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Tories want to re-distribute wealthMartin Hutchinson may have a few things to say about this (chuckle). And, no this isn’t a joke. Letwin: We will redistribute wealth
The Tories should support the redistribution of wealth and try to narrow the gap between rich and poor, Oliver Letwin, the party’s new policy chief, says today. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he says: “Of course, inequality matters. Of course, it should be an aim to narrow the gap between rich and poor. It is more than a matter of safety nets.” Although he refuses to be drawn on specific proposals, he signals a dramatic break with the past by saying that his party should support the redistribution principle. “We do redistribute money and we should redistribute money,” he says. “But we have to find ways that empower people rather than reducing them to dependency.” He adds that the party’s policy review group on social justice, chaired by Iain Duncan Smith, has been charged with drawing up proposals for reducing inequality. Mr Letwin’s comments represent an extraordinary change in the political landscape since David Cameron became the Tory leader this month. Many members of the Labour Party are disappointed that Tony Blair has consistently refused to say he wants to narrow the gap between rich and poor. Successive Conservative leaders have rejected the suggestion that governments should redistribute money from rich to poor on the grounds that it would discourage wealth creation. However, Mr Letwin, who is one of Mr Cameron’s closest advisers, says that there is now a moral and social imperative for tackling inequality. “You would have to be blind not to see that there are people who are not able to participate properly in everything that most of the population takes for granted,” he says. “Any human being who looks at that is bound to conclude that we should take steps to enable those people to move out of that condition.” Although both the Conservatives and Labour have emphasised in the past that equality of opportunity matters more than equality of outcome, Mr Letwin says that differences in wealth also undermine social cohesion. “It is not just about money,” he says. “It is about the homes people live in, the lack of supportive relationships, the way parents bring up their children - but it is also about lack of money. “The Government should seek to reduce what would otherwise mean intolerable inequality … It should be an aim to empower those who have least to advance - not in the sense of trying to do down those with most; in the sense of enabling those who have least to share an increasing part of an enlarging cake.” His comments will infuriate Conservative traditionalists. They will see it as a sign that the Tories may be willing to tax the rich more to help the poor. Mr Letwin says the party would never “clobber the rich”. But he wants it to do more to persuade the voters that it is genuinely concerned about social justice. “People are inclined to think we don’t care as much as they care - and they are right to care - about the poor.” During the leadership election campaign, Mr Cameron repeatedly stressed his commitment to social justice. He distanced himself from Margaret Thatcher by saying: “There is such a thing as society - it’s just not the same as the state.” However, he stopped short of calling for redistribution or a narrowing of the gap between rich and poor. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that inequality increased dramatically during the Thatcher years, narrowed slightly under John Major and has stayed roughly the same since Labour came to power. Although there have been some reduction of poverty among pensions and parents since 1997, the IFS report, published earlier this year, states that inequality in the UK is higher than in many other European countries, including France and Germany. “The net effect of seven years of Labour Government is to leave inequality effectively unchanged and at historically high levels,” said the report. A recent poll showed that more than 80 per cent of the population believed that the income gap was too large. Mr Letwin stresses that tax cuts should not be introduced at the expense of schools and hospitals. He also makes clear that he disagrees with the proposal by David Davis, the shadow home secretary, to cut £38 billion from the nation’s tax bills. “We need to make it clear to people that we are concerned with wealth creation but we are also concerned with improving the public services,” he says. “That means restructuring but it also means spending money on them.” He also distances himself from George Osborne’s flirtation with a “flat tax”. The Conservative party wants “flatter and simpler taxes” rather than a revolutionary approach, he says. Posted by Phil Peterson on Friday, December 23, 2005 at 02:07 PM in British Politics Comments:2
Posted by Phil on December 23, 2005, 03:31 PM | # As I said, it all depends which side Cameron intends to betray. We have known all along which side he intends to betray. Its never been a secret. 3
