Labour's 41 Stealth Tax CUTS

We all know about 'stealth taxes'. The Daily Mail will relish in describing how Middle England is being ravished by a miriad of tax increases, all introduced in secret by the evil gnome Gordon Brown. Such as in this article: Tax rises under Labour

Gosh. Thats a lot.

But wait, Gordon Brown doesn't just raise taxes. He also cuts them. In effect, the 'tax burden' or the average amount we pay in tax is about the same as in 1997, it's just that the balance between the lower earners and higher earners has shifted. 'Middle England' is really not that badly off - How often do we see figures of '£50,000' or '£100,000' as 'middle england' type wages or household incomes, and how many people actually have that kind of money coming in? The Average salary is less than £25,000.

But, courtesy of snowflake who got the details from the Treasury, I can list 41 of the tax cuts since 1997 you may not even have noticed! Now we can reveal how that sneaky Mr Brown has been putting money right into your pocket. Do you wonder why you feel better off under Labour, while people around you are moaning...


1. Cutting VAT on domestic fuel (electicity and gas) from 8% in 1997 to 5% now.

2. Cutting basic income tax from 23% in 1997 to 22%.

3. Introduction of the 10p starting rate of tax (lowest starting rate since 1962) for £2150 of earnings above the personal allowance.

4. Cutting large company corporation tax from 33% to 30%

5. Cutting small business corporation tax from 23% to 19%

6. Capital gain tax for long term business assets cut from 40% to 10%

7. Stamp Duty threshold raised from £60,000 in 1997 to £125,000 now

8. Vehicle excise duty for 38 tonne and 41 tonne lorries cut by 500 pounds; the 40 tonne class lorries rate cut by 1,800 pounds; for all other heavy lorries rates frozen. (2000 budget)

9. Abolition of the 2% employee N.I. "entry fee" payable on earnings from £0 - LEL, when earnings crossed the lower earnings limit.

10. Abolition of the 3% employer N.I. "entry fee" payable on earnings from £0 - LEL, when earnings crossed the lower earnings limit.

11. Abolition of the "stepped" employer N.I. rates, saving companies administration hassles.

12. Alignment of the LEL with the Income tax personal allowance. This involved increasing the LEL sharply from £64 per week in 1998 to £87 in 2001 and £97 per week today, which means the exempt threshold has increased by 51% since 1998 (or at a rate of 5.33% per annum, considerably faster than the rate of inflation).

13. Class 2 flat rate of self-employed N.I. reduced from £6.55 to £2.10 per week.

14. Freeze on duty on spirits since 1997.

15. Employee shareholders capital gains tax cut to 10%

16. Business investors in new and unquoted companies who invest between 5% and 25% have capital gains tax cut to 10% on investments above 5% held for four or more years

17. For small and medium companies, the 40% capital allowances are made permanent

18. Research and development tax relief introduced for business

19. Tax relief for intellectual property and goodwill introduced (2001 budget)

20. Abolition of withholding tax on payments of interest and royalties between companies in the UK.

21. Abolition of withholding tax on interest paid on international bonds

22. Working families tax credit introduced

23. Child tax credit introduced and extended for families who earn £58,000 and below

24. Introduction of stakeholder pensions which for the first time are available to the unwaged, giving then a tax-free savings vehicle where a contribution up to £2808 also attracts tax relief of 22%.

25. For businesses with turnover of up to £58,000, VAT is not charged at all.

26. To bring disused properties back into use, VAT on residential property conversions cut from 17.5% to 5%

27. For cleaning up contaminated land, an accelerated tax relief, set at 150%

28. To help revitalise high streets, government provided 150% first year capital allowances for bringing empty flats over shops back into the residential market.

29. For churchs, for repairs started after April 1st 2001, a new grant, the equivalent of a VAT reduction from 17.5% to 5%. This was further abolished to 0% in the 2004 budget.

