PEOPLE, NOT POLITICIANS, LEAD ON TAX

Demands for people and companies to pay their fair share of tax, and for company chief executives pay and bonuses to be capped is being led by the grass roots not their leaders.

It’s all very well for David Cameron to jump on the bandwagon and pick on comedian Jimmy Carr’s tax avoidance scheme, but the Prime Minister joins most politicians in failing to address this issue for years.

The Labour Party should have taken a lead while it was in office for 13 years but Tony Blair was so focussed on being “business friendly” that there was little pretence that the party was going to be true to its socialist grass roots and narrow the gap between rich and poor through the tax system. Indeed Lord Mandelson said he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich.”

It’s unlikely the public was relaxed, even during the economic good times. They certainly aren’t now as the recession bites hard.

It should now be clear to politicians that there are votes in fairness. There is nothing incompatible between fair taxes, bonuses and salaries and a competitive society. There’s a lot of nonsense talked about our top entrepreneurs being poised with their passports ready to flee Britain for some low tax foreign paradise.

There are a few who are prepared to endure boredom in boiling Qatar or humid Hong Kong. Good luck to them. We must have fairness in Britain and politicians of all parties with the guts to outsmart the clever accountants and their tax loopholes.

THE SECRET POLICE ELECTIONS

It seems as if the government is hell bent on ensuring a low turnout in the elections for Police and Crime Commissioners.

These are entirely new posts that the public have no experience of. Voting will take place in November when the weather is likely to be even worse than it is at the moment. Finally there will be no freepost for the parties to communicate with the public.

If you are tempted to run as an independent in say Merseyside, you will need £60,000 to contact every elector.

At the moment we only know the Labour candidates in the North West. I went along to their launch this week and encountered two familiar faces, Tony Lloyd and Jane Kennedy.

Tony was returned unopposed by the Greater Manchester Labour Party and will shortly stand down as MP for Central Manchester.

Jane Kennedy, a former MP, won a bruising contest with another ex Liverpool MP, Peter Kilfoyle, and the chair of the Merseyside Police Authority Cllr Bill Weightman. Bill opined that the Commissioner role should not be a bolt hole for former MPs.

That was a mild comment compared to Jane Kennedy’s criticism of Peter Kilfoyle for suggesting that being born in Liverpool was a key qualification for the job. She described that to me as the “little Liverpool campaign” and was glad Labour members had rejected it.

Mayor Joe was at the photo call having surprisingly intervened in the selection process to back Kennedy. He justified his decision with a rambling analogy related to choosing cakes. I wondered whether he’d have been present if Kilfoyle had won to which his response was “We’ll never know now.”

Anderson is clearly happy to continue mixing it in the political field. Earlier in the campaign he’d told the Leigh MP Andy Burnham not to interfere in a Merseyside election when the Shadow Health Secretary had given his support to Kilfoyle.

Labour made its choice in Lancashire in a more seemly manner. Lancashire County councillor Clive Grunshaw from Fleetwood is a member of the current Lancashire Police Authority. He may be up against Geoff Driver if the current Conservative leader of Lancashire County Council decides to go for the Tory nomination.

In Cheshire Labour has chosen Halton councillor John Stockton. He may face Baroness Helen Newlove for the Tories. Her husband was murdered by three youth in Warrington in 2007.

There are a number of issues to return to about these new posts as we run up to November including their effectiveness, their relationships with the Chief Constables and what it tells us about the attitude of the the Tories (the traditional party of law and order) and the police.

 

HANSON FOR MERSEYTRAVEL?

 

HANSON FOR MERSEYTRAVEL?

As forecast here last week, pressure is mounting on Merseytravel chairman Mark Dowd to go. His vigorous response to accusations of broken contract rule has merely galvanised opposition to him within his own Labour Party ranks.

Leading the way has been Liverpool Cabinet member Joe Hanson who it is now clear is the person behind a critical report on Cllr Dowd’s record. Hanson may be the man to challenge Cllr Dowd when the authority holds its annual general meeting later this month.

The fact that he is a Liverpool councillor, and traditionally such posts are held by politicians from councils in the rest of Merseyside, may now be less of a problem. Reports suggest that St Helens councillors on the transport authority have joined the call for Cllr Dowd to go. St Helens is traditionally the council most sensitive to Liverpool dominating the city region.

WARRINGTON NEW LEADERSHIP

Who is going to fill the gap left by the departure of Chief Executive Diana Terris? Sources suggest she found it difficult to work with the Labour administration which came into office last year. My information is that the authority will take its time to make a permanent appointment. In the meantime we can expect an announcement shortly of an experienced pair of hands to guide the authority through the transition.

CONSULTATION OR CHAOS?

Labour does want its pasty and eat it.
I mean the government changes its mind about the tax on this product and an MP called Chris Leslie is all over our screens saying the whole budget is in chaos.

He’s miffed because he won’t be able to beat the Chancellor over the head about the issue again or the tax on static caravans. The tax on church conversions is rumoured to be next.

