Temperate tax rise

I heartily approve of most of the early decisions that have been made by newly sworn in Mayor of Bristol George Ferguson. The biggest of these is that council tax may have to rise by around 2% (as reported by BBC Points West here). This is moderate, sensible, reasonably progressive thinking - and it would mean that the impact of  imposed Coalition Govt cuts on vital local services would be a little less severe.

Freezing council tax as some other candidates committed themselves to would have meant even more severe impacts on public services. Committment to a freeze over a number of years also showed a lack of realism given the dire financial circumstances.

More information here and here and here.

Budget below the belt

Wouldn't it have been fairer, more just and better economics to keep the 50% tax rate and bring in additional measures to make sure that people could not avoid paying it so easily, if that's what is happening on a large scale? I thought we had debts to pay off and that the Govt needed the money for this.

There will be many well-off high rate tax payers who have circumstances such that they wont be liable to pay the additional wealth taxes in the budget, who will thus get a large net tax cut. Its a budget that George Osbourne's mates will like and benefit from I'm sure.

More on the budget here and here.

Council cuts

Cuts in services locally and nationally have originally and primarily come about through gross errors and greed in the private sector, enabled and encouraged by a corrupt political system. Public money still props part of the banking arm of the private sector up. Money can be found for banks but not a whole range of public services - and meanwhile the rich in the banking system continue to be rewarded with high pay plus a bonus.

Despite the tough economic situation Bristol City Council need not have gone for a council tax freeze, resulting in spending cuts in health care and children and young people's services - and yet more job losses. This is not only wrong but will continue to help our economy to stagnate. There is, in effect, a local Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition that matches the national one it seems. 

Bristol's Council tax will be frozen for another year after Bristol City Council approved its budget for 2012.

An average band D homeowner will still pay £1,569.75 from April – the same as they did in 2011 and 2010.

As a result...there will be £27million of cuts to services and around 350 jobs are set to go, after an amended budget was agreed at a meeting last night.

A large chunk of the cuts – £8 million – will come from making savings in the council's "back office" operations.

There will be around £5 million less for health care, which includes moving increasingly towards privatisation, and another £5 million less for children and young people's services. A range of charges are also set to go up, including parking and pest control...(full story)

Tough times for many - but the rich have got a lot richer

Large scale income inequality cuts quality of life and eats away at the fabric of society. Look at the evidence here http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/why . We should adopt income inequality as one of the key indicators of progress in our society and urgently enact measures to cut inequality (see http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/why/remedies ). It cannot be fair for instance that Bristol's first billionaire, businessman Peter Hargreaves (pictured) who now has a staggering personal fortune of £1,020 million, has seen his fortune soar by £450m in just 12 months when so many are losing their jobs, having their pay cut, having public services cut.

See this Post report on how A MIXTURE of Bristol's businessmen and celebrities made it onto this year's prestigious Sunday Times Rich List.

Also see this Post report on Peter Hargreaves
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/m-proud-Bristol-s-billionaire/article-3532105-detail/article.html

(If he has made an additional £450 million in 12 months and has a personal fortune of over £1 billion why does he say "When people ask me what have I done for this country, I tell them that I pay £10 million in taxes every year." ? Just a figure of speech? Or is this really the amount of tax he pays annually? £10 million is only 1% of his total reported financial wealth and only just over 2% of the £450 million he is reported to have seen his fortune soar by in the space of a single year!).

Day of action for Robin Hood Tax: College Green 16 Feb

Oxfam South West to hand over ‘final demand’ to a Bristol bank As banks reveal enormous profits and bonuses, charity joins global day of action to call for Robin Hood Tax.

Oxfam South West will hand over a ‘final demand’ at a Bristol bank on Wednesday (February 16), calling for a tax on the financial sector to help alleviate poverty at home and abroad.

As part of a global day of action, involving organizations such as Comic Relief, Christian Aid, Friends of the Earth and Unite, the charity’s supporters will be at the HSBC bank on College Green, calling for a Robin Hood Tax on financial transactions.

The action comes as bonuses for bankers are revealed. A fresh wave of public anger has been ignited by news that banks are predicted to scoop bonuses of £7bn in the UK while at the same time public spending cuts start to bite.

Meanwhile, Britain's biggest banks are poised to reveal more eye-watering profits, with city analysts predicting combined profits of around £24 billion from four banking giants - HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds and Standard Chartered.

A Robin Hood Tax – a 0.05% levy on each financial transaction made by the banks – would raise up to £20bn in the UK alone. About £7 billion could stop cuts to libraries, schools, higher education and other public services, while another £7 billion could pay for free healthcare for 226 million people in poor countries around the world.

Christopher Brown, from Oxfam South West, said the action was needed to remind banks of their responsibilities to use their huge profits for positive action to alleviate poverty at home and abroad – action called for by governments around the world.