30. Vehicle excise duty abolished for tractors

31. Betting duty abolished for pools.

32. Exemption for companies from corporation tax on the gains from the sale of substantial shareholdings. (2002 budget)

33. Automatic entitlement for business to reclaim VAT on bad debts after six months, introduced for the first time.

34. Betting duty abolished for bingo players

35. A 20p per litre reduction in fuel-duty for bio-ethanol

36. A 20p per litre reduction in fuel-duty for bio-diesal

37. Fuel-duty frozen for petrol and diesal since 2003.

38. Halving of beer duty for pubs that brew their own beer

39. People with disabilities who got back to work entitled to tax credit

40. Child-care tax-credit introduced for people who place their children in nurseries

41. Vehicle excise duty cut to £0 for cars emitting less than 100 CO2 g/km (saving of £65), cut to £40 for cars emitting between 101-120 CO2 g/km (saving of £35) and cut to £100 for cars emitting 121-150 CO2 g/km (saving of £5).

Please note that while the Mail lists 80 rises, they had more time than snowflake to do the research, and they put every single year for Council Tax (so if it was the Tory County Council who whacked up the bill, they still blame Labour). There may be more than these 41 cuts. Who knows, that Brown is so sneaky, he could be cutting more taxes AS YOU READ THIS!!!

Not that bloggers ever self obsess...

I've been 'tagged' by Skuds, so I'd better provide my reader with a list.

I am sitting down
I want a socialist government
I wish I had more enthusiasm
I hate intolerance
I love marmite
I miss trains
I fear my boss noticing how rubbish I am
I hear the birds nesting in my roof
I wonder where Tories come from
I regret having spent too much time on regret
I am not as dumb as I look
I dance like no one's watching
I sing to Pantera
I cry at the end of Mean Machine
I make arguments
I write less than I ought to
I confuse myself
I need a good strong coffee
I should get out more
I start as late as possible
I finish the few things I don't forget about
I tag no one. so there

Beer In The Evening

To announce the publication of an epic tome, the book for our times, the answer to all of life's questions:

Beer In The Evening: London Edition

Buy it! Go on, you know you want to, it tells you what real customers think about 250 of London's pubs. If you follow the Amazon link on the BITE page, the authors get a little bit extra. As they are pals of mine, and they put a lot of work into the Beer In The Evening site, and into the book itself.

Tory town

It wasn't entirely unexpected, but the way it happened and the actuality are quite disappointing. The Tories won seats in Southgate and Ifield, and got lucky with the drawing of lots for Broadfield North (just as they did in Furnace Green and Maidenbower not so long ago).

So, from a Labour majority of 1 we go to a Tory majority of 1. Bob Lanzer will be the new leader. Duncan Crow will be the deputy. I wonder who else will be running departments. Will Brenda Burgess be tasked with trying to convince tenants to opt for Stock Transfer? Who will have to handle the travellers (and what will they actually DO, now that they have ruled out the only sensible option)? What cuts will they make:

Voluntary sector - currently CBC donates about £600,000 to local voluntary groups. None of them is a loony left 'muslim lesbian single mothers coffee morning' group. They include the Citizens Advice Bureau, the Crawley CVS. Any cuts here will not exactly chime with the national Tory line about using voluntary and charitable bodies to do good in the community

Community Wardens - Labour was going to increase the number of them. If the Tories don't or even more cut them, will that make our streets safer?

Raid the bank - Crawley is one of the few councils in the country which has kept itself debt free. In fact, there's some money in the bank. The easy option would be to spend that money to keep council tax down. However, the interest on it is also used to keep council tax down. So if you dip into those reserves and don't decrease revenue demands, all that will happen is that the savings will disappear. I'm all for using that capital to invest to make savings. But a Council Tax giveaway - while popular - will erode the financial position long term.

One thing I do know - we need a decent, united opposition on the Council. Part of the problem with the group appears to me that they didn't notice that a majority of 16 had gone down to a majority of 1. You can afford posture politics sometimes, but not with a single vote at play.

Strange coincidence

I wrote the contents of that preceding post about two years ago. I deleted the old site that it was on and posted it here, in case anyone wanted to see some long winded rant.

And then I read an article in the Guardian about the history of 'Englishness':

Englishness is more about Crécy than cups of tea by Ian Mortimer.

Quote
Nine hundred years ago, England was a kingdom and its monarch was the "king of the English". A century later he had become the "king of England". But a Devonian in 1200 would not have considered himself of the same nationality as a Northumbrian. They spoke differently, dressed differently, had different building traditions, used regionally minted coins, observed different customs and even broke different laws. Their loyalty was personal, to their lord and king, not national...