Of course George Osborne made a mess of his budget, allowing everyone to focus on these irritating issues which are small in the great scheme of things. This has obscured his determination to keep getting the deficit down and the fact that millions of poorer people have been taken out of tax. The latter largely because of Lib Dem pressure.

So the government has changed its mind. All credit to them I say for listening. That’s what democracy is all about.

NICK ROBINSON AND BRIAN REDHEAD.

Spin, sleaze and splits. That’s the staple diet of political journalism. But should we replace some of that with substance?

That was the question that the BBC’s Political Editor Nick Robinson posed at a memorial lecture this week in honour of that great North West journalist Brian Redhead.

Partly driven by the demands of editors and also by the incessant demands of 24 hour news, political coverage does tend to concentrate on those three s-words. But Nick was asking how far this has contributed to the yawning chasm that has opened up between politicians and the people.

If the public is constantly told their politicians are on the make, if they think the reporter is being manipulated by spin doctors or is telling them about internal party squabbles that they don’t care about, then probably journalism has some responsibility for low turnout.

So Nick suggested we need to do something about the fourth s-word, substance. Perhaps we should have more coverage of how policy is made, why it is so difficult, what factors are taken into account.

The problem is who would watch it or read it? Nick feared it might be regarded as “eating your greens television.” In other words good for you but not necessarily very enjoyable after a hard day’s work.

I was privileged to host a question and answer session after Nick had spoken at the lecture in Salford Quays. Nick had first worked for me at Piccadilly Radio (now Key 103) in January 1983. He had a year to fill because he could not go to university following a terrible car crash which saw his great friend Will Redhead killed.

Nick paid tribute to Brian, who included presenting the Today programme and editing the Manchester Evening News, amongst his achievements and said he had inspired him to take up journalism.

Brian encouraged all young journalists. In the early eighties I always hoped he’d be on the mid morning train to Macclesfield after we had both finished working in London. If he was you’d be guaranteed a couple of hours of inspiring chat which was substantial but included a bit about spin, sleaze and splits too.

GEORGE AND THE BATTLING GRANNIES

You’ve got to hand it to the toff from Tatton, he doesn’t lack political courage.

At one stroke George Osborne has knocked the walking stick out of the hands of pensioners and rewarded his millionaire friends with a massive tax cut.

And yet for all the controversy the income tax cut and the age related tax allowance freeze will create, the Chancellor gave a confident performance. The signal was given out that the government’s determination to bring down the deficit was on course and the Coalition was holding together.

The ludicrously leaked budget was all about Tories and Lib Dems showing how much influence they had on the decision making process. Both parties got prizes. The Tories cut the 50p rate, the Lib Dems are now close to their pledge that people earning less than £10,000 should not pay income tax.

Osborne must now pray for growth and that the newly enriched millionaires will not only “stay and pay” but will invest to help the recovery. We must remember the government has only just begun the cuts agenda. There is the prospect of a further £10bn cut in welfare benefits.

The Chancellor ran up the white flag on the 50p rate effectively saying that private sector accountants had outwitted Treasury officials who draft our tax laws. We’ll see how effective the government’s pledge is to clamp down on aggressive tax avoidance.

He must also hope there will not be a big backlash over the “granny tax”. There is an argument that the golden generation born into the welfare state after the war, enjoying full employment and retiring on good company pensions should share the burden with the young suffering from tuition fees, unemployment and the prospect of retiring at 70 on average salary pensions.

The problem for politicians is that the old vote and the young don’t. The scrapping of the age related allowance is going to hit soon-to-retire couples really hard.

Labour still isn’t trusted on the economy but Ed Miliband did well in the House of Commons when he invited Tory MPs to acknowledge they would personally benefit from the income tax cut.

 

BUDGET IN THE NORTH WEST

The Chancellor’s announcement of investment in the Preston-Blackpool, Manchester-Bradford and Manchester-Sheffield rail lines is welcome. The links between Manchester and South Yorkshire are particularly bad. The full commitment to the vital Northern Hub at Piccadilly Station is still awaited though.

Manchester has done well, getting £150m over five years from the Treasury in return for promised economic growth through tax increment financing. The city is also to be part of the government’s superfast broadband project.

Surprisingly Liverpool wasn’t  included, another blow after the city’s failure in its bid for the Green Investment Bank.

 

VIV BINGHAM OBE

The funeral was held yesterday of one of the finest Liberals the North West has produced.

Although he never made it to parliament, Viv Bingham served the party at every level from fighting hopeless seats to becoming Party President.

A principled man, he was sometimes a thorn in the side of his party leaders particularly on the issue of nuclear weapons. He was a confirmed unilateralist.

But overwhelmingly people responded to his friendship and warm hearted personality.

Over thirty years he fought a range of seats from Heywood and Royton and Hazel Grove to West Derbyshire and Stalybridge and Hyde.

The highlight of his career was his year as President of the Liberal Party 1981-82.

Viv brought all his diplomatic skills to bear in his party’s sometimes difficult relations with the newly formed Social Democratic Party.

The many tributes in recent days are eloquent testament to the passing of a true Liberal.