DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived post-Murdoch era

Stet - key sentence below that graph is "But then it may also be the case that average house prices do not return to four times the average wage, and that the long-term average is skewed by the 1980s and 1990s period of strict salary-multiple borrowing that will not return."

Great country this isn't it?

Throw in train fares of four or five grand a year for people who want to leave but still have to work here.

Also, that graph is more than two years old and house prices have fallen by another 10% in real terms since then (according to the Nationwide).

The new building of houses and flats proposed on my v. Bevanite inner-city estate is all private and 'affordable' housing, when there are 18,000 on Camden's social housing waiting list. These are the people the council has already accepted as in need of accommodation, who need 5+ years' 'connection' with the borough to qualify at all (and if you've lived in Camden for 10+ years, you get further priority). It would also be nice if there were restrictive covenants on who was allowed to buy ex-council flats - there are people living in my block who pay £500/week for a flat that costs a social tenant £500/month. Some of those charged £500/week are 'homeless' on the waiting list.

This area used to be full of dedicated housing for nurses, police and firemen - the nurses are still catered for, but police and fire accommodation has been decommissioned and/or absorbed by councils. There's an ex-police block on Amwell Street designed by same dude who did the Tardis, not kidding!

HBos house price index since 1983, for comparison. This is as of today (next release tomorrow):
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8209/8250274444_c2b73c960f_b.jpg

(I think there's a recalculation in there, checking if this is adjusted for it).

What does that measure, Stet? House prices fell about 20% at the start of the 90s, but that hardly shows any decline there.

It's their monthly index of house prices - methodology is here (Word doc) http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/media/word/HPI/Methodologyfromweb130809.doc

This rather good blog post talks about this very subject:
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/blog/land-value-tax-mansion-tax/

property tax enshrined across the water, fairly insignificant amount (all going to bondholders anyway) but a good foot in the door.

Agree that housing bubble still hasn't burst, and won't be allowed to burst- far too many landlords, far too much equity tied up in mortgages. A reset would be economically useful (necessary?) but also chaotic- politically complete suicide, obviously.

rent in dublin is fucking crazy compared to actual prices -properties selling for 130k that fetch 1000 per month- but lenders can't lend and the rental market is becoming overheated as a direct result. Govt are frozen, can't touch property out of terror.

who the fuck is luke bozier.

crikey
http://lukebozier.co.uk/

^^^ Probably nobody on this thread is still at work but seriously NSFW

interesting to see the arguments from the right: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/07/its-not-wrong-to-avoid-tax

{re: tax avoidance)

do any of these points stand up?

As the president of the CBI remarked of the agitation over taxes, "If you want different results, you have to have a different set of rules."

Well, I agree with this. I don't think it makes sense to expect companies not to avoid tax where they can. The tax system and the resources allocated to policing the system are where campaigning should be targeted.

iirc it's illegal for companies to contribute to nation-states if they can avoid it; obv answer is target company directors for death

Just about everything in that piece is either disingenuous or logically suspect, apart from the truth that countries compete with tax regimes. But that fact is the *reason* you have to focus on the moral angle of company tax.

If a company justifies not paying tax because it has no obligation to pay any more than the bare minimum required by law in a country and in fact has a duty to pay only that, what is to stop that same reasoning applying to which country it pays them in?

Tighten the rules in the UK, and they'll just move the majority of operations to eg Ireland, in ways that are hard to prevent while still enjoying a common market. And if they do that the same "moral" rules of "we're just paying the least tax as is our duty" will apply.

No, it has to be a moral issue. It has to be wrong for companies to enjoy all the benefits and advantages of operating in societies and countries built with tax money and then not pay their own share.

i've argued before for some form of corporate democracy. if Left-leaning parties (okay there are no Left-leaning parties in the UK but bear with me) want to tackle the worst excesses of Capital without frightening the grasping wanker section of the electorate then rather than think about redistribution (which tbh feels like a busted flush and isn't really socialist in itself) we shd look at enforcing public accountability for public companies, including meaningful representation of local stakeholders in boardrooms.

i don't believe that morality has a place in politics - as far as i can, all there is is power - but yr quite right stet in saying that "companies have a duty to make maximum profit at any cost" is the most pernicious element of business practice that exists

bozier is a bullshitter, that ain't a nine incher

hmmn well bagshawe knows a surgeon or two....

not sure that the constant threat 'we'll just fuckoff to somewhere that won't tax us' is ever to be taken at 100% face value- these firms aren't all teetering on the brink of revolt afaict, just making poker faces.

EU probably due a major push on corporation tax harmonisation in any case, the cases in france of google and apple seem like decent sized steps towards.....something.

Multinationals is hard, but it's really not all that complicated to work a system where the transfer of profits across international boundaries is easily identifiable and hit hard, were the will and resources there.

