I’ve got a campaign, yay! Well, if this banker-bothering online lark is good enough for John Prescott, I might as well have a punt too. LabourSpace is a neat idea – a kind of Policy Idol contest, with anyone (Labour supporter or no) able to add a campaign and solicit votes for it. They’ve done this before, but this time round it’s much whizzier – a proper network with ways to interact with those who support (or oppose) you, and tools to help you spread the word. The winners get, well nothing really, but that’s hardly the point – senior Labour figures are checking in on it as it progresses, and the chance to demonstrate how popular an idea is in this kind of arena is fun in itself.
I think it has a load of potential for training activists of all stripes, and getting new people excited at the thought of doing something political for a change. Unfortunately the execution is a little sticky – registration is smooth enough, but changing your profile needs moderation, and multiple changes before modding seem to wipe earlier attempts. You can understand why they’re anxious about moderating it, but at the same time it’s a bit stifling. Similarly the widgets are great, but don’t all work for everyone (I have yahoo.co.uk email, so the nifty yahoo.com addy book scooper doesn’t help me). Unfair to gripe though – there are going to be more rounds of it (this one’s nearly over), and the quirks will no doubt get ironed out as it goes.
So, coming late to the scene with only 2 weeks left, I’m going to have a tough time getting my campaign voted up anywhere near the top of the pile. Luckily it’s a bit of a no brainer in the current climate, and an idea that I hope is going to be popular: Minimum tax rates.
Peter Mandelson once famously said “we are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich“. Many don’t know though that he was only partially quoted, and also said “…as long as they pay their taxes“. The problem here is that most of those getting ‘filthy rich’ don’t.
Many of them manage to avoid paying the taxes that Parliament has said they should pay. In 2006, 54 billionaires in Britain paid £14.7m tax on earnings from a combined £126bn fortune, somewhat less than the current highest rate tax band of 45%.
Tax avoidance is a big bucks industry, and whilst there are legitimate tax breaks for a wide range of situations, avoidance in many cases blurs into outright tax evasion. Trades Union Congress (TUC) research suggests that tax avoidance by the super rich, the city and UK plc is costing the Exchequer around £25 billion every year.
Some might propose a higher rate for the richest, but I’m more interested in the idea of a minimum tax rate to help stop the abuses of tax avoidance. Introduce a minimum tax rate of 32% for those earning over £100,000, rising to 40% for those earning over £200,000. This is really a pretty modest proposal, leaving room for genuine tax breaks, but suggesting people who can definitely afford it pay at least a fairer proportion of the tax they are due to pay.
It could have huge benefits. By rebalancing the tax system so that those most likely to squirrel it away off-shore pay a minimum rate of tax on their income, we can put a bit more money into the pockets of those people who are more likely to spend it – in other words the poor, whether working or not. Getting the money spent where people need it will really help us to counter the recession.
It should be popular if the Government were to try it. Those who have done well out of the asset bubble that has proved so disastrous for the rest of us can well afford it. This issue could be a good test of whether the Government has truly read the changed mood in the country, and started the process of ensuring that we do emerge from this recession a fairer, better balanced economy.
So pop on over to LabourSpace now and give me your vote please! Go on, you did it for Two Jags…