Tax Cuts, Not HS2

HS2 will cut journey times between the North and London, allowing more people to commute, thus helping the economy of the North.

It will cut journey times between Birmingham and London, but let's put this in to perspective. We're talking about 2026- 14 years away. Virgin Trains have said they estimate their train service between Birmingham and London will be only 11 minutes slower than HS2 in 2026. Things progress a long way in 14 years! Today we have technology that allows us to communicate to anyone, anywhere in the world. I honestly don't believe our imagination can fully understand what technology will be around in 2026, making our world ever smaller.

Will such large numbers of people really still be commuting daily across the UK? The current trend is for companies to allow employees to work more and more from home as technology progresses- a good thing for productivity, traffic issues and the environment.

Demand for domestic flights is decreasing, journey times between the UK's major cities is faster than most of our European neighbours... there just really isn't the need (or the available funds) to build this new high speed rail network.

I'm all for economic growth in the North- it says a lot about where our politicians priorities lie when we consider how long the North has suffered with a lack of growth, compared to London and the South East. You've got to be naive or plain stupid to think HS2 will do any good for the economy of the North.

The £32 billion that this project will cost will be funded predominately by taxing the poor. Will the poor be using HS2 do you think? I doubt it. Travel on the railways is expensive as it is, with many being forced off. I can't imagine travelling on the new high speed network will be anything but expensive. I don't see how a dinner lady from Tooting would benefit or even be remotely effected by HS2, other than her tax going up in order to pay for it.

What would create growth now and for the future, in a more sustainable way that won't leave a snake of destruction through some of England's most beautiful countryside is giving individuals a tax break. A £500 tax break for every tax payer in the UK.

This scheme won't effect the Government's budgets any more than building HS2. What it will do though is give power directly to the individuals who need economic growth in their communities. Rather than take people's money in the form of tax to build a transport link that will benefit predominantly wealthy commuters, let's allow everyone (even the poor) to spend their money how they want.

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Free Britain February/ March 2011

Click on the front cover above, or here to read February/ March 2011 edition of Free Britain, featuring an article by me titled "The Angry Generation".

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5 Deficit Busting Brainwaves: #1 Leave the EU

George Osborne has been put in charge of cutting the national deficit, so how hard can it be to knock a few £’s here and there off the budget? Over the next 5 days I will attempt to lop a few billion off the UK national deficit. I am not an economist, nor hold any qualifications to allow me to be one. But how hard can it really be?

I will be tackling 5 massive and polarising issues in this series so feedback and debate is welcomed and encouraged!

Tuesday: Scrap International Aid
Wednesday: Withdraw Troops from Conflict
Thursday: Legalise Drugs and Prostitution
Friday: Cut Tax
Saturday: Leave the EU

Brainwave #1 Leave the EU
Amount saved: £7 billion per year + £50 billion per year estimated net cost to UK economy per year

First I would like to apologise for the fact that this last part of the 5 part series has come a day late due to yesterday’s somewhat hectic events. But I’ve left the best till last.

The European Union- despised by the many, adored by the few. With the UK giving £7 billion every year in a membership fee to the European Union, it is quite possible this is the most expensive gentlemen’s club in the whole world. Full of ageing ex-politicians and failed political personalities ranging from Communist to Fascist backgrounds, let it be known that this is not a pleasant gentlemen’s club to belong to. What’s worse is we don’t get a choice in our membership and the benefits are hardly generous to you or me.

They bribe us with their special grants and shiny blue signs outside of redevelopments stating “Funded by The European Union” while in reality they are undemocratically stealing billions from us tax payers. They tell us where we can and can’t import from, what we can and can’t import, how much we can and can’t import, what we can and can’t fish, when we can and can’t fish, who we can and can’t allow to vote, how we can and can’t protect citizens from foreign law, how we can and can’t protect our environment, how we can and can’t regulate our private sector and so on and so forth.