Posted by James Bowery on December 23, 2005, 04:27 PM | # The big con here is the conflation of wealth with income/capital gains which creates a byzantine tax system full of loop holes not dissimilar to Aristotelian physics compared to Newtonian physics. This conflation is important enough to the destruction of white fertility rates that I should probably submit a story about it so a few more people cease being conned. The short story is this: non-subsistence property rights are constructs supported by the government. Subsistence property rights are pre-governmental animal territory. Failure to base government revenues on net assets above the subsistence level is at a root cause of centralization of population in cities and concomitant destruction of white population. This con game is important enough to the powers that be that they go to great lengths to conflate “wealth” with income (or capital gains)—a primary example being FDR’s so-called “Wealth Tax” which was simply an increase in the income tax geared toward redistribution of income precisely to avoid the genuine wealth tax proposals put forth by Huey Long and Champ Clarke. Indeed, all of Champ Clarke’s socialist party platform was adopted by The New Deal except for the wealth tax. 4
Posted by Calvin on December 23, 2005, 05:00 PM | # James, I don’t understand that. What is the difference between subsistence and non-subsistence property? How does this lead to centralization? Do you mean that taxation should be based on assets not income? Sounds interesting, but I’m afraid I’m not clued up on economics. 5
Posted by Andrew on December 23, 2005, 05:05 PM | # Yep, if that was not a declaration of War; then you best all start digging your own graves, the Looters are on the rampage. 6
Posted by Andrew on December 23, 2005, 05:20 PM | # Sorry- Should have left a link- http://www.derafsh-kaviyani.com/english/mazdak.html http://i-cias.com/e.o/mazdakism.htm If any of these Links describe your Nations Politics of ALL descriptions, then there is no one left to save us.Our destany is a sealed fete. 7
Posted by Mark Richardson on December 23, 2005, 05:26 PM | # If Britain is anything like Australia then a skilled worker will already have a good income relative to the middle class. The kind of people Letwin seems to be talking about, who “are not able to participate properly in everything that most of the population takes for granted” will mostly be people affected by social breakdown, such as a loss of family culture, of a work ethic, of discipline in the schools, of moral boundaries and so on. It makes no sense to respond to this in liberal terms of “social justice”. This sends entirely the wrong message, as if people are being held back by lack of fairness, rather than by a running down of social norms by individuals and by social authorities. 8
Posted by James Bowery on December 23, 2005, 05:55 PM | # Calvin, Subsistence property rights are those property right supporting reproduction. By reproduction I mean viable reproduction. Viable reproduction means being able to replace yourself and your mate with 2 children that grow up with your values and themselves achieve similar reproductive success. Animals have such property rights. Paleolithic humans had such property rights. Self-defense is similarly a natural right preceding governments which is also animal territoriality. The “social contract” of government is secondary to territory supporting viable reproduction. The “social contract” of government is to support property rights beyond subsistence property rights. The law is riddled with recognition of subsistence property rights distinct from other property rights. For example, bankruptcy law protects home and tools of the trade from confiscation for payment of debt. The right to defend yourself is similarly a recognition of your animal right to defend your vital territory—not just your body, but your home, the land upon which it is situated, your mate and your children. Income tax has loop holes created for mortgage interest rates as a perverse form of recognizing this distinction. Property taxes are certainly among the more perverse since they apply mainly to home ownership. So my answer to your question: “Do you mean that taxation should be based on assets not income?” is a most emphatic “NO—you missed the distinction between net assets beyond subsistence and subsistence net assets.” 9
Posted by Mark Richardson on December 23, 2005, 06:07 PM | # I’ve just taken the trouble to read the entire text of Cameron’s speech calling on support from Liberal Democrats. It’s even worse than I thought. For example:
And then there’s this:
And then there’s:
Great, isn’t it. We white males get to be the fall guys yet again. Cameron seems to want to emphasize that his party is based not only on economic liberalism, but on social liberalism as well. To put it simply, he wants a party which combines the free market and deregulation with left-liberal social policies. 10
Posted by Ben Tillman on December 23, 2005, 06:40 PM | # That photo speaks more than a thousand words. 11
Posted by Phil on December 23, 2005, 06:42 PM | # Mark, There’s no free market liberalism left now following Letwin’s stated desire to re-distribute wealth. The Tories are now complete Marxists - Economic and Cultural. I can’t imagine why any genuine conservative would want to have anything to do with this spineless, whining bunch of cosmopolitan liberals. 12
Posted by Martin Hutchinson on December 23, 2005, 06:49 PM | # The problem with having a Tory leader who desn’t remember the 1970s is that we will be compelled to relive them. 14
Posted by Metzger on December 23, 2005, 07:50 PM | #
Why the @&*! is it about inequality? What exactly is wrong with inequality? I look forward to the day when Britain resembles the Vonnegut short story, “Harrison Bergeron.”
