Has Bristow Muldoon Really Thought Through His Council Tax Rebate?

Last month Bristow Muldoon MSP for Livingston announced that he was challenging the Liberal Democrats tax policy. Something, which I said at the time, was due to a lack of understanding that we were aiming for fairness in taxation and not higher taxation. I asked the question then just what has Labour done to lighten the tax burden for the average citizen.

Now Bristow is starting to offer piecemeal insights into his thinking starting with a reduction in council tax for pensioners. He admits that his proposals, unlike the Liberal Democrat tax proposals, have not been costed. However, he is in a bit of the quandary by saying:

The Scottish Labour Party believes the council tax is the best method of local taxation but recognises it could be improved.

How can something be the best system for doing anything if it needs improving? If it is the best system surely there should be no problems.

He acknowledges how unfair Council Tax to pensioners:

For many pensioners, there can be a high proportion of their income paid in council tax.

Of course there is Bristow that is what the Liberal Democrats, SNP and SSP have been telling you for some time now, glad you are catching up. The reason for this Bristow is that the council tax system is based on the value of the property that the pensioners live in and no relation necessarily to the income that they have. Most pensioners who are owner-occupiers will have bought their current house many years’ back in their working lives when they could afford the mortgage etc. They probably spent a lot less on the house than it is worth now especially if the 25 or 30 year mortgage is paid off. They are nowhere near earning proportionately the same to their house value now as when they first bought it. How do we know this because house prices have been inflation busting and pensions have not been anywhere near keeping up with salaries or inflation.

So Bristow and his 25% rebate is offering the appearance of being a knight in shining amour but is really not doing all that much. This would still result in a high proportion of their income paid in council tax especially if compared to an MSP living in Murieston.

He also says that this rebate will not be paid for my other council taxpayers but will be covered by the Executive. Now Bristow is saying the 1.5 million Scottish pensioners should on average be saving £300 on average. So somewhere Bristow is expecting the Executive to find £550 million. So the people of Scotland are going to have to pay for this somewhere.

So all this means that can only mean that the exempt students and non-paying children will have to take this cut from their budgets. Is that really what Bristow was saying?

Ming on the Middle East

Sir Menzies Campbell in today's Guardian offers a voice of reason to George W. Bush's posturing.

How can the leader of the free world say that OK you can carry on for a week but after that we'll need to look at it again, when he himself is weilding his might in Iraq, Afghanistan and threathening others with force? Looks like Syria is now on Bush's radar along with Iran and North Korea.

In added his voice to UN Calls for a ceasefire Ming is evenhanded in apportioning blame for the latest eruption of violence:

The indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel by Hezbollah is wholly unacceptable, as is the targeted destruction of the infrastructure of Lebanon by the Israeli Government.

Yet while he recognises that Isreal has a right 'to live in peace within recognised and secure borders' he is saying that people in authority including the Foriegn Secretary are not doing enough to condone the disproportionate action being taken.

While Isreal has taken illegal military action, Hamas and Hezbollah equally are detailing Isrealis without authority. Ming also quite rightly points out that all this unrest in the region is liable only to strengthen the militants which in the long term will only make Isreal feel even more insecure.

Sadly neither Bush nor the UK Government seem prepared to point out to Isreal that if they are looking for peace they have to be actively seeking it rather than hoping for it to emmerge from the embers and rubble. Ming sums this up in his conclusion:

The priority must be to ensure an immediate ceasefire. It is only once a ceasefire has been delivered that we can look towards solutions. Long-term solutions should be delivered through a regional conference...that engages all the states in the region.

Cost Benefit Analyisis of General Election

There is an interesting table accompanying the Scotsman's report on the state of the various party finances. Basically it is a cost benefit analysis of the spending on the General Election last year for the return of votes and MPs. Being Sottish it obviously also includes the SNP but the results are still interesting.

Labour

Number of Votes 9,566,618
Amount Spent £15.1 million
Seats 356
Amount spent per vote £1.58
Ammount per MP £42,416

Conservatives

Number of Votes 8,785,941
Amount Spent £15.7 million
Seats 198
Amount spent per vote £1.79
Ammount per MP £79,293

Lib Dems

Number of Votes 5,985,414
Amount Spent £4.9 million
Seats 62
Amount spent per vote 82p
Ammount per MP £96,538

SNP

Scotland only

Number of Votes 412,267
Amount Spent £262,972
Seats 6
Amount spent per vote 64p
Ammount per MP £43,829

What is very telling is that of the three UK wide parties we are most cost effective per vote. Almost half the cost of each Labour vote and even better against the Conservatives. Obviously our spend per MP does not reflect this and highlights the fact that not everyone's vote has the same value. While we spent only half of what Labour spend to garner each of our vote we have to invest more than double to get an MP.

As the only party that ended the year in the black, and therefore worked within the party's means, and working against a system that is inherantly unfair and reproduces a sizable majority of seats with a considerable minority of the votes cast something clearly needs to be done.

If the Tories and Labour continue to exist beyond their means what is the end result going to be. Matthew Parris wrote an interesting piece at the weekend suggesting we might end up back with a House full of independent MPs if the party structures were to implode under the pressure of debts and unredeemed loans.