The hundreds of thousands of pages of EU legislation, written and debated in Brussels and Strasbourg, have had a huge negative impact on our own economy and civil liberties while at the same time causing a negative, and in some circumstances devastating, impact on the wider world.

Our environment has suffered, our farmers have suffered, our relations with the commonwealth and the third world have suffered, our small businesses have suffered, our post offices have suffered, our

rural communities have suffered, our democratic processes have suffered, our liberties and freedoms have suffered and our economy has suffered.

So who has benefitted? The only one’s benefitting from all this are the rich fat cats who run the shots around Europe.

Why are we still in the EU if it is so bad for the UK? Because the rich fat cats like being rich fat cats.

The UK must immediately and permanently withdraw it’s membership from the European Union and focus on rebuilding key trade links with countries such as India and developing regions such as Africa. We must look at the world, not through British glasses or European glasses, but through global glasses. We live in a global world where 21st century communications have thrown all the old ways of doing business out the door and onto the street.

Let’s keep our money, keep our parliament and democracy and start trading with the world.

Total Deficit Cut: £74.7billion (+increased work force, + the end of British soldiers injured and killed, + 1000’s of new jobs, + increased tourism, + even more jobs, + further private investment, + higher productivity, + increased democracy, + stronger foreign trade, + better civil liberties)

It goes without saying that the above figure is a very crude figure and is a mere estimate from someone with relatively little economics knowledge. The figure in reality may turn out to be far less, or far more (either way we will probably never find out). Please don’t sue me.

Please feel free to leave abuse/ constructive criticism/ support. I hope you have enjoyed reading the series, or at least some of it. Thank you!

Written for Political Pundits

5 Deficit Busting Brainwaves: #2 Cut Tax

George Osborne has been put in charge of cutting the national deficit, so how hard can it be to knock a few £’s here and there off the budget? Over the next 5 days I will attempt to lop a few billion off the UK national deficit. I am not an economist, nor hold any qualifications to allow me to be one. But how hard can it really be?

I will be tackling 5 massive and polarising issues in this series so feedback and debate is welcomed and encouraged!

Tuesday: Scrap International Aid
Wednesday: Withdraw Troops from Conflict
Thursday: Legalise Drugs and Prostitution
Friday: Cut Tax
Saturday: Leave the EU

Brainwave #2 Cut Tax
Amount raised: £Unknown

It is easy to tax the rich. Heck, it’s even easier to tax the poor. But just because something is available and easy to do, should we do it? If someone sitting near you on a train gets up to go and leaves their wallet on their chair would you not say anything and take it once they’ve gone or would you tell them they’ve left their wallet behind? It would be easy to say nothing, wait for them to go and then pocket their wallet. But it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.

Sure the UK could tax everyone in the country even higher than current levels, but it wouldn’t be the right thing to do for a number of reasons. Firstly, I believe it is quite immoral to tax anyone’s labour and time. The fruits of your labour, your wage, are not something that should be available to anyone else, George Osborne included. Unfortunately we do have income tax worldwide and I don’t see that changing in my lifetime.

Next we have the economic argument for why higher taxing will not increase income in the longer scheme of things. The more you tax something, the less desirable it becomes. Tobacco is a fine example of how tax can alter behaviour among citizens. Every year successive governments increase the excise duty on tobacco and cigarettes and every year more and more smokers are giving up the habit. This works with labour as well. The more you take from someone’s effort, the less effort they are likely to put into it. Less effort means less potential tax earnings for the exchequer.

So it may seem like a queer idea at first to lower tax to cut the deficit, but really it is quite a simple formula. In countries like Estonia where they have moved to a flat rate income tax system the Government has been collecting so much money, they have had to keep cutting tax each year. The current income tax rate in Estonia stands at 22%.

Boris Johnson is just one of many politicians and commentators who have called for the government to lower taxes to increase economic development and growth. Raising tax is just an easy way to cut the deficit in the short term. The government should be more visionary than that, looking at creative ways of expanding and growing our private economy while at the same time protecting essential services for all.

