Why All The Fuss About The “Granny Tax” ?

 Media, Politics  No Responses »
Mar 222012
 

You know anyone would think the media isn’t capable of adding up to more than 10 without taking their socks off given all the fuss about the so-called “granny tax”. By which they mean the gradual elimination of the increased tax allowance that older people get once the increased personal allowance reaches that level.

Either the complaint is that pensioners are paying the same level of tax as working people, or that the tax allowance for pensioners is not going to go up by the level of inflation for a couple of years. Neither are exactly catastrophic for pensioners – the poorest pensioners are not going to reach that level of income anyway, and those that will be effected will hardly notice the difference.

After all there is no guarantee that the tax personal allowance will increase by the level of inflation every year … neither the normal personal allowance nor the “bonus” allowances that older people get on top of their personal allowance. And why should older people get a special taxation allowance merely for being older ?

Eliminating that special case will make the taxation system just a little bit simpler – something to be encouraged.

I’m more likely than most to throw rocks at the Tories and their policies, but I don’t see this as being worth picking up a rock for. There’s quite a few other things about the recent budget to get excited about.

Like reducing the income tax rate for the wealthy from 50% to 45%; whilst the Tories are quite possibly right about it not being a great revenue raiser, it sends out the message that the Tories are on the side of the wealthy. Whilst they have also done a bit of tinkering with tax avoidance, and added a top rate of stamp duty (on residential property purchases), reducing the income tax rate for the top earners feels wrong.

So why is the media making more fuss about the non-issue that is the “granny tax” ? Someone more suspicious than me might suspect that the media is deliberately drawing attention away from the income tax issue – just how much do these journalists earn anyway ?

Gay Marriage? Why Not?

 Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Mar 172012
 

Given that I’m not exactly a fan of state-sanctioned marriage and in the unlikely event of me marrying someone, it is not going to be a man (sorry guys!), I’m pretty disinterested in if gay marriage becomes legal or not. Just like anyone else who is heterosexual, the only effect that legal homosexual marriage has on me is that I might just find myself attending such a marriage as a guest.

But given that it makes no great difference to me, I’m in favour of the recent plans of the UK government to legalise gay marriage – if something has no harmful effects on anyone else, why should it be illegal? If two people want to make the public commitment of marriage, what right has anyone to forbid that?

The religious conservatives are up in arms about the plans of course – anything that sanctions anything to do with homosexuality is going to cause them to come out of the churches up in arms, and frothing at the mouth.
Of course they have a perfect right to protest against this. And they have a perfect right to forbid homosexual marriage amongst their own congregations.

But they do not have the right to impose their views on the rest of us.

One Murdoch Down, One To Go

 Media, Politics  No Responses »
Feb 292012
 

According to the news, James Murdoch has decided to resign from his post as the head of News International. About time! But :-

  1. Why was he allowed to resign rather than being fired ?
  2. Why is he being allowed to take up a cushy number with News Corp ? It hardly seems much of a punishment for him to resign from a job in an industry he dislikes only to take another job in an industry that he likes in what is effectively the same corporate empire.
  3. Why didn’t he go ages ago ?
  4. And when is Rupert Murdoch going ?

The two Murdochs (and their countless minions at News International) were the people in charge of a corporate empire that allowed one part of it to break the law not just occasionally but routinely for stories that were not in the public interest (in the sense of stories that the public should know rather than just what they want to know). Whether or not they knew what was happening, they set the tone for a corporation that apparently valued results over ethical behaviour.

They are responsible for allowing such a corporate culture to grow unchallenged for at least a decade.

Did they know what was going on ? Perhaps not – particularly in the case of Rupert Murdoch, but they should have known. And in the case of James Murdoch, it seems probable that if he did not know what was going on, he intentionally avoided knowing.

Both should go.

Prayers At Council Meetings? I Pray Not!

 Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Feb 192012
 

To be honest I don’t pray to any gods – I don’t feel the need to speak to imaginary friends.

In a recent court case, an atheistic ex-councellor and the National Secular Society won a court ruling that a local council was wrong to put prayers on the official meetings agenda. Not because anyone’s human rights were being abused, but because the council was not empowered to do so under an interpretation of the old law governing local councils which explicitly prohibits that which is not explicitly permitted.

Given that this law is currently being revised to give far greater powers to local councils, the brouhaha that has exploded from the moral minority (I’m thinking of Eric Pickles) ever since is really rather uncalled for. This ruling (unless someone interferes) is a really rather temporary victory.

But without considering the legal position, it is time to consider whether it is really appropriate to have public prayers to begin a council meeting. One councillor interviewed about this situation said that her council brought back public praying as a way of bringing the council members together. Undoubtedly it works for those who believe in a certain god.

But what might be easily overlooked is that it is also a very good way of excluding those who don’t believe in that god – atheists or people with a different religion. Whilst this country has a christian past, there is no reason for going out of your way to making others feel uncomfortable. Even if the others are in a minority, or even especially because they are a minority.

After all praying out loud before a council meeting is totally unnecessary.

There is no trouble with having a minute of quiet contemplation where those who choose to do so can talk with their imaginary friends silently if they choose to do so.

 

The Government’s “Anti-Business” Bias …

 Politics  No Responses »
Feb 062012
 

If you read certain articles, you might believe that the current UK government is anti-business. The Tories ? Anti-business ? That is simply preposterous – the Tories would never let the government be anti-business. They are after all in politics to help their business buddies.

What certain bankers don’t understand is that there is a certain level of anti-banking here – which is not anti-business. Banks are merely a subset of business, and given that many banks are “too large to fail” comprise a rather special category of business that is not very business-like.

And the government is not really anti-bank at all, but anti-preposterous banking bonuses. Banking bonuses seem to have risen out of proportion to the value that people add to a bank. As mentioned before, no person is wholly responsible for the success or failure of a bank – a CEO may come up with a great plan, but his or her underlings have to carry out that plan. And the success of the CEO is dependent on how effectively his or her plan is carried out.

Personally I do not have a problem with bankers earning millions in bonuses (and I’m very unlikely to ever get such a bonus), providing that :-

  1. They are properly taxed.
  2. They are proportional to the bonuses given to every other employee in the firm.

It is interesting to see that the bosses of National Rail have voluntarily given up their bonuses into a fund for improving the safety of railway crossings. Whilst there was some pressure about the potential size of their bonuses, it was nowhere near as much as that received by the banking bosses, and they gave up their bonuses a lot quicker – nice to see that some business leaders see that their bonuses may be a little excessive after all, rather than whinging about how the government is “anti-business”.

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