45 Lords a-leaping

You are the PM of a sceptre'd isle. The plebeians are revolting and a few in the faraway North have had the temerity to call for independence.

How do you remind them that whatever they do the Establishment will win? 

You appoint 45 Lords and Ladies who will leap to the Establishment tune.

Osbameron's new Lords are there to remind us all of the natural order of things. The Establishment has wrapped itself in ermine and the SS Great Britain will steam on, bearing slightly to the right, into the Sargasso Sea of neoliberalism. The Lords and Ladies are the compass that will keep the good ship Britain on course while you build your bank or your trading house.

The message from the Lords is that there ain't nothing we, the people, can do. We can protest, we can sing revolutionary songs and we can parade through the streets, but we remain the commoners, the cannon fodder for low wages and in-work poverty. 

This is how politics has been for years; "Aw, politicians, they're a' the same." The politics of distance, of a properly ordered class structure in which those at the top who know would lead those many at the bottom who don't. 

How does that leave the people at the bottom of the pyramid? Frustrated, at least, despairing of any change, certainly, and abandoned. 

(A quick test of abandonment; how often have you spoken to a Lady or a Lord? Or been consulted by one? Or seen one at a public meeting you attended? And yet these same Ladies and Lords are taking decisions on your behalf every day.)

The PM's appointments to the Lords are Westminster politics abandoning the people. Worse, they are a propaganda move. These appointments, at this time of a resurgent democracy across Europe, are designed to put the lid on dissent, to break our spirits; the people and their votes do not matter a jot to the unelected crème de la crème.

But now we live in a different time. With the Referendum in Scotland we woke up and felt a changing wind in our faces. We don't have to carry on in the same rotten carcass of a ship. 

When Scotland is independent we can build a new boat, a hand-crafted Scottish longboat built by the people for the people, and set a new course toward a functioning democracy.

Triple Lock: Westminster

Calais, Corbyn and cocaine: Westminster is caught in a triple lock.

Calais

In Calais  there are between 1,000-5,000 refugees waiting for a chance to cross the Channel while living in conditions that would have looked good in the Dark Ages. This is a humanitarian question linked to the humanitarian question faced on both sides of the Mediterranean where refugees from Syria and the Daesh wars are getting to anarchic Libya and then risking their lives to reach Italy. 

Calais is just 20 miles from England. It is not some far away place with a difficult to pronounce name. It would be easy, terribly easy, for Westminster to help out. Basic humanitarian aid would suffice - latrines, clean water, blankets, simple housing. Irrespective of whether or not you think it is "right" that more than a thousand men, women and children are camping out in Calais, you could help, Osbameron. But you don't.

Why not? Because you are locked into a debate about migration with the right wing of your party and with UKIP, scared stiff that if you are seen to help the Calais migrants the voters in those precious marginals will slip across the border to UKIP.

Corbyn

The debate over - shock, horror - Jeremy Corbyn's anti-austerity manifesto is the key to the second of Westminster's triple locks. Westminster is locked into the belief that the only treatment for the economy - for any economy, Greek, German or English - is austerity. Cut and cut and cut until the State is bled of all its powers of intervention and the free market can have its head. Don't consider who suffers - it is always the poor - but focus on the numbers, the magical £12 billion that Osbameron believe to be our overspend. Do not, above all, do what Mr Corbyn suggests and tax the rich because then they will all jump ship, possibly moving to a shack in Calais to evade an increase in income tax.

Why are the mainstream parties in Westminster locked into austerity? It is hard to explain, but it is beginning to feel like a 594-person mass hysteria (yes, that's 650 MPs less our lovely #SNP56).

Cocaine

The Summer Silly Season story of stories is called Sewel. A Lord of the Realm caught snorting cocaine...whilst hanging around naked with prostitutes. You could not make it up. But along with the knighting of Lord Better Together it has shone a useful light on Westminster's third lock - the House of Lords. 


The House of Lords is an anachronism, a spit in the face of democracy. It is ridiculous verging on weird that the future of the people of Scotland should be decided by a bunch of charlatans in ermine selected for their safe, on-side views by Blairaq and Osbameron.

But the Commons and the Lords are padlocked locked together in Westminster. And not just for the sexy bondage sensation it seems to give them. The Lords hold the key to the safe, ensuring that whatever we commoners decide can be nudged and tweaked and adjusted so that it fits with the capital needs of the great British empire.


Westminster is truly trapped in its triple lock. People in England, just like people in Scotland, Wales and Ireland suffer as a result.

 
Time for an independent Scotland to release the people of Britain from the gargantuan padlock that is Westminster.

Northern Lights

More maths for the summer. 

