HIKE INCOME TAX FOR THE CARE CRISIS?

 

 

THE UNMENTIONABLE TAX INCREASE.

An aide to former Prime Minister David Cameron has admitted that the promise not to increase income tax, VAT or national insurance was made to fill a gap in a stream of policy announcements before the last General Election.

Nevertheless increasing income tax has become an unmentionable subject even for Jeremy Corbyn who demands instead that the planned cut in Corporation Tax be scrapped in order to cope with the mounting crisis in elderly care.

The government are not handling the problem well. It was not even mentioned in the Autumn Statement. Now we see ambulances queueing outside hospitals because elderly people can’t be discharged. That’s because there are no home care packages for them. That’s because councils can’t afford them or are running out of private providers who say Town Halls can’t give them an economic rate. That’s because of government cuts.

Now in a panic local authorities are going to be allowed to raise council tax by an extra 2% in each of the next two years, but not in 2019-20 when the Local Government Association reckon the social care gap will rise from its current figure of £1.3bn to £2.6bn. Presumably by then the whole issue will have been rethought and refunded.

But even this panic measure by the government will help the south more than the north because of its low council tax base. The top three beneficiaries are Surrey, Kent and Essex whilst Manchester and Liverpool are in the bottom ten. This presumes that the councillors will automatically levy the extra precept. They are expected to because there are no metropolitan borough elections next year. However there are mayoral contests in Liverpool and Manchester City Regions.

One wonders whether Corbyn’s Labour Party might be the first to break cover and support income tax increases to deal with the growing crisis in elderly care.

BRUTAL TRUTH IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

The policy of using western influence to remove brutal dictators in the Middle East and North Africa has long been discredited. In the rubble of Aleppo we see its nadir. Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Mubarak in Egypt and Gaddafi in Libya were all removed. As a consequence their countries are riddled with Islamic extremists even worse than them.

Assad in Syria refused to go, found an ally in Russia, and seems to be prepared bludgeon his people into submission to remain in charge.

The West has lurched from bungling interference to incompetence, certainly in respect of Syria. We encouraged moderate rebels to revolt against Assad, then didn’t back them up properly as they became infiltrated by extremists. What help we did give allows Russia to suggest we are partly backing Islamist extremists against the official government of a country in Syria whilst doing the opposite in Iraq.

All this could have a major effect on the world power balance. Russia is economically weak but has a clear, if brutal, view of its own interests. China grows more powerful and assertive in the Pacific. America is in a state of uncertainty over Trump and the European Union is in great danger of collapsing in a wave of populism.

Follow me at www.jimhancock.co.uk

 

 

 

 

THE LONG LEGACY OF WORLD WAR ONE

100 years ago the first shots were being fired in the First World War. At the end of it the Ottoman Empire was split up into the states that are involved in the awful carnage that we are seeing every night on our TV screens.

 

The situation is serious and is already affecting us here. My colleague Michael Taylor has addressed the street tension in Manchester over the Gaza issue in his Downtown blog. 500 people from Britain have gone to the Syrian civil war. Some may return to try and practise jihad on our streets. On the business front the fragile recovery could be reversed by more general war in the Middle East and interruption of fuel supplies.

 

There have been many Middle East crises before. This one has two new characteristics. Firstly social media is centre stage in the propaganda and recruitment war. Everything is accelerated. Rumours and lies rub shoulders with the truth and people choose what to believe and what determines their action. Secondly the United States is largely absent. After the unwise involvement of George Bush we now have the isolationism of President Obama. The decision to pivot American foreign policy towards the Pacific might have had a certain logic to it when Obama took office. However as the only world super power you take your eyes off the Middle East and Russia at your peril.

 

There is undoubtedly a paradox in United States involvement in the Middle East. On the one hand it is the hated symbol of Western imperialism and ultimate defender of Israel. On the other hand it retains massive military power and the potential to bring people together (The Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978).

 

The situation is so bloody and complex that the likelihood is that the Middle East will remain a running sore for decades to come. There may be ceasefires and short term agreements but the heady mix of vast economic disparity among the people, religious fanaticism and unresolved issues of national identity may be too difficult to resolve.

 

In 1919 the world was a different place. One set of Empires: Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia and Ottoman Turkey were replaced by another set: Britain and France with the United States beginning to play a role.

 

Lloyd George, Clemenceau and President Wilson met in Paris without the chatter of social media and 24 hour news channels and carved up the Middle East and Africa. Although the superiority of the white man was beginning to be challenged, the western powers still called the shots and huge mistakes were made.

 

It was perhaps regrettable that T.E Lawrence’s idea for a Greater Arabia was not adopted. The secret of the Ottoman Empire was to govern lightly by collecting the taxes but letting local Sunni and Shia leaders run their areas.

 

The Kurds should have been given their own state and it goes without saying more thought should have been given to the implications for the Palestinians of the Balfour Declaration that set in train the creation of Israel.

 

The Palestinian issue is almost intractable but ultimately could a bargain be struck whereby Israel and its settlers withdraw to the pre-1967 borders in return for a demilitarised Palestinian state being set up in the West Bank and Gaza? Jerusalem should become an international city under the control of the United Nations with freedom of worship for all faiths.

 

It is easy to write such a proposal and it will offend many but the alternative seems to be continuing misery for the Palestinians and insecurity for the Israelis.