A Modest Proposal

Let us survey the facts.

• The economy may be turning down, and interest rates are about to rise again.


• The pro independence Scottish Nationalist Party may well be about to win the elections.


• Labour needs a foreign policy success to take people's minds off Iraq.

The answer?

Let the Scots have their independence. Then we can stimulate the economy and get a highly popular sure fire military success very quickly. The war of the reconquest of Scotland. And no Union bollocks this time round, just straight invasion. It's an easy solution that addresses all the issues.

Who said I'd never make it in the FO?

Cost benefit of non dom

There was a certain amount of fuss in the papers over the weekend over the non dom tax rules which allow rich individuals to spend a lot of time in London without being domiciled here for tax purposes and hence avoid paying a material fraction of their earnings in tax. Now whether you think this is fair or not (and I don't, but that's an opinion) the real question is whether the amount of wealth created by letting these guys live here without paying tax is worth the lost revenue. I'd love to see a proper cost/benefit analysis here. Wouldn't that be the best way of deciding whether non dom makes sense and, if not, how to change it? What policy would maximise the total benefit to the UK?

More Olympic Fallout

You might have thought that Tessa Jowell has been gargling with Polonium given the severity of the fallout from the latest Olympic budget fiasco. As the Guardian put it,
Arts leaders turn on Jowell over Olympics, Hytner and Co.'s point being that if you raid the Arts, Media and Sport budget for ten billion or so to pay for the already hideously over budget Olympics, unsurprisingly you have less for everyone else. As so often with this government, what works has been quietly abandoned in favour of what can be spun. Only now, Tessa, people have noticed that you and your lot can't manage your way out of a paper bag, let alone bring a large six year infrastructure project in on budget, and they are annoyed that they are having to pay for your incompetence.

Did Gordon really screw up our pensions?

Given Gordon is soon (one hopes, anyway) to ascend to the throne, one cannot help think that the timing of the recent objections to his abolition of tax credits for pension funds is partly political. Still, it is worth examining whether the objectors have a point: is Gordon partially responsible for the pensions crisis? Clearly the answer is no: if scheme actuaries had thought that reduced dividend income would have caused a problem, they should have increased contributions when it happened in 1997. Broadly, they didn't: some even gave employers a contributions holiday. With tax credits the holidays would have been longer and more widespread. The only people then who would have profited had El Gordo been less aggressive would have been employers. But I guess 'It was the actuaries wot dunnit' doesn't make for such a good headline.

The good and the bad

Several sensible people using an appropriate form of transport and one idiot who has got his just desserts shown here on a small country road in the Netherlands. Can you guess which is which dear reader?