Building on last week's post about progressive taxation, the economics team at Late but in Earnest (me) have been trying out the Swedish taxation system on Britain.

Sweden is reported to have the highest rates of tax in the world. Which completely undoes the argument put forward by the Tories that "if you tax people heavily they will leave the country." Have you seen evidence of mass emigration from Sweden? No.

Our team of economists (me, again, with a slide rule and a strong coffee) have simplified the tax system in Sweden by taking the key middle rate - 51% - on all income over 629,200 Swedish Krona (approximately £46,100.) Apply that rate to the UK's wealthiest 10% of households and you raise an additional £9,506 million (£9.5 billion). This would pay for three quarters of the £12bn "funding gap" that Osbameron claim to be able to see.

You could go one further.

Most of the top decile live in London and the South East of England. The poorest people in the British Isles live in the North, in Scotland, in Wales, in Ireland. So you are transferring wealth from Mr and Mrs Top Decile of Kensington to Ms Poor of Easterhouse.

This is what happens between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. Catalonia, which generates a surplus, pays out to eleven other "autonomous regions" across the Iberian Peninsula, starting with Extremadura.  This has been going on since Franco died (1975.) Catalans have been paying Extremadura, Andalucia and the other poor autonomous regions for more than 35 years. As Patrícia Gabancho points out in L’autonomia Que Ens Cal és La de Portugal ("The Autonomy we should have is that of Portugal"): Despite this, the poor regions have stayed poor.

In the British Isles wealthy regions have been contributing (modestly, considering their income) through their tax to support social services for poorer regions. Again, despite years of tax transfers, London is richer than ever while Easterhouse and so many other areas of Scotland remain poor.

In an independent Scotland the better-off burgers of Kilmacolm and Auchterarder would contribute through their income tax to the poorer regions of our new nation state. The danger is that they would pay tax but that the poor regions would stay poor.

So how would you persuade Mr and Mrs Auchterarder that their money is actually making a difference? Is there not a danger that Auctherarder would declare itself independent, to break away from the taxes imposed by Holyrood?

We could - to steal an idea that is becoming common in the charity and philanthropy field - focus on impact. We could use that money to build productive wealth (better schools, new factories, workshops, business start-ups...) in our poorest regions. Productive wealth that would create jobs, salaries and thus more income tax receipts.

Westminster has completely failed to grasp this simple idea; tax wealth and use the money to build a better educated population, jobs, and productivity. Do that and you get a fairer society (like Sweden) and a wealthier, happier society.

Scotland can tax better than Westminster. Catalonia can tax better than Madrid. 

But only when we are independent.





Reference
Gabancho, Patrícia. L’autonomia Que Ens Cal és La de Portugal. 1. ed. Palestra. Barcelona: Editorial La Mansarda, 2012. www.lamansardaeditorial.com.

The details:
Taxation in Sweden (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden and https://www.nordisketax.net/main.asp?url=files/sve/eng/i07.asp) combines county and municipality taxes. Rates for 2015 were:

• 0% from 0 SEK to 18,800 SEK (£0-£1,377)
• Circa 31% (ca. 7% county and 24% municipality tax): from 18,800 SEK to 443,300 SEK (£1,377-£32,479)
• 51% (31% + 20%) from 433,900 SEK to 629,200 SEK (£32,479-£46,100)
• 56% (31% + 25%) above 615,700 SEK (£46,100)

Catalonia is not Scotland

This has been a hot summer here in Catalonia but the autumn looks hotter. There is a major demonstration planned by the pro-independence movement on 11th September, elections to the Generalitat on 27th September, and then Spanish national elections at an as-yet undecided date before the end of the year. "Junts pel Si", the grouping of political parties in favour of independence, is on a roll and has built lists headed by celebrities (Lluís Llach, the Catalan protest musician - like an older Billy Bragg - will head the Girona "Junts pel Si" list) for the 27th September election. 

Catalonia is not Scotland. Both countries contain millions of people who want their nation independent, but that desire is driven by different issues.

In Catalonia the emerging issue is governance. Not "how should we be governed" because that is relatively clear: just as in Scotland, Catalonia has its own Parliament. But rather "why are we being so badly governed by Madrid?"

The conservative Partido Popular led by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy appears to take every opportunity to pick a fight with the Catalans. He has of course said that he will never let Catalonia go. But he and his Government have also used the Constitutional Court (the ultimate court for questions relating to governing the country) to bash Catalonia. The 12 judges to the Court are selected for nine year terms by the Congress of the Deputies (the house of parliament, who select four judges), by the Senate (the upper house who select four more) with the remaining four selected by the executive branch of the Government and by the Judiciary. The court is politically conservative and the cycle of past Governments and Senates and their selection of judges means that it is especially conservative at present.