I won’t be adding a definitive figure on the total at the end because quite simply, to my knowledge, there isn’t a single economist out there who can truly predict the financial benefit of a tax cut. Instead I will add the knock on consequences of a tax cut, including increased jobs, further private investment and overall higher productivity. Tomorrow’s brainwave should go a long way in cutting the deficit and regaining economic and individual freedom.

It was government spending and borrowing that dragged us into this mess and it will be private investment and enterprise that will lead us out.

Total Deficit Cut So Far: £17.7billion (+increased work force, + the end of British soldiers injured and killed, + 1000’s of new jobs, + increased tourism, + even more jobs, + further private investment, + higher productivity)

Please feel free to leave abuse/ constructive criticism/ support, and I hope you get the opportunity to read tomorrow’s deficit busting brainwave #1!

Written for Political Pundits

5 Deficit Busting Brainwaves: #3 Legalise Drugs and Prostitution

George Osborne has been put in charge of cutting the national deficit, so how hard can it be to knock a few £’s here and there off the budget? Over the next 5 days I will attempt to lop a few billion off the UK national deficit. I am not an economist, nor hold any qualifications to allow me to be one. But how hard can it really be?

I will be tackling 5 massive and polarising issues in this series so feedback and debate is welcomed and encouraged!

Tuesday: Scrap International Aid
Wednesday: Withdraw Troops from Conflict
Thursday: Legalise Drugs and Prostitution
Friday: Cut Tax
Saturday: Leave the EU

Brainwave #3 Legalise Drugs and Prostitution
Amount raised: £7.5 billion per year

There is a colossal opportunity for economic growth when it comes to the UK drugs market and sex industry. Through legalisation and regulation the UK could become a global destination for European, American and Asian travellers in search of a legal high and 5 minutes of pleasure. I believe the UK is in a much better position than destinations such as Amsterdam when it comes to “drug and sex tourism” thanks to our world class, international image and existing links with Asia and America.

There is a very real human cost to drugs and sex legislation that must always be a part of the debate. I have written in the past about these human costs and impacts which can be read here. I will focus on the economic benefits of legalisation in this article, but let it be known I have in the past, and will carry on in the future, writing about the human impacts of our current legislation and the benefits of legalisation.

Whenever we talk about the drugs market or sex industry, we talk about huge numbers. Unfortunately due to their underground nature it is so hard to find trustworthy sources of information in regards to the size and economics of these industries. The Independent Drug Monitoring Unit did however publish a very interesting and highly researched piece in October of 2004 on the economics of the UK drugs market. Their research found the total size of the market was worth up to £6.5 billion per year.

If the drugs market in the UK were to be legalised and properly regulated this £6.5 billion of circulating cash would instantly be available to George Osborne and his department in the form of excise duty and VAT. But it doesn’t stop there!

The growing, distributing and retailing of these newly legalised substances will also have a dramatic impact on tax receipts. With legalisation we will see tens of thousands of new jobs created, all tax paying and wage spending individuals. It is quite an exciting prospect that an entirely new industry could enter the legal market.

The Independent Drug Monitoring Unit calculated that from the £6.5 billion industry, total tax receipts would come to £4 billion. That on its own is enough to wipe a considerable amount off of the national deficit. What also needs to be added to this equation is the impact on police spending. It is a surprising challenge to find hard figures for how much of the policing budget actually goes on drug prohibition related crime. The report by IDMU found that after taking all costs into account, legalisation would have a net benefit of £6.5 billion to the exchequer every year. It should be remembered this report was made in 2004, and it is understood drug use has dramatically increased since then, with an estimated 3.5 million UK citizens smoking cannabis on a regular basis.

This leaves us with the sex industry, which is even harder to find figures on! Estimates point towards the UK having 100,000 sex workers with an estimated yearly value of £1 billion. As with a legalised drugs market; legalised prostitution would have a positive economic effect on a wide range of other industries. A report by the British Medical Journal found that 9% of British men pay for sex and yet very little of the money they pay will find its way to the exchequer through tax. The money that 9% of men pay into the industry is more likely to end up in the pockets of international drug and human traffickers.

