Labourhome - Stories by mark wadsworth

[Blogs] Coalition of the willing

2008-05-22T05:21:56-05:00

Let's look at a list* of some of the main things have been made illegal (or might be made illegal) for no good reason (whether such a ban is actually enforced or not in practice is by-the-by) and the two most stupid traffic regulations:
Smoking in pubs and clubs
Drinking alcohol on public transport
Smoking cannabis
Fox-hunting
Patio heaters
Plastic carrier bags
Taking ecstasy tablets
Brothels
Traffic lights
National speed limit on the motorways and major roads
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Update:
Allow handguns for sporting purposes
Scrap ID card scheme, national ID database and interviews for passports
Allow local councils to subsidise post offices via a precept on Council Tax, subject to local referenda
Allow trading and collecting ceremonial swords
Allow shops to use pounds and ounces
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The reason why 'they' get away with it is because the majority of people don't smoke (either tobacco or cannabis); the majority of people don't work in or admit to visiting brothels; didn't used to go fox hunting and so on. But surely, a majority of people would like to at least some of these bans lifted (those particular bans that affect them personally) or to see more humane traffic regulations? OK, there may well be a minority who don't do any of these things, who don't mind being stuck at traffic lights and who are basically total kill-joys, but let's ignore them for now.

To sum up, would there not be any mileage in a political party saying that they'd lift all these stupid bans and regulations, in one fell swoop - lock, stock and barrel?

For sure, there may be hippy dope smokers who support the fox-hunting ban; there may be women who hate traffic lights and quite like plastic carrier bags but have a moralistic aversion to brothels; there may be those who used to enjoy lighting up in the pub who believe (erroneously) that ecstasy is a dangerous drug - but have we not reached the tipping point where all these narrow groups could declare an armistice and all do their own thing and let others get on with doing their own thing?

* Please leave a comment if I've missed anything important off the list!

[Blogs] Making work pay!

2008-04-24T11:43:03-05:00

Ask your MP to sign Early Day Motion 1407, calling for the personal allowance for Income Tax and NIC to be increased to £10,000.

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=35657&SESSION=891

[Blogs] Affordable housing

2008-04-09T06:22:25-05:00

Excellent, if prices keep falling at 2.5% per month for a year or two, housing will be affordable again!

[Blogs] Growth? What growth?

2008-03-28T17:31:23-05:00

If you think about it for a bit and grind the numbers, real growth in the UK economy has only been about 1% a year for the last ten years.

Time for some fun with numbers:

1. Nominal GDP in 1996-97 was £778.7 bn.

2. Total nominal GDP for the ten years 1997-98 to 2006-07 was £10,592 bn.

3. If we'd had no real growth whatsover since 1996-97, i.e. if GDP had merely increased in line with RPI, total GDP in the same ten-year period would have been £8,992. So 'extra' GDP was £1,600 bn.

4. Household debts increased from £500 bn to £1,325 bn between May 1997 and April 2007.

5. Nominal government gross debt increased from £401 bn to £574 bn over the same period, chuck in another £50 bn for latent PFI & Northern Rock liabilities, that's an increase of £223 bn.

6. So two-thirds of that 'extra' GDP of £1,600 bn was financed purely out of additional household and government borrowing of £1,048 bn**.

Sure, for every liability, there is an asset (so net borrowings minus savings always nets off to nothing). But that's not much consolation for the 95,000 families whose homes were subject to repossession orders last year; future taxpayers who are going to have to pay off this borrowing binge or depositors at banks who can't get their money back.

* Figures from www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/B/1/pfd220208.xls.

** So true 'extra' GDP over the last ten years was £552 bn. Which is equivalent to an annual £10 bn increase in GDP for ten years (£10 + £20 + £30 ... £100 = £550) or an average of about 1% economic growth.

[Blogs] 100 days, 100 allegations

2007-04-24T08:00:15-05:00

How will the next PM deal with things like this?

[Blogs] Brown or Miliband?

2007-04-13T08:21:43-05:00

...putting John McDonnell to one side for now, whom would people on this site prefer, even if it means choosing the lesser of two evils.

[Blogs] Freud Review shows little understanding of the issues

2007-03-06T09:50:45-05:00

According to page 9 of the summary, the UK has "virtually eliminated the unemployment trap" See http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/dwp/2007/wr-exec-summary.pdf

The way I understand it, "unemployment trap" means that welfare and tax systems interact such that benefit claimants are little or no better off if they take on low-paid work.

Which is exactly the situation that we have, e.g. total marginal withdrawal rates of around one-hundred percent, even ignoring travel costs and so on.

So somebody has overlooked something somewhere. Any thoughts?