On Friday, the Constitutional Court delivered yet another anti-Catalonia judgement, deciding that Catalonia should not receive €700m that the Catalans say they were promised in 2010 by the previous (Socialist Party) Government. This follows judgements against last year's attempted referendum and against two recent attempts by Catalonia to revise its relationship with Spain, both of them supported by a majority of voters in Catalonia.

And now the governing Partido Popular has made one more, nastier threat. The Justice Minister - whose surname, in a cruel twist of irony, is "Catalá" - has threatened to use Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution - a threat repeated on Friday by Mariano Rajoy at his end of term press conference -  to close down Catalonia as an "autonomous region." In bashing the Catalans with this especially heavy stick he can be certain that the Constitutional Court will support him.

This serial beating by Madrid of Catalonia has had one result: more and more Catalans want independence. Friends who would have accepted a negotiation and revision of the power share between Madrid and Barcelona told me at the weekend that they are now decided on independence.

This is about governance. How should a metropolitan centre govern its outlying nations? Is this a colonial relationship - like the relationship that Westminster has with Scotland - or is this total control? Madrid wants total control and will allow no negotiation on the issue. As a strategy for governance it could prove fatal.

Catalonia is not Scotland. But then again, perhaps it almost is.

Suffer the Children

You wake up this morning as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Your dream - to "balance the books" by filling a £12 billion gap between Government spend and Government income.

You have a choice, Chancellor.

Take £12 billion out of welfare? The impact assessment by your civil servants says that will hit 330,000 children from low income families.

Or put £12 billion onto taxes?

If you decide, Chancellor, to use progressive taxation to fill the £12 billion gap, you might start by boosting the taxes of high income households. There are 2.7m households in the UK in the top decile for household income - with average annual earnings per household of £102,366. With two taxpayers per household, that is £51,183 per person. These folk pay the higher tax rate, 40%, on all income over £31,786.

That 40% tax on those households currently raises £41.4 billion (see "Maths" below).

Raise that tax to 52% (on all income over £31,786) and you raise £12.4 billion, and balance your books.

There is your choice, Chancellor.

Suffer the children? Or ask the wealthiest 10% to pay a wee bit more in tax?

That is the choice Scotland will face at the next Holyrood election. If we want better welfare provision, we're going to have to pay for it. 

I'd vote for a Scotland that stopped the suffering of children, and started taxing for a fairer society.

The Maths:

Calculation  Top Decile  Households in the top decile by income                              2,670,000 Average household income  £                             102,366 Number of tax payers per household 2 Average income, per person  £                               51,183 Pay 40% on income over  £                               31,786 Pay 40% on  £                               19,397 Which is, per person  £                                  7,759 Totalling, all taxpayers  £               41,431,992,000 Funding Gap  £               12,000,000,000 So percentage increase in tax taken, to meet £12bn funding gap: 29.0% That % increase on 40% 11.6% So, raise the 40% rate to: 51.6% Let's call that 52%, which is payable on  £                               19,397 Which is  £                               10,086 Totalling, all taxpayers  £               53,861,589,600 Which raises an extra  £               12,429,597,600
In practice, of course, the 40% rate applies to many more people. It would also apply to most of the people - another 2.6m households - in the ninth decile, so the £12 billion would be shared amongst more people. A tax rise from 40% to 47.5% would probably do it.

European Bounty

What are we to make of Europe? What has happened to the idea that Europe, the EU, would help us construct a fairer society, one in which absolute poverty and exaggerated wealth would disappear?

Europe has, or has had, a model that used progressive taxation to pay for a broadly inclusive health service, free education, rights for women, workers and minorities, and more or less functioning democracies. These were common characteristics of a common market. They saved many from the levels of poverty seen in the paragon of free markets, the USA. They also saved us from wars (in which, as in all wars, the poor foot soldiers suffer most.)

And then came Grexit. A poor country that had been loaned billions on easy terms by the banks, the IMF and member states. Easy terms that did not include, as perhaps they ought, a requirement that Greece strengthen her institutions and, specifically, her capacity to gather taxes. The markets, followed by the bankers of Frankfurt, lost confidence in Greece. The Troika swooped and austerity, the only paradigm in town, was imposed.

In the shadow of the Troika, the questions at the top of this article have started to gnaw at the hearts of people on the left. Janan Ganesh in yesterday's FT described "the left's wrath at Brussels (and Berlin)". Zara Kitson, candidate for the Scottish Green Party in an excellent article in last week's The National wrote about "...the Troika bullies [as] representatives of the neoliberal status quo." "...the vision of the EU as a beacon of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights [is] now under threat of being hijacked for good by free market fanatics." Zara called for the people of Europe to "...stand up for an alternative European project...to defeat austerity and xenophobia, and to promote peace and sustainability, whilst pushing to make the Europe of our intentions become the Europe we're a part of."

