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The case for a truly liberal party

By Editor
September 20th, 2012 at 11:48 pm | Comments Off on The case for a truly liberal party | Posted in Liberal Democrats

Hat tip : Richard Reeves (Nick Clegg’s director of strategy from July 2010 to this summer) has a simply brilliant case for “a truly liberal party” published in the New Statesmen. In his impressive analysis of where  the party must go next he says:

“The question about the leadership is, at heart, a question about the party’s direction. Do the Lib Dems complete the journey of liberalisation that Clegg embarked on, or retreat to their earlier, soft centre-left position? Is Cleggism a temporary detour or a real departure? “Clegg or no Clegg?” is a proxy question for the deeper one: “Liberal or not liberal?”

He says so much more… If you have not read it – go do it now. We don’t agree with every word (but we are just nit-picking frankly).


 


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Clegg’s solution to complex tax code: another tax!

By Angela Harbutt
March 10th, 2012 at 12:51 pm | 1 Comment | Posted in Liberal Democrats

A rather depressing Telegraph online headline today reads “Nick Clegg goes after the ultra-rich” . Nick Clegg  has apparently recently “uncovered evidencethat our tax code is too complex and that complexity is benefiting tax-lawyers and the super-rich.

The Deputy Prime Minister says he has uncovered evidence that hundreds of millionaires are paying a tax rate of less than 20 per cent on their earnings by using an “army of lawyers and accountants……. A wide array of tax loopholes and reliefs are exploited by the wealthy to reduce their tax bills, leading to them paying overall rates on annual earnings beneath those faced by ordinary workers, he said.

“Uncovered” really? Good grief – where has he been for that last couple of years ? Here is an article from Mr Littlewood (formerly of this parish) now of the Insititute of Economic Affairs back in Autumn 2010.

Early this year, an IEA research paper showed that with over 8,000 pages of primary legislation – in very rough terms about six times the length of War and Peace – Britain has the longest tax code in the world. For those inclined to believe that other Western European countries are always more bureaucratic than Britain, it was worth noting that the German and French tax codes weigh at a comparatively modest 1,700 and 1,300 pages respectively” Mark Littlewood: Telegraph 8 September 2010

Then again one year later Littlewood said it again …

The Tax Commission research points to the incredible length and complexity of our tax rules as the principal culprit. Tooley’s corporation tax guide, for example, has nearly trebled in length in the last decade. It now has a word count not dissimilar to the complete works of Shakespeare. The TPA amusingly illustrates the farcical scale of our tax code by showing that one of the fastest readers on the face of the Earth would take five days to read it out loud.  Goodness knows how long it takes to understand it“. Mark Littlewood: IEA blog 16th August 2011

Er.. And again a month later…

“The UK’s tax rules are now so complicated and lengthy that British businesses spend around £20bn a year simply trying to comply with the rules . Not handing over a single penny in tax, just filling in paperwork and attempting to calculate their liabilities. That’s an overall cost of around £300 for every man, woman and child in this country every year.

Things are getting worse, not better. When a country’s tax rule book is five times longer than the complete works of Shakespeare – and growing – you can only expect this kind of ludicrous waste and inefficiency. If the laws of association football were this long and confusing, you’d probably need hundreds of referees at every game and it’s doubtful the sport would be viable at allMark Littlewood: Mail On Line: 29th September 2011

Littlewood’s answer to the problem – simplify the tax code by employing best practice from other countries. That (according to Professor Philip Booth (IEA)) would save about £5billion in regulatory costs but also disproportionately assist small businesses being crippled by the burden. It would, of course, also eliminate a lot of the highly complex loopholes much beloved of the rich.

Clegg’s answer to the problem – introduce another tax!  If it was April the 1st I would be laughing. It isn’t and I am not.

Any chance that Clegg’s bizarre approach to this (much-publicised) problem is connected to a certain event being held in Gateshead this weekend?

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When is Nick Clegg going to grow up, decide what he wants to be, and just lead?

By Editor
March 2nd, 2012 at 7:00 am | 8 Comments | Posted in Leadership, Liberal Democrats

The internal politics of Nick Clegg’s decision to co-author a letter to activists with Baroness Shirley Williams are not hard to understand. Left-wing activists and the professional NHS staff interests amongst the membership would and could still deliver a stinging rebuke to his Leadership through a wrecking motion at Gateshead next week.