...it is a good thing that the debate about Englishness goes on and on without reaching a conclusion. The flag of St George that fluttered above Edward III's soldiers as they marched through France in 1346 now flies at international sports venues. We have shrugged off the militaristic connotations of the flag of St George and can wave it as an emblem of our diverse, confused, contradictory, multicultural English identity. But at the same time the flag speaks for 600 years of our history. Its symbolic power has developed along with the English nation. That says much more about Englishness than Stonehenge or a cup of tea.

The English - Who?

I consider myself to be English. I was born here, lived all my life here, in Sussex and in Manchester. But am I really? And what is it to be English?

Given the past millenium or so of history, one could be forgiven for thinking of England as a homogenous state, with a common language, culture and history. But look a little deeper and is that the case. 'English' derives from the Angles, a Germanic people who crossed the North Sea as the Roman Empire collapsed and colonised South-Eastern Britain. Their cousins the Saxons arrived alongside them, as well as the Jutes. All of these tribes had previously inhabited Denmark, Northern Germany and Holland (and to an extent the descendants of those they left behind still do). They supplanted and mixed with the pre-Roman Celts, who were displaced to the northern and western parts of Britain, forming their own kingdoms. However, they weren't the only ones to colonise 'England'. The Danes, who are more nordic, took control of much of Central Britain (Northern England), later on Vikings not only raided much of the coasts but settled in scattered parts of the islands. Not to mention that after a few hundred years of Roman rule, many immigrants from across the Empire had settled and mixed into the population.

Then came the Normans. Essentially they became our ruling class, and while there weren't many of themn, their culture became our 'high culture'. Anglo-Saxon and Danish culture was for the peasants. English as a language wasn't spoken much by our monarchs until the Wars of the Roses. Many of our Kings ruled from across the Channel - the nation under Henry Plantagenet was the 'Angevin Empire', a reference to its seat of power at Angers. The Hundred Years war confined 'England' to the island of Britain.

Meanwhile, England absorbed (or conquered, or partnered with, depending on your point of view) Wales, kept Scotland subdued as much as possible and viewed Ireland as a land of hostile pirates.

That was the last time 'England' really existed. With the Tudors winning (or stealing) the throne, Wales was less a colony as it had been under Edward I, and more of a partner. A hundred years later, with the acession of James I (VI of Scotland), the moves toward Anglo-Scottish Union began their 100 year long course. Ireland had an English colony in the Pale of Dublin, soon to be joined by the Scottish Presbyterian plantations into Ulster. Slowly, England ceased to be a separate country and became the senior partner in 'Britain'.

So what is England then? Britain minus the Celtic Fringe? What images are conjured up of 'England' on its own? And do we all share the same culture? After all, anyone can tell you that there is more variation in English dialects in the mother country than in the USA, a far bigger country. Cloth caps and whippets don't mix with pearly kings, or cream teas, or lager louts. Football, the real national game, doe unite us in its divisions, but then in Scotland, Italy or Argentina, the same could be said.

We look to writers like Orwell, or poets like Larkin, to comforting images (warm beer and cricket, bobbies on the beat, red pillar boxes, a dignified monarchy) to represent the core 'English values', but how representative are they now. And how representative were they 200 years ago? Do they only belong to a particular time-frame, when - by no coincidence - Britain (and by extension England) ruled the world, led the Industrial Revolution and sat down for a nice cup of tea at 3pm - when we could be more assured of our place in the world (dominance, naturally of a benign and paternal kind, unlike those horrid French or Spanish imperialists), when we spread the word of God through the CofE and the practice of commerce through trade (in everything from wool and cotton, slaves and sugar through to salt and steel), and before Germany, the USA and everyone else started to catch us up.

In fact these images appear to hark back to an age of complacency. We thought we ruled the world, and so ignored it (although not as much as the USA does today). We didn't so much have our place at the top taken from us, but lose it through resting on our laurels, and overstretching our colonial conquests.

So when people talk about the English, particularly when its those nationalistic fools on the Right, or the demagogues of the Left, what do they mean? And does their meaning bear any relation to the real England.

England is not homogenous, not really united. There are always going to be distinctions, the North-South divide, Town vs Country debates, not to mention the continually changing class issue.

Lets see how English we are. What do we drink - Beer. Now there's a nice English drink. Except that of course our most popular beers are lagers, which originate in Central Europe. English style Ale is enjoying a renaissence at the moment, after the dire days of the 70s, but still, most of the English (and particularly the young), steer weel clear of the brown, sometimes cloudy, brew in favour of something with bubbles but less taste (which is why you have to drink it cold).