15
Posted by Martin Hutchinson on December 23, 2005, 07:52 PM | # Geoff, I am a Respectable Conservative. Cameron is NOT a Respectable Conservative, he is a Dissolute Leftist. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE! 16
Posted by Geoff Beck on December 23, 2005, 10:04 PM | # > Geoff, I am a Respectable Conservative. Yes. I know. 17
Posted by Svigor on December 23, 2005, 10:15 PM | #
What, me worry? 18
Posted by Guessedworker on December 24, 2005, 05:00 AM | # Well, there was a group of less respectable right-wing, non-Party Conservatives who were planning to put up a candidate and oust Letwin from his Dorset West seat, where he had a tiny majority over the LibDems. But it came to nothing and they did not stand. Pity. I expect they would have been horribly vilified, and certainly accused of anti-semitism. But one can see now why they wanted him out. Here’s what the excellent Simon Heffer writes in today’s Telegraph:- Ollie’s commitment to Socialist-style redistribution is simply one of the most awesome and astonishing gaffes by a senior Tory in opposition that I can ever remember. ... Most of our overtaxed people are happy to pay taxes to keep the fabric of society together. But most of them are not happy to pour their money down the bottomless ravines of the unreformed public services, which is what is happening now. And Mr Letwin’s observations, in the same interview, about how his party intends to soft-pedal on any public service reform are also intensely depressing. ... What Mr Osborne must think of his party’s policy chief rampaging through his portfolio like a herd of wild boar is a matter of private grief into which I feel reluctant to intrude. But it doesn’t augur well for happy times ahead, does it? With luck, the feast of alcoholic beverages over the next few days, and the general continuing irrelevance of the Tories, will help people to forget that Ollie ever went out in public and said something so humungously stupid. I would warn his boss, David Cameron, however, that Ollie is likely to prove a serial offender in this regard. 19
Posted by Calvin on December 24, 2005, 05:48 AM | # James, thanks for that. I understand you to mean that governments are regarding luxury items as necessities and exempting them from taxation. Letwin can never legally become a government minister because he is Jewish and the 1290 edict of expulsion has never been revoked. 20
Posted by Alex Zeka on December 24, 2005, 07:19 AM | # This is the man who once complained of “fat government”. A year is indeed a long time in politics. 21
Posted by James Bowery on December 24, 2005, 05:44 PM | # I understand you to mean that governments are regarding luxury items as necessities and exempting them from taxation. To the extent that civilization can be regarded as a luxury then I agree. Another way to think about it is like this: Government provides precisely one service for which a use fee should be paid: Maintainence of property rights that weren’t already present, at the genesis of civilization as subsistence rights of men who defended their territory, tools, homes and families. Letwin can never legally become a government minister because he is Jewish and the 1290 edict of expulsion has never been revoked. He’s not even legally resident. 22
Posted by Guessedworker on December 25, 2005, 06:17 AM | # A clear indication that the Conservatism of Cameron’s Conservatives does not rise above gesture politics is to be found here. The Conservative Party are considering adopting a tactic from their New Zealand counterparts and appointing a “political correctness eradicator”. Tory MP Philip Davies, who was elected this year, said he wanted to wage a campaign against “this silliness.” He cited the example of a Somerset museum which took BC (Before Christ) off labels to avoid “offence”. ... Mr Davies said he believed British political correctness was only a passing fad. “There will come a point, and I think we’re very near that point now, where the silent majority, the balk of decent people say I’ve had enough of this and we’re going to start rolling back the tide and I want to play my part in rolling back that tide,” he said. The “passing fad”, of course, is the principal thrust of the cultural revolution. This is hardly a sign that the Cameroons have anything remotely akin to a proper intellectual grasp of politics in the advanced liberal age. 23
Posted by Calvin on December 26, 2005, 10:26 AM | # By “passing fad” Davies means that Political Correctness has passed from a fad to a governing principle. When something has become institutionalised you no longer need to promote it. The true, and far from innocent, origins of PC have been revealed by Raymond V Raehn. I expect that most of you will be aware of this essay. 24
Posted by Fred Scrooby on December 26, 2005, 11:08 AM | # Calvin, thanks for that link—I had not been aware of it. I just now rapidly skimmed it, then placed it in my “Favorites” for more careful reading later. Next entry: Saturday Riddle Classic Previous entry: Autodomestication |
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Posted by Martin Hutchinson on December 23, 2005, 02:31 PM | #
Boy, am I glad I’m not a U.K. taxpayer! You guys should have got out while you had the chance
The world recession and higher interest rates will have done a good bit of redistribution for Mr. Letwin before he gets his paws on the economy. This utter rubbish may shake a few LibDems free, but is unlikely to become a major theme, although I have to say the government redistributing people’s incomes can only be seriously advocated by someone who fell into a drunken stupor about 1910. Blair of course can’t promise redistribution, even though he believes in it, because it sounds too Old Labour.
As I said, it all depends which side Cameron intends to betray.