Judging defeat certain, and no doubt encouraged by threats of resignations, defections and ritual suicide by members of his ‘peer-group’, he has bravely decided to give in to their demands to present a united front.

Charitably we judge he may have been poorly advised. Nick’s preference for conflict-avoidance and invertebrates in his inner circle, is far more consistent than his public statements. His Leadership bid was so anaemic that a substantial opening lead was eroded to the point that Chris Huhne’s ‘triumph of the will’ campaign was only thwarted by a postal strike.

Rather than reform the party prior to the last election in the manner of Blair or Cameron, Clegg chose instead to genuflect to the self-regarding piffle of the party’s sense of it’s own exceptionalism – most often articulated through the notion that a few hundred activists meeting twice a year in an empty hall have opinions more valid than the 60,000 (or so) party members who can’t afford a holiday in Newcastle, or indeed the wider electorate.

So should we then be surprised that having upset all the left liberals over tuition fees, in turn a result of not preparing the party for change, he has now had a crack at upsetting all the market liberals over the NHS, for exactly the same reason?

Not really.

Does it matter?

In the short-term, not a great deal, the Heath and Social Care Bill was already a fairly weak reform programme, entirely mishandled by Lansley and Cameron, and there is no guarantee Clegg’s “tantrum” or Williams amendments will change much. Much of this row is about perception and positioning.

In the long-run, Clegg has two problems. First he has allowed his name to be a attached to a string of quotes the left can beat him and allies with until the end of his career. A selection and the issue:

“people not profits”

– an empty slogan, usually to be found on protest marches organised by the hard-left. It broadly means all private enterprise is evil. Try reforming anything now, banks, employment law, tax… “people not profits” will come the cry.

“competition only on quality not price”

– another empty slogan that if it did mean anything would surely be applicable outside health. Does Clegg now wish to ban price competition in all markets?

“no government will be able to once again favour the private sector”

– even if the public sector is rubbish. Is that the Tube drivers threatening strike action unless bribed to do their well paid unskilled jobs during the Olympics… thank goodness we don’t favour the private sector.

“private providers can only offer their services where patients say they want them”

– which is a curious double standard for those of us who are forced to use the public sector whether we want it or not due to the absence of competition.

“the NHS is never treated like a private industry.”

– other than in respect of employment law, tax law, health and safety, the supplies and services they buy on the open market, the agency staff that work there, the work they outsource and so on. This is both pandering to the complete fiction that the NHS is an entirely public sector operation, and opening all the parts that are not to attack. Thanks Nick!

“(no) threat of takeover from US -style healthcare providers”

– boo US health… boo… what about all those nice EU healthcare providers who produce good outcomes in more mixed systems than the UK? Again pandering to a destructive myth.

“insulating the NHS from the full force of competition law.”

– because as liberals we believe protectionism, mercantilism, and monopoly is a superior way of delivering services than for example allowing innovation or choice… you what?

“Foundation Trusts cannot focus on private profits before patients.”

– killing and maiming people is not profitable. Making them better faster in comfort on the other hand tends to attract other customers and repeat business, but horror oh horror that’s both the profit motive and desire to do good all mixed up… can you imagine trying to explain that on a focus leaflet?… well can you?… will no one think of the children who devise our campaigns?…

Second, no one, from Baroness Williams, to the Miliband Tendency in the Liberal Left, to his coalition partners thinks Clegg actually believes any of this crap. Rather than looking like a magisterial negotiator shrewdly steering the path of the possible through his allies and foes, he just looks weak and vacillating. Clegg’s image problem has never been proximity to David Cameron’s world-view, it’s his utter inconsistency. Once again he has flipped his floppy quiff rather than follow his instincts.

For the left, they now know the Orange roadblock in the Leadership can be rammed out of the way with placards. Screaming and shrieking nonsense works. Today people not profits, tomorrow the US government caused 9-11 and covered it up. This is unlikely to enhance party unity, only leave Clegg’s allies dejected and his foes hungry for more. Starting no doubt with a wrecking motion at conference. So what was the point.

When is Nick Clegg going to grow up, decide what he wants to be, and just lead?