What do we eat - Curry. Not always of course. We might go for a pizza, or a Chinese, or a burger perhaps. Even when eating in, the 'English' foods are the ones we eat because we have to, not because we like them. Of course we have a lot of nostalgia for Sunday Roasts, Hot Pot, Spotted Dick or Tapioca pudding, but these stodgy staples are in decline. Mainly because they are a product of the times when the English seem to have been proudest of our lack of adventure and lack of external influence in our cuisine. If we'd seen the food eaten by the late Tudors, with its spices mixed with fruits and meat, we'd have been looking at something closer to Middle Eastern food than our old favourites.

Here's where even my polemic starts to show up how hopeless it is to define what is solely 'English' (or even British) culture. The most popular beers are indeed lagers. And yet they are anglicised to a certain extent. There is a difference between continental beers (particularly those brewed under purity laws) and our own - even the ones with foreign names. Stella and Heineken in Britain are not the same as they are in Belgium or Holland.

And curry is the same. Yes, it is called 'Indian' food, and yes, it is rooted in the cuisine of the sub-continent (after all, a majority of 'Indian' restaurants are owned by people of Bangladeshi origin). But the food is not the same as one would find in India or Bangladesh. Two of the most popular forms of curry were invented in England. The Chicken Tikka Masala and the Balti are both developments designed to cater for the English palate, as indeed are many of the 'traditional' curry-house meals.

So perhaps this becomes rather circular - English culture borrows heavily from external influences. And those influences are in turn 'anglicised'. Maybe this is the core of out culture?

Maybe diversity - so disparaged by the neo-liberal literati - is something that every 'culture' needs. After all, British political satire has developed out of the political friction which we have been experiencing since the 17th Century. The clash between the values of 'freedom' and 'stability' has been at the very centre of political discourse. And to an extent both values lose out when they clash. Certainly stability is dependent not only on such staples as church, family, class, but also on economic wellbeing, the influences from outside a society and the extent to which people within it feel free to make their own way. Freedom can, if overly emphasised, cause major differences of opinion. Freedom of speech cannot be absolute if you also have freedom from slander or bigotry.

To a large extent, we look back at English history and (when not simply thinking of it as a list of monarchs, battles and other such dry statistics learnt by rote) see that the culture of England in the 18th Century was very different to that of today. For example, the monarchy was not held in such great regard. I know that there is a growing trend towards republicanism today, and the monarchy as an institution was probably more popular then than now, but the monarchs themselves were often figures of hate or at least fun. Partly this stems from the turmoil of the mid to late 17th Century when Charles I was beheaded, James II was subject to two rebellions of which the second was successful and when the religion of the monarch was to some extent more important than his rule. The other major factor of course was the end of the Stuart dynasty and the accession of the Hanovers, who at first couldn't speak English, and at the end of the 18th Century appeared to descend into decadency.

England was a much more agrarian society, we were barely moving into the Industrial Revolution, and that factor probably has done as much as anything to change our society and culture.

When I read or hear about English culture, particularly when the source is patriotic or right wing, I always get the same message 'We must preserve our culture against outside influences'. Firstly this begs the question 'who is "we"?' Secondly it begs the question 'Why preserve a culture which is a snapshot in time, when culture always changes regardless of its influences?' These two questions are sometimes addressed. The final question that always springs to my mind but is never answered is 'What IS our culture?'

It seems that Tories, the BNP and various commentators take it for granted that we all know exactly what they mean by 'English' or 'British'. Well I'm sorry, but as a reader will see from what I have written so far, I don't know what they mean.

So what are the staple influences used?

In literature it would have to be Shakespeare, probably more than Chaucer. But while Shakespeare was writing for an English audience, and many of his plays are English 'Histories', many of his plays are set abroad. Here is an Englishman, from the heart of the country, writing about depressed Danes, tragic Italian lovers and comedy Greeks. His themes are essentially human, his plays deal with ambition, revenge, love, betrayal, hope (and its loss), the battle of the sexes, war, and so on. That is why Shakespeare is so valuable, because just like Goethe, he's not simply addressing his own culture, he's showing us all of human life.

In art we look at Turner. And yet his influences must have been the Italian masters just as much as the English landscape.