Not sure about 'a moral issue'. I mean, sure, make the argument, but be aware that companies will (at best) do the bare minimum legally. If that allows them leeway that is undesirable, then the main fault is legal.

good work labour party black ops.

Anecdotal, but most of the international rich folks I know in London are all about the social opportunities of the city and wouldn't trade that for a slightly better tax outcome in someplace like Dublin, Monaco or Zurich. They set up drop-box international offices in tax havens to avoid having to live in them.

Incidentally, at a West London party last month with people from the above subset, I was told about a certain 2009 wedding and how a certain politician known to bride and groom exhibited a fondness for Colombian exports at the reception...

lol

'an entirely unidentifiable member of a category of persons known for doing coke, does coke'

You can't take that Shirley Williams anywhere

anyway, comparing to places like dublin and zurich (monaco isn't really the same sort of thing) with marginally lower tax rates (and probably lower market access etc) isn't really that illuminating, but compared to paris with a similar size / social cachet and ~HNW~ types already fleeing....

Paris, that I could see, but their tax rates are higher.

It was also agreed at this party that said politician was the kind of person who'd call women 'fillies' un-ironically, and lacked any discernible personal charisma when encountered at neighbourhood dinner parties in the recent past.

i went to the groucho club last week. it was rubbish.

i had that Lembert Opalfruit in the back of me cab once

was it david camerons

struggling to imagine a cokehead politician with zero personal charm tbh

Stafford Cripps?

didn't he change his name to Mister Tayto?

yeah french tax rates have been high for years but now they're especially punitive

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-16/french-billionaire-arnault-s-lvmh-amasses-eu4-billion-in-belgium.html

current uk discourse around income tax owes a lot to blair and his largely specious 'the rich will just hire accountants', which doesn't really apply to the actual rich with capital income anyway, so much as people in mid-tier positions in banks law firms etc who can't so easily avoid it

wrt corporation taxes etc, which are lower relative to the highest marginal tax rate than in most places, there's clearly an attempt to copy the american culture of awed silence around the numinous and mysterious caste of ~wealth creators~ from whom all human happiness ultimately derives

best thing about trickle down is you can pretend there's no gush up

How can France survive without billionaires?

I don't think it's true that companies will always and forever only do the bare minimum required by law. They will generally do some murky mix of the bare minimum required to keep their customers and what is required to stop laws getting written about them. Hence the whole CSR movement etc.

Where the morals come in to it is they are the grounds for people condemning companies. The same mechanisms (outcry, opprobrium) that force shit comedians to stump up more than they're technically required to pay can also force shit corporations to stump up too.

But, yes, fix the laws too.

that mechanism usually depends on some assiduous journalists who know what they're doing too

The Starbucks thing feels like a watershed in that it's the one instance I can think of where tax avoidance became so toxic for a company's brand that it had to act. I mean tax avoidance hasn't even been in the public discourse (relative to eg benefit fraud) until recently so it's a big positive development. Anger at tax avoidance will only worsen as austerity continues.

But Starbucks has public faces, literally, right across the country, which isn't the same for a lot of other companies, especially those that aren't consumer-focused, and they won't get the same level of opprobrium whatever they do. And people aren't exactly going to stop using Google any time soon.

Osborne himself is so pro-tax haven that I don't imagine anything will really be done, other what he's forced to do by political pressure plus a lot of lip-service to making everyone pay their own fair share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlRvE9dKWQc

i had that Sharpay in the back of me cab once no wait that was a Penthouse letter

starbucks are also the only soulless corporate monolith to be damned by an early 2000s british mall punk band, which i like to think precipitated this whole thing in some way

what about "KKKitchens What Were You Thinking?"

'Buck Rogers' by Feeder has actually been unwittingly encouraging millions of pounds worth of unpaid Magners tax.

But Starbucks has public faces, literally, right across the country, which isn't the same for a lot of other companies, especially those that aren't consumer-focused, and they won't get the same level of opprobrium whatever they do.

And, of course, when you get up to go to work in the morning you don't pass Google and Amazon with their blinds down, still in their beds

starbucks clearly in a special subgroup of innocent smoothie branding, but even then i can't imagine that their not breaking any laws would bother anyone significantly that it would hurt the business beyond the critical point where it would be worth paying extra x hundred millions in tax.

Legislate first, then preach imo.

Anger at tax avoidance will only worsen as austerity continues.

interesting unforeseen consequence for Osborne here in that the more he screws the nut on feckless disabled people the more pressure and scrutiny is going to be put on the noble wealth creators he wants to protect.

xp they just paid £20m for nothing more than preaching, and preaching is what gets legislation written. do both, imo.

Costa sales up 25%, Whitbread says.

oh look the mail has discovered 80s american favourite WELFARE QUEENS

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2246104/Unemployed-single-mother-benefits-spends-2-000-Christmas-20-presents-children.html