“The expected profits made by the UK banking sector are more than enough to save essential public services – which are being cut left, right and centre in the UK – and bring hundreds of thousands of people around the world out of poverty.

“A Robin Hood Tax, which has been supported by the French president and current president of the G20 Nicolas Sarkozy, is a tax whose time has come. The banks got the world into the financial mess it is in – it is time they paid their fair share to rebuild our economy and save services we all need.”

Oxfam South West will join the global call for a Robin Hood Tax on Wednesday, February 16 between 12 and 1pm at the branch of HSBC at College Green. Supporters will hand over their final demand and ask passers-by to sign a petition in support of the campaign.

The media are invited to attend – Oxfam South West volunteers, dressed as Robin Hood, will be available for interview and photographs from 12.30pm.

ENDS

For press information contact:

Christopher Brown at Oxfam South West on 0117 916 6474 or 07887 632 658 or cbrown@oxfam.org.uk

Notes to editors:

For more information about the Robin Hood Tax, visit:

http://robinhoodtax.org/

Similar events will be held in Cardiff, Hereford, Glasgow, Manchester and London, in the UK, as well as in 12 countries around the world, including France, Germany and Canada.

Oxfam works with others to overcome poverty and suffering

Spending cuts 'will see rise in absolute child poverty' | Politics | The Guardian

If we were genuinely all 'in this together' our government would not be enacting policies that will push more and more children into both absolute and relative poverty. Those who 'have the broadest shoulders' as the Coalition Govt have put it are supposed to be 'taking the biggest load' - clearly they aren't! See this Guardian report on an authoritative study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies,

The government's radical programme to slash spending will see the first rise in absolute child poverty for 15 years, with almost 200,000 children pushed into penury, according to an analysis by the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

Tax changes introduced by the coalition government will, the leading independent fiscal thinktank finds, increase absolute poverty by 200,000 children and 200,000 working-age adults in 2012-13.

Cuts to housing benefit alone will force a further 100,000 children into poverty.
In the next three years the IFS says average incomes are forecast to stagnate and this, coupled with deep cuts in welfare, will see a rise in relative poverty for children and working-age adults of 800,000 and a rise in absolute poverty for the same group of 900,000.

The institute directly challenges the government's claim that the impact of the budget would have no effect on child poverty...

Spending cuts 'will see rise in absolute child poverty' Politics The Guardian

Lancet: study on harm from drugs

Given the results of this study we should be taking significant action to tackle legal drugs eg alcohol and tobacco, as well as illegal drugs. Surely there is a strong case for increasing the price of both very significantly through higher taxation? The higher the price the more use is discouraged. We are after all cutting housing benefit, child benefit etc at the moment and the more tax we raise on undesirables like alcohol and tobacco the smaller any cuts would need to be.

BBC News - Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin' says Prof David Nutt

Alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack, according to a study published in medical journal the Lancet.
The report is co-authored by Professor David Nutt, the former UK chief drugs adviser who was sacked by the government in October 2009.

It ranks 20 drugs on 16 measures of harm to users and to wider society.
Tobacco and cocaine are judged to be equally harmful, while ecstasy and LSD are among the least damaging...

Green view on today's spending review

Budget to destroy a million jobs

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP has called George Osborne's comprehensive spending review a "budget to destroy a million jobs" - and has again argued that the worst cuts could have been avoided by an alternative policy based on a fairer tax regime.

Caroline Lucas said immediately after the budget statement:

"This is a budget to destroy half a million jobs in the public sector, according to the government's own estimates. And the knock-on effects will be at least as many jobs lost in the private sector."

The Brighton Pavilion MP added:

"When those public sector workers find themselves out of work they will, along with disabled people, feel the full force of the additional £7 billion worth of cuts in welfare spending, on top of the £11 billion of cuts announced in June. The housing benefit regime will become much more harsh, risking a rise in homelessness.

"They will also find that the loss of public services that this budget represents will massively disadvantage them, and all the most vulnerable people in society who rely on those services."

She asked:

"Where's the fairness in a budget that lets vital public services go to the wall, hitting the poorest hardest?"

Britain's first Green Party MP concluded:

"This was a budget of false economies, undermining the economy and hitting the most vulnerable - and all, incredibly, under the banner of fairness."

Choices and cuts

What are the merits of taxation? Are we about to learn of its merits when we hear about the huge cuts in public spending affecting many vital public services? There are choices but to listen to the Conservative-Lib Dem Coalition Government one would think not. There's the balance between raising more in taxation vs cutting spending. There's the speed and scale of spending cuts (and tax rises). There are the areas or people to tax more and areas to cut spending on. Already I believe a serious error has been made by not cutting defence spending more, when they are so bad at controlling their costs and getting value for money. And why those child benefit changes that dont take account of the whole of a household's income? Universality for child benefit has very clear advantages. I heard on the local news about Bristol City Council's plans to cut the amount spent on dealing with homelessness by hundreds of thousands - wrong because a roof over your head is a basic need and also counterproductive in my view because this spending helps people to become settled, working, productive, tax paying people who might otherwise be a big cost society in many ways.

