The gloves come off - Howard reads from Veritas manifesto
Yesterday, Robert Kilroy Silk launched the Veritas manifesto. Today, Michael Howard got back on message in Watford, of all places, today with a vicious attack on the 'politically correct minority' who 'subvert British values'. Time for some interesting A/B comparisons:
(A)
Can you guess which quote is from the Veritas website and which is from Michael Howard's speech? Perhaps the Tories will be able to boost their vote by at least 0.2% by merging with Kilroy's purple people.
Similarities with Tory 'Britishness' rhetoric aside, Veritas's most distinctive policy is for a 22% 'flat tax' on incomes above £12,000. The current tax-free personal allowance is just under £5,000. Now, there's a world of difference between mildly misleading the public about tax, as all three major parties are doing to some extent, and telling blatant porkie pies of Goebbels-esque proportions. If you are lucky enough to have a Veritas candidate canvassing your house, invite them in and hold their head under the tap for a few minutes while they explain how the flat tax policy adds up to a fiscal balance. And if they give you any lip about the 'Laffer curve', send 'em out the door with a Marmite sandwich (thanks, Raj!)
This'll have to be the last post on Veritas for a while, sad as it may seem... it's like shooting fish in a barrel while hanging out in the pit-stop, and we need to get back to covering the race leaders. Been fun, though.
(A)
"These reactions go to the very heart of what's gone wrong in our country. Some people call it political correctness. Others call in moral relativism. I call it madness. Commons sense has been stood on its head... No one worries about their sensitivities. No one cares if they feel excluded. No one stands up for them. Well I will. The British public deserves to be heard. We will govern with the right values."(B)
Fed up of being made to feel ashamed of being British? So are we. Had enough of being made to feel embarrassed about celebrating British traditions, culture and values? So have we. We will stop all this nonsense. We will not tolerate the bullying and the intimidation by the liberal elite in London. We will speak openly and fearlessly for the British people - of whatever ethnic background, colour or creed - and for the British way of life.
Can you guess which quote is from the Veritas website and which is from Michael Howard's speech? Perhaps the Tories will be able to boost their vote by at least 0.2% by merging with Kilroy's purple people.
Similarities with Tory 'Britishness' rhetoric aside, Veritas's most distinctive policy is for a 22% 'flat tax' on incomes above £12,000. The current tax-free personal allowance is just under £5,000. Now, there's a world of difference between mildly misleading the public about tax, as all three major parties are doing to some extent, and telling blatant porkie pies of Goebbels-esque proportions. If you are lucky enough to have a Veritas candidate canvassing your house, invite them in and hold their head under the tap for a few minutes while they explain how the flat tax policy adds up to a fiscal balance. And if they give you any lip about the 'Laffer curve', send 'em out the door with a Marmite sandwich (thanks, Raj!)
This'll have to be the last post on Veritas for a while, sad as it may seem... it's like shooting fish in a barrel while hanging out in the pit-stop, and we need to get back to covering the race leaders. Been fun, though.
2 Comments:
Whilst I would question the sanity of Robert Kilroy-Silk, the message may be more apt than the messenger. Flat Tax rates are currently in vogue across Eastern Europe. Both Estonia and Russia(amongst others) have them and in both cases their tax yields increased following the system's adoption. Its a fact (although the 'Turtle' and youself don't like to admit it) that Thatcher's policy of slashing the tax rates actually increased tax yields to the Exchequer (as well as cutting the number of productive people fleeing to Monaco).
Whilst I fear 22% may be too low with such a large ,unproductive public sector seemingly bomb-proof, raising the basic allowance seems to me an unarguable way of assisting the poor as well as tackling the problem of the more than 3.5 million people (the highest ever) 'economically inactive' within the UK - unless of course you have a vested interest (and an inflation-linked final salary pension scheme)in maintaining such a large proportion of the populace in idleness and sloth. Heaven forbid!
Van Patten, I think your confidence in the restorative powers of the flat tax is largely misplaced. There is very little economic evidence that marginal rates of up to about 60% have much impact on work incentives. (So the 1979 Thatcher reforms were quite adequate in this regard.) The flat tax - like the Bush tax cuts in America - is largely a means of redistributing huge sums of money from people on low-to-medium incomes to top earners, thus resulting in huge increases in income and wealth inequality. If the flat tax rate is high enough - say 40% or 50% - then the policy might make some sense, but otherwise forget it.
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