It is really difficult to say how much the economy could benefit from a legalised and regulated sex industry, but if we use the same formula that the IDMU used on drug legalisation we come to a figure of around £1 billion. This figure takes into consideration the tax receipts of sex workers, brothels and related businesses and also how much police funding currently goes towards fighting the sex industry, its workers and some of the shady characters that currently hold the power.

When we add the tax raised from a legalised drugs market and sex industry, we reach the figure of £7.5 billion per year- money that would otherwise never find its way to George Osborne.

Total Deficit Cut So Far: £17.7billion (+increased work force, + the end of British soldiers injured and killed, + 1000’s of new jobs, + increased tourism)

Please feel free to leave abuse/ constructive criticism/ support, and I hope you get the opportunity to read tomorrow’s deficit busting brainwave #2!

Written for Political Pundits

5 Deficit Busting Brainwaves: #4 Withdraw Troops from Conflict

George Osborne has been put in charge of cutting the national deficit, so how hard can it be to knock a few £’s here and there off the budget? Over the next 5 days I will attempt to lop a few billion off the UK’s national deficit. I am not an economist, nor hold any qualifications to allow me to be one. But how hard can it really be?

I will be tackling 5 massive and polarising issues in this series so feedback and debate is welcomed and encouraged!

Tuesday: Scrap International Aid
Wednesday: Withdraw Troops from Conflict
Thursday: Legalise Drugs and Prostitution
Friday: Cut Tax
Saturday: Leave the EU

Brainwave #4 Withdraw Troops from Conflict
Amount Saved: £5 billion per year

£20.3 billion is a huge amount of money. But it’s not the amount NHS Trust managers took out last year in wages, nor is it the amount George Osborne is planning on putting on a litre of petrol in this year’s budget (that would just be ludicrous, even for him). No this figure represents the overall cost to the UK tax payer in being involved with the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Huge isn’t it? And the figure would only bloat out even further if we were to add “other” costs, such as rehabilitation, health care and mental health care for returning soldiers.

There is another thing this figure of £20.3 billion misses out as well- the human cost. Over 500 British soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. Or let’s put it another way, over 500 Mothers have lost their Son or Daughter. Over 500 Fathers have lost their Son or Daughter. Over 500 Daughters have lost their Dad or Mum. Over 500 Sons have lost their Dad or Mum. War and the premature death and loss it brings with it is cruel and painful. And abroad too, their losses must not be forgotten. Up to 106,348 Iraqi civilians have been killed in this conflict. It seems the worst international criminals were in fact the morons who took us into this conflict.

Now I am obviously looking at this issue from a very strong non-interventionist angle. That is mainly because I am a non-interventionist through and through. Let’s suppose though for a moment that I was a fan of Christian nations killing leaders of Islamic nations and I enjoyed the good old fashioned “going to war” tradition. Have the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan been a “success”? Well seen as there never really was a plan for Afghanistan, and Iraq’s plan was never really universally understood, it is hard to answer that question. The wars have not helped the most vulnerable citizens in these nations; many are still under the rule of Islamist organisations, threats from Islamic terrorism in the UK and in the west have increased and we have lost hundreds of British citizen’s lives. Success? No.

Total Deficit Cut So Far: £10.2billion (+increased work force, + the end of British soldiers injured and killed)

Please feel free to leave abuse/ constructive criticism/ support, and I hope you get the opportunity to read tomorrow’s deficit busting brainwave #3!

Written for Political Pundits

5 Deficit Busting Brainwaves: #5 Scrap International Aid

George Osborne has been put in charge of cutting the national deficit, so how hard can it be to knock a few £’s here and there off the budget? Over the next 5 days I will attempt to lop a few billion off the UK’s national deficit. I am not an economist, nor hold any qualifications to allow me to be one. But how hard can it really be?

