BeermatBut Bruce, that’s not analogous, is it? At the moment tuition fees are not means tested like fsm are. If you can’t afford them you don’t get them free – this ‘nightmare scenario’ (to a tory) has been avoided by making them a loan available to all, but only immediately payable back by the children of rich parents.
Then there’s the point that the poor can (and do) opt out of higher ed for themselves or their kids for financial reasons – it is harder to opt out of your children eating food. One is a policy the tories might hope to sustain, the other might be a problem even with the telegraph’s backing.
Unless I missed a policy change in either area (It’s been a while since I was around higher ed) then the two are not the same, and extrapolating one to argue the other is logically false.
Oh dear. I hope I am not giving central office ideas. I can see it now – school meal loans for all – payable when you grow up..
Taxing future generations, while neatly avoiding anything progressive. Trebles all round!
BeermatMaybe a better policy would be proper enforcement?
It might be easier if you hadn’t been to school with them, who knows?
BeermatI would look at how much more the top 5% are earning as a factor in the raised tax take from the top – and certainly look at how the increased earnings differential between the rich and the poor might influence the differential in tax take.
BeermatAll true – except the bit about this effectively being the ECJ taking effect. No court will consider what might happen in another, or where an appeal might go. And that’s all it would be – an appeal to another court that also might look at purpose.
Also the EU was formed in 1993, Pepper v. Hart was 1992 – before the treaty of Maastricht came into force, long before the Treaty of Amsterdam which really did make the European Court able to hear referrals (not appeals) on civil matters and at a time when it was simply the European Economic Community. The hypothetical principle of purpose in law existed long before any of this, and in fact goes back in various incarnations to the Greeks.
Now, whether one person’s statement in Hansard does or doesn’t a purpose make is precisely what a judge who is prepared to accept a purpose argument would then decide.
I was just defending myself against accusations of nonsense.
Ryan, are you in the legal profession? I have been quite rude to you and you have always responded calmly and logically..
BeermatBruce, nobody is expecting or blindly assuming that individuals will gladly pay a bit extra – but it’s only those who think that tax is optional who presume how glad they feel about it is a factor here.
Similarly, I am not too sure whether a particular business ‘accepts’ a particular rate of tax is really the question here – or at least I doubt it would be under a Labour administration, even though tax does seem negotiable on an individual basis currently.
TonyT – You’re cynical! Thing about debt is – it’s only real when we the people owe. And we do. In the seventies we (the people, ordinary people with a job and kids) didn’t have big 4×4’s, big tellies, big holidays, because we couldn’t afford them. Now we do – but we still can’t afford them! This is the actual national debt.
Meanwhile money spent on a nurses wages gets spent by that nurse – and taxed. It does not disappear. This is why you cannot equate running a nation with running a business. The people who work for UK plc give their money (apart from what they spend on holiday) back to the business!
The whole Tory ‘book balancing’ thing is an oversimplification that ignores reality in an attempt to make a national debt a ‘thing’ that only paying nurses less will solve.
BeermatBruce, you lost me there. How does making tuition free favour the better off in society?
I think you’ll find a Telegraph survey said that Telegraph readers said they would be less likely to vote Labour (!) after reading the Telegraph’s version of a draft document. This is not the same as public opinion.
I read it – it’s a piece of propaganda. CapX is edited by Robert Colvile, former head of comment at the Telegraph. Although it claims to be a straight news site, it is actually owned by the ‘Centre for Policy Studies’, an equally false-colours organisation founded by ‘Baroness’ Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph. No, I am not being an arm-waving tinfoil hatter – look it up if you don’t believe me!
Although the writer suggested they should, my eyes did not glaze over when reading the DRAFT manifesto ideas.
Not only does it seek to misguide, it also get a bit nasty in tone – much like one of the contributors here who talks off ‘crushing’ and ‘murdering’ those with left wing tendencies, this asks us to give ‘the strongest possible thumping’ to people who dare suggest these things.
I read it, and now I need a shower.
Beermat“That’s nonsense. It isn’t arguable anywhere… That is why it was designed and taken up by the EU. It is admirably suited to their brand of political and legal chicanery… I can see Labor adopting this
It already exists in UK law, John. Nonsense or not. it is called the ‘Purposive approach’, it is a controversial principle of law and its not something a political party ‘adopts’. It was first introduced Pepper v. Hart, 1993 – and not by the EU.
It would be easy for someone who didn’t know your history to believe you know an awful lot.
BeermatYes, that is the situation in UK Tax Law too. Should a tax issue ‘go legal’ nine times out of ten it is down to interpretation of the law, with the defence trying to explain in qualitative terms why the law does not apply in this particular method of avoidance as the purpose of the law is elsewhere.
There is a word for this kind of defence – I forget it now. But my point is that the purpose of any law is moot and completely arguable in court.
BeermatMy parents rather enjoyed the three-day week.
Seriously, though, hijacked unions and un-neccessary strikes were a problem for everyone and every government for quite a while until it all came to a head in the late 1970’s. There is frankly nothing in the leaked draft manifesto that would somehow recreate the long-in-the-brewing conditions that led to to that particular meltdown. To use an eighties phrase – don’t believe the hype.
Taxing the super-rich and taking a portion of profit for hospitals, schools and Universities before it becomes free money for shareholders does NOT lead to flying pickets. There is absolutely no connection. Sadly no-one seems prepared to ask the Tory spin-machine to demonstrate one.
BeermatDr. Gunnar Beck sounds like an academic to me. Shouldn’t you be engaging in howls of derision, not quoting him, John?
By the way, any Lawyer not engaged in spinning ‘for Britain’ would tell you that all laws rely upon interpretation in their application, and this is one of the things that judges do.
BeermatIn case everyone here is filtering news through the Daily Torygraph I would like to point to something that didn’t get past their censor – the Labour plan to make one uk public-owned provider for each utility available to all, in competition with the private companies.This might give options, though I can see it getting complicated where the public company has to buy your leccy from a private Chinese power station.
BeermatFor F’s sake, that was written by the Telegraph!
Bruce, I’m surprised at you. I thought you’d get hold of the actual text before joining in the tired chorus of ‘back to the seventies’ like this is somehow a relevant taunt four decades of economic nonsense later.
BeermatImmediate testing of public opinion shows the opposite, despite the BBC’s attempts to spin it to match their narrative.
Renationalisation of the railways and the abolition of tuition fees seem rather popular. Bruce, did you read the manifesto or what various papers have said it said?
BeermatBeermatAbsolutely agree with TonyT on this one! There is nothing less ‘strong and stable’* than putting control over essential national infrastructure in the hands of foreign-based and multinational corporations. It is verging on insanity.
I guess Bruce you missed the bit about how stuff will be paid for – nothing ‘wild and wacky’, just a slight tax increase for the super-wealthy and a hike on taxes against profit (not income) for businesses that pay corporation tax. I guess your worries would come true there, Tony.
I am not sure it’s all that unpalatable for many, though, so best keep the fake news and character assassinations up for a bit longer, eh Theresa?
*Other candidates for ‘not all that strong and stable’ are: A U-turn on her position on Brexit, a U-turn on giving parliament a vote on Article 50, a U-turn on her National Insurance hike within a week (leaving a £2 billion black hole in her first budget as Prime Minister), and a U-turn on her repeated pledges not to hold an opportunistic snap election.
Theresa May had 9 months to call a General Election before she triggered Article 50, but she refused to do it when she had the time and instead waited until three weeks after she’d set the clock ticking on the most complex and risky set of diplomatic negotiations in UK history. Neither strong nor stable.
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