Hurdles

While, post election, should Labour lose seats, any decision by Corbyn to resign will be a reflection  of the balance of forces in the party, if the number of votea increases the argument he should stay is as strong as it was for Kinnock. …

Public Interest

So no prosecutions for Electoral Fraud, now there’s a surprise! A blogger, calling him or herself the Secret Barrister explains in detail here, that the Conservative Party at a national level have been found guilty of electoral fraud and that investigations into further prosecution of their, then, national treasurer are still continuing.  At a local level, the CPS had to determine if there was sufficient evidence of corruption (prison) and/or false accounting (fines) to warrant prosecution. They decided that there was insufficient evidence of corruption at a local level, because the national party had told them the expenses were national party expenses, which they then, in some part, under reported. They also decided there was no public interest in prosecuting them for false accounting. The secret barrister describes this as charitable.

Given the amount of words used by the Electoral Commission, in levying the maximum fine, stating that part of the Tories’ offence has been the undermining of public confidence in the PPERA and its electoral expense control, one might have thought that the CPS would consider that there are public interest grounds for prosecuting those for whom evidence of false accounting was solid.

Who appoints the DPP? …

France

Last Sunday, Emmanuel Macron defeated the fascist Marine Le Pen in the run off election for the Presidency of France by a margin of 2 – 1 despite the late playing of “the you’ve been hacked” card. Others have accurately observed that the right wing part of the Republican Alliance held firm and voted for Macron, an ex-socialist government minister. We can observe, particularly, after President Trump’s dismissal of the FBI Director Comey, and the Congressional Republican’s supine & sectarian acceptance that populist dictators only succeed with the support of the once democratic right! The right in the US and the UK need to think very hard about what they’re doing. Vive la France. …

Progressives

Much has been said in favour and cynical dismissal of the grass roots progressive alliance. Like Labour, the Liberals and the Greens have supporters covering a broad spectrum of supporters, and frankly none of them can tell their voters what to do. These decisions must be taken in the light of what local people want but these deals aren’t easy and some candidates from all three parties can be deeply unattractive to the others’ voters.  However, UKIP are also standing down in some seats to give the Tories a clean run at mostly Labour MPs. …

Campaigning

A quick trip around the Lewisham Deptford constituency canvassing for the Labour Party. A couple of accusations about getting Brexit wrong, i.e. the nuance in Labour’s front bench position upsets i.e. pisses off London remainers. Labour’s candidate for re-election, Vicky Foxcroft , voted against the Article 50 notice bill, twice! It makes life easier for people like me; I am glad I don’t live in Vauxhall.

I am surprised at the large number of EU citizens I meet who cannot vote in the general election. Mistakes were made; it’s wrong that people who’ve been here for more than 5 years, in employment, paying tax can’t vote in the general election; nor in the referendum.

One issue came up which I had missed and not expected. The Tories have abolished the council tax support for those on the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). Councils have had to develop ways of making up the shortfall, by either cutting (discretionary) services or levying council tax on ESA claimants. There are other laws that stop councils levying the council tax on the wealthier residents, if they have them…. It’s another Tory cut ensuring that Labour councils and the Party take the blame.

I’ll finish by stating that there were a few who say they’ve left Labour because of Corbyn. It’s sometimes hard to determine if this is actually about Brexit, or about other aspects of his politics, but I met one person from Northern Ireland who can’t support him over his record on that subject. Someone else did the talking, but I think these conversations have to start with whether they support the Good Friday agreement or not. From my point of view, the anti-corbynism on the doorstep is less frequent, if more vitriolic,  an occurrence then those who couldn’t support Ed Miliband because they didn’t like the way he ate a bacon sandwich, or something!. Labour supporters who repeat these damaging slurs need to remember the way that Ed was attacked as not being up to it and let’s not forget the attacks on Kinnock either.

A final note, Vicky is well known, although some still ask where Joan’s gone! …

Tax Fairness

Tax Fairness

Over the weekend, John McDonnell promised that Income Tax would not rise for most of the country but that a higher rate would be levied on those earning more than £80,000. Tax reform can be pretty technical; and so one needs to look at one or two things without losing sight of the idea that the richer should pay their share. Each tax payer has a personal allowance of £11,500 i.e. the first £11,500 of earnings is not taxed; this is clawed back if one’s income is £100,00 or more by levying a 60% marginal rate on those earning between £100,000 and £121,200. There is probably enough room for a new additional rate between the 40% levied at £42,000 and 60% levied at £100,000 and £80,000 p.a. is a lot of money; only 3% of income earners get that much. It will remain necessary to increase the amount paid by those earning more than £145,000 and redress the regressive nature of National Insurance, which negates much of the 20% band, converting it into a 32% tax burden. Labour’s promise is also that there will be no increase in employee NICs nor in VAT, although again that’s not enough … VAT has to come down from 20%. …