Oxfam 'Sow the Seed' of hope event on College Green

Bristol political leaders join top chef to urge action on climate change Oxfam South West stages event at College Green to call on world leaders to ‘Sow the Seed’ of hope

Political leaders from across the political spectrum in Bristol were joined by one of the city’s top chefs at College Green this morning, to urge more action from world leaders on climate change.
Council leader Barbara Janke, deputy Labour leader Mark Bradshaw, Green Party Councillor Tess Green and Liberal Democrat councillor Anthony Negus said they were delighted to support Oxfam South West’s ‘Sow the Seed’ campaign.

Meanwhile, one of Bristol’s finest and most respected chefs – Chris Wicks, from Bells Diner in Montpelier, which has just been named as one of Britain’s top 100 restaurants – came along in his chef’s outfit to back the campaign.

More than 100 ‘Sow the Seed’ labels were planted in the ground outside the Council House, bearing Oxfam’s call for the international community to help farmers in the world’s poorest countries deal with the devastating effects of climate change.

Speaking at the event, Barbara Janke said: “Speaking as someone from Bristol in the center of a major food-growing area, we are more sympathetic than most to the effects of climate change on farmers in the developing world.

“We’ve seen in Pakistan floods the most recent dramatic effect of extreme weather, but this is clearly affecting people around the world, where climate change is already affecting food production and their ability to be self-sufficient.

“We need to address climate change as a global problem and raise awareness of how important this is.”

The event is part of a global week of campaign events that aim to highlight the devastating effects of climate change on food production in the world’s poorest areas.

In Pakistan, for example, up to 40 per cent of households in the flood-affected areas lost all food stocks. Fodder for livestock has also been lost, so even families who have been able to save some of their animals are struggling to keep them alive.

Mark Bradshaw said he was delighted the campaign was happening in Bristol and that the effects of climate change were something that we “cannot ignore”.

He also called for the introduction of a ‘Robin Hood Tax’ on banks to pay for the world’s poor to adapt to and survive climate change.

“In the current tough economic times it’s important that we don’t lose sight of the climate change agenda. Now more than ever do we need to invest in tackling it.

“That’s why it’s so important to introduce a Robin Hood Tax so that the financial industry pays its full contribution to addressing climate change.

Chris Wicks, whose restaurant – a fixture in Montpelier for more than 20 years – prides itself on using locally sourced produce, added: “In my restaurant it is important for us to do our bit by using local products to cut down food miles. But it is essential that we help poor farmers develop their own industries.”

ENDS

For press information contact: Christopher Brown at Oxfam South West on 0117 916 6474 or 07887 632 658 or cbrown@oxfam.org.uk

Notes to editors: The Sow the Seed event at College Green is part of a series of events around the world during the week, highlighting the strength of the campaign to fight climate change. See: http://tcktcktck.org http://sowtheseed.org/ http://www.facebook.com/oxfamsouthwest

Picture caption: Back row, from left: Cllr Anthony Negus, Chris Wicks and Barbara Janke. Front row, from left, Mark Bradshaw and Tess Green

Oxfam works with others to overcome poverty and suffering
Oxfam GB is a member of Oxfam International and a company limited by guarantee registered in England No. 612172.Registered office: Oxfam House, John Smith Drive, Cowley, Oxford, OX4 2JY.A registered charity in England and Wales (no 202918) and Scotland (SC 039042)

BRISTOL City chairman Steve Lansdown raised £58 million yesterday by selling off shares in the stockbroker firm he helped to found.

Lansdown: now not living in the UK let alone Bristol or the West Country; now avoiding paying taxes here but clearly has made and is making shed loads of cash here....does he sound like someone committed to this country and this city to you?? Maybe someone would like to make the case for this man ??

BRISTOL City chairman Steve Lansdown raised £58 million yesterday by selling off shares in the stockbroker firm he helped to found.

Mr Lansdown – who has a personal fortune of £452m – recently bought a house on Guernsey and is now living full-time in the tax-free Channel haven.

BBC News - Spending review

BBC News - Spending review

Very interesting part of the BBC website which I may well come back to from time to time. Has a lot of specific, up to date coverage of spending review matters and lots of links to further detail and debate. Has an interesting page here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11069101 asking people what they would cut and by how much - but it does not give people the option of raising additional money to lessen and/or slow down cuts, through eg tax rises, improving efficiency and effectiveness of tax collection and so on.