Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2007 6:31 pm
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Location: Aberdeen
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The lies of the land that demonise common people
Ian Bell
Columnist
Wednesday 17 July 2013
When Deep Throat told Woodward and Bernstein to "follow the money", dark secrets were at stake and vast conspiracies afoot.
In official Britain today there is barely an effort to conceal how the world works. Excuses, like inhibitions, have become quaint.
It wasn't so very long ago, for example, that any politician who could elbow his way to a microphone could be heard announcing that something had to be done about bankers' bonuses. All parties agreed that a system guaranteeing enrichment with no risk of personal loss was an incentive scheme for the reckless, the inept and the negligent. So where are we now?
The week began with the news that more British bankers earned at least one million euros in 2011 than all their colleagues in the European Union put together. That bland description hardly did justice to the reality. According to the European Banking Authority, 2346 individuals in Britain's banks did better than the million. Their nearest competition came from Germany, where only 170 people were in that happy place.
With the supernatural timing that is the mark of this Coalition, the information was published as Iain Duncan Smith was rolling out his £26,000 cap on social security for families. Jobseeker's allowance, child benefit, child tax credits, housing benefit: take your pick. Need and the reasons for need have ceased to be relevant. No-one will receive more than an arbitrary £500 a week.
IDS spent most of Monday touring the broadcasting studios to boast about the popularity of this exercise in "fairness". He didn't explain how children are to be housed across swathes of Britain as rents rise ever higher. Nor, while defending the cause of austerity, did he spend much time explaining how much will be saved as he drives the feckless towards imaginary jobs. Working age benefits cost the country £95 billion. The government "hopes" that its reform will save £110 million.
While this was going on, the BBC's Robert Peston was adding some balance to the story of the bankers and their bonuses. Probably "more than half" of the individuals involved are not British, he assured us. So what shall we say, generously? Perhaps one billion euros handed out to 1000 British-born people while only 170 in Germany qualified?
Peston also observed that the bonuses disbursed in 2011 were barely half of the average rewards granted by the banks in 2010. He then noted that the banks were responding to a dastardly European threat to the bonus culture by bumping up base salaries. The BBC did not see fit to connect this development with George Osborne's decision, clearly coincidental, to cut the top rate of income tax for those earning bankers' money.
Writers of fables could not contrive such moments. Even as the European authority was spilling the beans about the uninterrupted habits of those who caused Britain's economic crisis, IDS was doing his bit to ensure the poor paid the bill for a mess not of their making. No sooner was the act accomplished than the Treasury was wondering publicly if the cap could not be set at £20,000. The country, as the minister would be the first to say, has no choice in the matter.
That isn't strictly true. The Liberal Democrats have been agonising, as only they can, over a fiscally responsible mutual-immolation system for a state that says it cannot afford social security, but can find £100bn from the taxes of the next generation for hardware that must never be used. Armed Atlanticists, led by the Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, called the LibDems wimps for their pains.
The question of where a "renewed" Trident might be sited, if anywhere, has been erased from the record. Instead, there's Danny Alexander refusing to believe we need a nuclear-armed submarine prowling the seas continuously. We could even make do, says Mr Osborne's LibDem helper, with three boats rather than four. Over 30 years, if the MoD learns how to control a budget, that could cut the £100bn cost by, oh, £4bn.
For Mr Hammond and his supporters, this would be "naive or reckless". Given that the Minister has already spent several billions on "preparatory" work for a so-called like-for-like system, you can see why he might be peeved with Mr Alexander. But neither man even bothers to ask why a Britain supposedly wedded to austerity is contemplating this vast outlay.
Mr Hammond's version of strategic thinking amounts to a brilliant insight: you never know. Or as he put it: "Just because we do not perceive an immediate threat today, does not mean there would not be a threat over the 60-year odd time horizon we are looking at." And if such a threat arose, what would follow? The last emotion felt by Britain's poor would no doubt be patriotic pride. Or relief that IDS was being incinerated with them.
In a day full of coincidences and big numbers, the connoisseur's moment came when a chap called Nye turned up at the Public Accounts Committee. It was this individual's task to explain why his employer paid neither corporation tax nor capital gains tax at a time of unparalleled national stringency. Amazon, Google and Starbucks have been humiliated for their tax efficient ways. A country in which real incomes are falling is not fond of tax avoiders. What was William Nye's story?
Briefly, that the Duchy of Cornwall, the £847m little earner that provides the Prince of Wales with an income of £19m a year, is in no sense a corporation fit to be taxed. Instead, it is a "private estate". Besides, as Mr Nye was keen to stress, the heir to the throne voluntarily pays income tax. The suggestion seemed to be that there are no bounds to his generosity.
In fact, Prince Charles last year paid £4.4m in income tax and VAT on his £19m. This contribution, perhaps £4m short of the full rate, was accomplished after deducting expenses. The heir no doubt runs up a lot of those. The trouble is, he doesn't care to identify a single one. In short, we take him at his word.
We are also supposed to accept that the Duchy of Cornwell is indeed no more than a private estate. In fact, it involves any number of estates encompassing 53,408 hectares in 24 counties and, just to be going on with, the entire Isles of Scilly. Die intestate in Cornwall, meanwhile, and the duchy can claim anything you forgot to spend.
As for its resemblance to a corporation, digest only these facts. The Prince's income support scheme owns a Waitrose distribution centre in Milton Keynes for which £2m a year in rent is charged. It picks up £1.3m annually in rental charges on – who could invent this? – Dartmouth Prison. And it is the proud owner of the Holiday Inn at Reading.
There's a lot more, none of it precisely to the point. The social and political catastrophe called Britain is founded on a series of fantastic lies. Chief among the lies is the claim that this is a country impoverished by the excesses of common people. The more they say it, the more they rip you off.http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/c ... e.21624828
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