I must say that I love my country. And thats whether you call it England, Britain or the UK. I am proud to be from here, I feel privileged to live here and be able to live as comfortably as I do. But an essential part of that is that I love the people and the place, not the institution. I couldn't care less if my town were an independant mini-state, or if I was a citizen of a world-state, I don't see a difference. Would it be so tragic if England or Britain were to cease to exist? What matters really is brass tacks, not esoteric notions of nationality. I identify with my friends, my family, my workmates, people who support the same football team, people who like the same music as I do. Does it matter what the colour of their flag is?

Selling off the team

Unbelievable!!

Six months ago, Crawley Town was bought out by the 'SA Group'. They own a few bars and restaurants around the county, and don't seem to have any football experience. When they turned up they said the plan was to conver to full time Professional status over the season, then they suddenly decided to do it in August, causing chaos as some players weren't prepared to leave their day jobs.

After a reasonable start, the club were sliding down the table, so the long serving, successful and popular manager Vines was sacked, Alan Mullery was brought in to consult and his mate John Hollins got the job. Still second from bottom, but games are close (and have been all season).

Suddenly today the whole team are up for sale, their wages are cut (and I expect they are all getting advice from the PFA about breaches of contract).

I'm reading the comments on the ctfc.net boards - a protest of some kind is being discussed - probably a boycott of 'Redz' and a demonstration before and after the game.

Been a while...

Sheer slackness really.

The sheer drudgery of the football season, with Crawley bobbing around in the relegation zone and Fulham heading for mid-table mediocrity if they don't lose it, has not been much of an inspiration. Neither has the state of politics - every time I start thinking that the Labour Government is starting to respond to the Party and the people, they do something like the Education Bill.

And don't even get me started on the local council and the way that the Labour Group completely lost the plot over travellers. All I'll say is that after all the moaning about how we can never allow a Tory Mayor, or even Deputy Mayor, we got one anyway.

Oh well. In the meantime, I did get to find out about this:

The Evil Atheist Conspiracy

I'd join it, if it exists. Which it doesn't. Of course.

Fantastic day

This morning I was a little down, because my girlfriend left town to go to her friend's birthday party.

But now I'm all fresh and glowy!!

Today I went out into the Surrey countryside with a few mates for a bit of mountain biking. I last did this regularly back in 1999, until I came off and broke my elbow, so I am way out of my condition and so is the bike (although apparently 'retro' 90s bikes are in fashion at the moment due to their garich colours and 'hardcore' image).

Even though the rain started as we did, and I was a little rusty and out of condition, I had a really great time going up and down Holmbush Hill.

When I was living in Maidenbower, my flatmate and I would quite often ride over to Tilgate Forest, which as far as I know is still a pretty good place to ride. I've been way too lazy for the past 5 years, but I am no longer happy with this, or my expanding waistline...

Crawley 5(2) AFC Wimbledon 4(3)

My first game of the season, and first at Crawley for years, and what a game to witness.

Pre-match build up was meeting Darren from Beer In The Evening and Mike at Crawley Station, a quick pint in The Downsman (mainly so that Darren & Mike could report on it for the website) and off to the game.

A few Dons fans had stayed away, saying the £11 entry was too high. Well, I guess they feel vindicated now after missing nine goals. That's about £1.2o per goal.

Wimbledon took the early lead through a 2nd minute goal. By the 24th minute they'd made it three, even though Crawley was playing well in midfield. Presumably fearing the sight of Francis Vines at half time, Town rallied and Burton scored two in quick succession before half time.

Crawley came out the stronger at the restart, and Burton quickly made his hat-trick, all of them quality finishes. He was subbed later on, but with a few triallists to give a run out, this wasn't a poor decision. Not when one of them, whose name escapes me (no thanks to the worst announcer in the world) sets up a fourth goal before scoring a fifth, which looked like a mishit cross from the other end but was apparently intentional. The visitors, who had started looking more dangerous again managed a fourth goal to set up a nailbiting finish, but Crawley held their ground, with chances going begging at both ends.

About that announcer. If he's the DJ as well, he ought to hang his head in shame. Not only does he get most of the names and numbers mixed up for the Crawley substitutions, but the half time 'entertainment' included playing 'Albatross' by Fleetwood Mac. Hello? It's a football game!! The only saving grace was that he tried his best with the name of the Wimbledon no2, which was long and Polish.