I will be tackling 5 massive and polarising issues in this series so feedback and debate is welcomed and encouraged!

Tuesday: Scrap International Aid
Wednesday: Withdraw Troops from Conflict
Thursday: Legalise Drugs and Prostitution
Friday: Cut Tax
Saturday: Leave the EU

Brainwave #5 Scrap International Aid
Amount Saved: £5.2 billion per year

International aid is not charity; nor is it good, benevolent, helpful or saintly. International aid is instead a tangled web of power grabbing, back room deal making and money making elite. This tangled web covers the whole globe linking governments, and their leaders, together. Those who most benefit have made it an almost unthinkable proposition to scrap our participation in this activity. Instantly you become someone who doesn’t care or know of the hardships of third world poverty.

However supporters of international aid are unfortunately quite misguided in their beliefs. For international aid does not help the starving orphan in Ethiopia or the malaria infected mother in Cameroon quite as much as is being stated. Huge swathes of aid money is being diverted towards government officials, oil rich states and countries with industry that is of great interest to our own. Until quite recently the UK tax payer was flooding money into nations such as Russia and China, seeming to benefit the industrial kings and political queens of the world more than the billions of poverty stricken humans.

Many would argue that even after factoring in the “cost” of corruption and bribery, the international aid bill of £5.2 billion every year is still a worthy cause that must be protected in the face of spending cuts. No. There are better ways of helping the least fortunate in our world. It doesn’t include corruption, bribery, special interests, governments or tax.

Now I’m sure readers of this who may lean slightly to the right of politics have been nodding their heads ferociously so far but I may be about to disappoint.

Here is the catch: A more efficient, helpful and charitable way of helping those most in need from other nations is to make it easier for them to work in our own nation.

I probably just lost a good 60% of readers. 50% have clicked the back button on their browser, the other 10% are scrolling down to leave comments on how utterly mad I and my views are.

The idea is that the best way out of poverty is not a cheque every year but a solid road towards bettering oneself. By making it easier for those in struggling nations to come and work in our nation, boosting our own productivity and economy, you allow them to better themselves and once leaving, bettering their homeland with earned money in their pocket and new knowledge of democracy, human rights and business in their head.

I am conscious not to turn this into a piece about immigration, but obviously the policies surrounding migrants from these nations would have to be well thought out and planned, unlike Labour’s policies on immigration. The benefits of allowing individuals to earn in this country and take their wages back to their homeland are huge both for their families and communities and for our own economy. Certainly there are negatives of mass exodus of poverty stricken lands; policies would need to be very thoughtful of this.

There are cases where economic migration simply would not be enough to pull communities out of poverty or indeed an impossible ask. For this we have the likes of Christian Aid and thousands of other charitable organisations like them who really and genuinely do make such a positive impact on the lives of so many people. Charities in the UK I feel often don’t get enough credit for what work they really do. They are either being patronised on one side by the Government giving them hand outs, or attacked on the other by the man on the street who doesn’t want to keep seeing starving children on his TV during the ad breaks of Coronation Street.

The UK already gives a huge amount to private charity, especially in comparison with other countries like ours, but you can’t blame ordinary families in this country who are struggling financially to give away even more of their precious weekly income. I feel my brainwave #2 which will be released on Friday will help towards encouraging families, businesses and individuals to give a bit more to charities at home and abroad.

We have a direct interest in how the rest of the world is developing; blindly giving billions in aid every year feels to me like we are just brushing this huge issue under the carpet, hoping that our wealth will solve all the problems of the world. Well here is a conundrum for all you supporters of government aid: why is third world poverty still such a huge problem, prematurely killing hundreds of millions of children, mothers and fathers every year?

Total Deficit Cut So Far: £5.2billion (+increased work force)

Please feel free to leave abuse/ constructive criticism/ support, and I hope you get the opportunity to read tomorrow’s deficit busting brainwave #4!

Written for Political Pundits