would make sense for either the main home to be exempt, or for the average house price to be a factor in determining the allowance (I quite like the idea of a formula rather than the Treasury every now and again picking an arbitrary number for allowances on tax).
Mind you, on a related note, it's quite odd to hear the Tories complain about their policies being stolen. They nicked the idea of a flat rate for non-domiciles from the Lib Dems (and they attacked it as unworkable at the time).
Why would this be? After all, currently less than 10% of estates are liable to the tax. When it comes to tax, it's far less widely felt than VAT, National Insurance, Income Tax, or duties on fuel, alcohol and cigarettes. Of course, everybody who owns a newspaper is likely to be affected. Many of the senior journalists on national newspapers and on the TV could potentially be. I'd be surprised if most of the Tory front bench are not likely to need to pay some death duties.
However, the vast majority of people will be totally unaffected by increases to thresholds for Inheritance Tax. So why are people so worked up? Of course, everybody hopes (can I use the Brownite word 'aspires') to be rich enough by the time they die to leave a substantial amount. More to the point, everybody secretly hopes that aunty Mabel is sitting on a pile of cash and that she's put it aside for us. However, the reality is that the average person is unlikely to be so fortunate. Even if you are lucky enough to inherit, say, a 1 million pound estate, the current taxes would still leave you with over £700,000. If aunty Mabel was only worth half a million, you'd get 84% of the value.
The Tories may have wanted to get rid of it completely, but have come up with a new threshold of £1 million. Given that it's the super-rich who are likely to be able to spend a bit of time and money on tax planning away much of their obligations, and they'd be getting a cut of £280,000 anyway, this would be a long way towards removing the tax completely. Given that the Tories are not telling us that we can cut overall taxes, that means that billions would have to be found somehow.
Alistair Darling has announced changes, which effectively mean that the £300,000 allowance is transferred to a widow(er). As no inheritance tax is liable on estates passed between husband and wife (or, I believe, civil partners), it means that when the remaining partner dies, the estate gets an allowance of £600,000. Fine if you're married, a but annoying if you aren't.
Skuds has an idea - rather than tax the estate, why not tax each inheritor according to how much they get? Lateral thinking there.
My feeling is that Inheritance Tax is fair - it's no more unfair than any other taxation at least - although the quick increase in property values has caused people to worry that the middle classes might come under the cosh (and we can't have that now, can we?). I think that it would make sense for either the main home to be exempt, or for the average house price to be a factor in determining the allowance (I quite like the idea of a formula rather than the Treasury every now and again picking an arbitrary number for allowances on tax).
Mind you, on a related note, it's quite odd to hear the Tories complain about their policies being stolen. They nicked the idea of a flat rate for non-domiciles from the Lib Dems (and they attacked it as unworkable at the time).
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