Raül Romeva is the lead candidate for Junts pel Sí, the single candidature that is planning to stand in September's elections for the Generalitat, the Catalan parliament. The group is pro-independence, or at least pro- the right to chose independence for Catalonia. Last year he published* "We Are a European Nation (and a tricky dossier)," a collection of essays on Catalonia and the EU. He is a highly qualified commentator, having been an MEP 2004-14 and supervisor of elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1996 and 1997.

In Raül's view the "...current 'EUreality' is a union, but only of states. Peoples and people have become a secondary issue." The debate about Europe has become yes-no , in-out "...while we have forgotten other equally important [variables]...the nuances, the 'how', the 'why' and above all the 'for what'." He argues that we need the power of a Europe that works together if we are to meet the superpowers like the US and China, or the more insidious powers of the mega global corporations. And, drawing a line between Scotland and Catalonia, he argues with Zygmunt Bauman that the European Union or a future Federation of European States offers the best guarantee that the identities of small nations will be protected.

For Raül, the challenge we are facing is ideological, not economic; "...crude neoliberalism is now not only found in the boardrooms of the leading economic and financial entities. It has made itself soul and master of the groups that are directing the main European institutions whether they be in Brussels or the main capital cities."

Like Zara's "stand up...to defeat austerity", Raül calls for a people's mutiny. A peaceful, democratic mutiny to take control of the European ship of state.

Europe links Catalonia, Scotland and poverty. The existence of the European Union as a powerful binding force allows small nations to evolve safely into states (we don't have to create states out of wars in the old way.) Europe, with its protective human rights, workplace and environmental legislation (yes, yes there is not enough of any of it) at least limits the scope of poverty. And the European model, the one that the Troika appeared to break, is the model that limits the greed of wealth and salves the wounds of poverty.

That Europe, the caring, sharing Europe, the Europe in which Scotland and Catalonia could be independent, is worth fighting for.

Time for a mutiny.

Romeva, Raül. Som Una Nació Europea: (i Una Carpeta Incòmoda): Catalunya Vista Des d’Europa. 1. ed. Barcelona: Rosa dels Vents, 2014. www.magradallegir.com.

May London Flourish

The City of London is a building site. Walking through its courts and its lanes means navigating scaffolding, concrete blocks and cement lorries. Wobbling to work on their high heels and pencil skirts or their brogues and pinstripes, City staff divert from pavement to pavement to avoid the construction sites.

London is booming, and not just in new buildings. House prices are up (did they ever fall?) along with the salaries of its bankers, lawyers and investment managers. It is the centre for research and development, for arts and culture, for earning and spending, for broadcasting and education. London is a global mega-city, a Tokyo on the Thames.

For Scotland, London is the big business opportunity. A few hours away by train, speaking the same language (or something like it), and with a rampant consumer culture for the speciality foods that Scotland produces, London is open for business. Scottish firms are selling everything from architecture to whisky to the London market.

Long may London, the global mega-city, flourish.

London's governance - à la Boris Johnson - is about letting the free market rip along, with only the tiny inconvenience of the Congestion Charge. It is laissez-faire governance,  neoliberalism. The priorities of a global mega-city are cast in the same mould; yes, let's pack a new runway into the world's busiest airport to make it even busier (to hell with the Green Belt).

Neoliberalism is the philosophy of the global mega-city, competing for favoured investments amongst the banks and finance houses of the world. New York? Tokyo? Rio? Sydney? Nah, let's go to London. They will let us pay taxes in the Netherlands Antilles while we work in Blackfriars. London needs neoliberalism or it will be overtaken, God forfend, by Frankfurt or Geneva. London is a vortex, a Death Eater that sucks the wealth, and the spirit, from everything around it.

Westminster is in London, and Westminster shares London's dominant political philosophy, the economic neoliberalism that is the accepted paradigm of Tories, Labour and Liberals.

But the governance required for a global mega-city is very, very different from that required for the hills, glens, lochs (and cities) of Scotland. The people of Scotland - not just in the last General Election but for years before - have shown that they want other values to predominate. The people of Scotland have consistently voted for parties that propose a different model of society, one which cares for its people, which pays for the education of its young people, which helps its old-folk.

Which is why Scotland needs its own Government. We simply cannot have that fascinating, greedy, consumptive neoliberal culture imposed on us any longer. We need out, now. Because the longer we stay glued to Osbameron's nasty neoliberalism, the poorer, weaker, sicker we will get.

It is time. We must now grow our own Flower of Scotland. And may London (and its parish parliament in Westminster) flourish.