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The right sort of Lib Dem group announces launch

By Angela Harbutt
February 13th, 2012 at 12:11 am | 10 Comments | Posted in Liberal Democrats

We are delighted over here at Liberal Vision to welcome a new group to the Lib Dem family (drum roll please…) LIBERAL REFORM.

A while ago we wrote about a new group that was considering forming a grass roots organisation aiming to bring together (and facilitate discussion and policy development) amongst those in the Liberal Democrats who are sympathetic to economic liberalism. At the time Mike Bird (one of the founders of Liberal Reform) said:

“The aim of this organisation is provisionally to promote economic liberalism within the Liberal Democrats. We hope to be a ‘big tent’ of opinion, and will welcome anyone who feels that there are areas in which the party could be more open to promoting a free market. We seek to co-operate with other groups within the party, and would like to integrate ourselves as part of the liberal mainstream in this country.

Our outlook is not solely economic: we wish to see our party advocating four-cornered liberalism – liberal economics, in a framework of personal, political and social liberalism”.

There has surely been a need for a grassroots membership group that speaks to the mainstream of the party embracing the free market, for quite sometime.  According to a Lib Dem Voice survey from April last year, 35% of Lib Dem members and activists describe themselves as ‘economic liberals’, now a bigger presence in the party than those who would describe themselves as  ‘Social Democrat’  (noting that less than half describe themselves as “centre left”). So the time is right for a group such as Liberal Reform.

It is very telling that Liberal Reform is taking one of Nick Clegg’s best ever quotes as their lead statement. Mike Bird (co-founder of Liberal Reform) is quoted today as saying

We agree with Nick Clegg’s statement at our Autumn Conference in 2011 that “we are not on the left, and we are not on the right. We have our own label: Liberal”.”

So go check our their brand-spanking new website, sign up on their supporters page and join us in wishing them all the very best.

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Get message into Lib Dem Away Day…small could be huge

By Angela Harbutt
February 2nd, 2012 at 1:26 pm | 2 Comments | Posted in Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats have an away day today – and two years into Coalition their eyes must be firmly now on where they need to go for the remainder of this parliament if they are to have any chance of lifting themselves of the sticky 10% they are currently hitting in the opinion polls.

I think the world and their aunt now concur that being seen as a “brake” on the excesses of the Conservatives is not going to work. It is too negative, and, frankly just too lame. So we need something more positive.

Mark Littlewood (Director General of the IEA and Liberal Voice of the Year) was on the BBC’s Daily Politics today talking on this very subject and championing the idea that the Lib Dems should be the party that champions the cause of  small and medium sized businesses (SMEs)..

Yep – we agree with that.  Shortly after Lib Dem Conference we said the self same thing here at LV... Here is an excerpt from the post..

“So where should the Liberal Democrats be going, who should they be talking to and what policies should that then deliver?

It’s obvious isn’t it ? Small and medium sized businesses. The Conservatives are the friends of big business, the Labour party now firmly under the control of the Trade Unions is also increasingly obsessed with big business (whether workers of large public sector organisations or private enterprise). Ed Balls may have made overtures to small business in his speech on Monday. But referring to my earlier point – no one really believes that Labour is the party of small business or the entrepreneur. It’s just phony.

The Liberal Democrats on the other hand can legitimately claim the position of defender of the small. The most meaningful boost we have had in the polls recently came at the height of the Murdoch inquiry. It reminded the nation that we are not, nor ever have been, in the pockets of big business interests (media or otherwise). We argue for localism over big government. We stand for modernisation not protection of the status quo (and believe me the entrepreneur revolution is well and truly upon us). We are internationalists not protectionists. If any party should be able to win the hearts and minds of small business it should surely be the Liberal Democrats.

And if there is a group of people that every party should want to win it is small business. Small business is huge. There are about 23million people working in small and medium sized businesses. They are shopkeepers and entrepreneurs, lawyers and designers, engineers and specialist manufacturers. They are our kind of people. (And they are much more likely to operate close to where their goods/services are used which will keep the greener ones amongst us happy).  SME’s are small and nifty. Able to downsize and up-size quickly according to market conditions. They are canny,resourceful, and flexible. They are also the engine room for economic growth. Who wouldn’t want them in their camp? All they really want is for Government to stop standing in their way…..”

Do you think that the message is getting through yet?

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