Clearly in both Labour and Conservative head offices questions should be asked about is the ammount of debt £27.3 million for Labour and £26.4 million for the Conservatives sustainable for an organisation of their size. Compared to £9 million and £5 million respectively in the last general election year 2001 will either party be able to afford the next campaign as these debts will surely increase unless addressed promptly.

Maybe this could be one reason why a snap election might not be called immediately after the current Prime Minister steps aside. It is possible that neither of the two largest parties would be in a position to contest it due to their largesse in 2005 as soon as the heavily muted date of autumn 2007.

Flummoxing a Market Researcher

Last night I had the great pleasure of flummoxing a call calling market researcher on the phone. The opening question of his survey was 'Have you heard about the Scottish Executive policy of free personal care for the elderly?'. Well as a good Scottish Liberal Democrat I had to say yes.

His second question was 'Where did you hear about this?'. Well, I told the truth and told as someone who stood for the Liberal Democrats in last years general election I first heard of it while we were preparing the manifesto for the 2003 election. The poor guy did not have a box to tick for this. There wasn't even other for him to fill in. So the closest he could find was heard from council.

Unfortunately, the only reason I have heard from my local council about free personal care for the elderly was when they were found to be charging pensioners for their meals service.

Anyway the poor researcher rattled off his questions and was getting total agreement to all the questions he was raising. But it possibly made his day to have someone able to answer so succinctly and precisely to the questions he was raising instead of asking 'what do you mean?' every so often.

How Healthy is Blair's Green Energy Committment?

So we've all heard Tony Blair talk the talk:

I am not saying that nuclear is the only answer—of course it is not. There are renewables, energy efficiency and everything else.

Hansard 14 June 2006 Column 764

So why if is and Jack McConnell the Scottish First Minister do we read today that a renewable energy firm is in danger of closure due to lack of orders.

Some people have complained that all we ever seem to have on the renewable agenda is wind farms yet here is Camcal doing great work to harness wave energy under threat of closure. Where is the promise to a balance portfolio of renewable resources? Is Camcal just the tip of the iceberg? Is the Prime Minister's nucleur myopia going to have ramifications on orders for the renewable energy industires that are trying to make a difference to how we generate our power?

West Lothian Versus North Antrim

You know who your friends and enemies are. Or least it is becoming apparent if you live in a devolved part of the UK. Also you would think in times when patronage of the Lords was under such scrutiny that David Cameron would not make any policy decision on the hoof which might be miscontrued as patronage within the Commons. If you did you would be wrong.

In his hurry to come up with an answer to the West Lothian question about the rights of Scottish MPs to vote on affairs at Westminster over which they have no overall control, he has entered the quagmire of Northern Irish politics. When John Major had a wafer thin majority in the 90s, and some of that was rebellious, he could normally rely on the Unionist parties from Northern Ireland to dig him out of a whole. David Liddington, the Conservative's Shadow Northern Irish Secretary, has refused to extend their proposed voting ban on English issues of Scottish members to those of Northern Ireland. This is fast becoming referred to as the North Antrim question, so named for Ian Paisley the DUP leader's constituency.

Some have accused the delay on the Tories to bring about the same conditions on all devolved areas as hypocritical, merely a way to ensure that should the votes be close after the next election that the Tories could squeeze through legislation with the help of their Northern Irish bretheren. However, the entire restriction on any MP's voting rights might just be under threat from the very Unionists that David Cameron is attempting to cosy up to. As Jeffery Donaldson the DUP MP for Lagan Valley said:

'We would oppose any proposal to deny Northern Ireland MPs full voting rights at Westminster. That right embodies the very concept of the Union. The House of Commons is not an English regional assembly.'

Surely if the DUP mean this they would also oppose the restriction on Scottish and Welsh MPs as well.

But is Cameron playing into the hands of the 31% of English who want independence from Scotland. Typically of Alex Salmond who ignores the view of the majority who did not want separation he said that:

"Clearly this is the future. This growing support shows that unionist politicians are on their way out and the argument for independence and self-respect is on its way in."

Strange then that the level of support for England to separate for Scotland is actually higher than his own party has actually scored recently in Scotland something which is nowhere near their peak, and we all know what that has meant for the separation of the Union.

A-lististo Selected but Does not Increase Diversity

I have previously condemned the A-listisos contesting Folkestone and Hythe for that their lack of impact to replace Michael Howard during the nomination process. However, the final three were Harriett Baldwin, Damian Collins and Laura Sandys, A-lististos all, sa.

Harriett was PPC for Stockton North in 2005 and is a pensions and investments manager for J P Morgan, Damian was candidate for Northamptonshire North in 2005 and is managing director of an advertising, part of M & C Saatchi and Laura is the Chair of OpenDemocracy and daughter or the late former MP Baron Duncan-Sandys, Churchill's son-in-law.

So did the people from the seat of the former leader take a radical step and ensure a mature woman with a business background should follow in the steps of Michael Howard.

Nope they went for Damian who like Howard they have selected another officer of the Bow Group. Howard was Chairman in 1970 and Collins was Political Oficer in 2003.

So he is white, male, an establishment Conservative and at least nine years less experience than his female competition. Just how experienced does a Tory woman have to be to get selected?