Britannia Radio

am glad that at least one newspaper in its editorial line is getting somewhere near the truth.

What it omits to say in setting the scene is that Britain is in a far, far worse crisis than any other major country. At the fault for that is squarely at Brown’s door.

1. HE borrowed heavily in the boom years when more intelligent finance ministers were repaying parts of the national debt.
2. In doing so, HE broke his own Golden Rule of a maximum debt of 40% of GDP by changing the rules and the periods as he went along, and omitted all PFI projects from the ‘count’ - ie:- he fiddled the figures
3. HE accepted - in the face of a housing ‘bubble’ - bank regulation and promoted it as ‘Brown’s new economic miracle’ - “no more boom and bust” . The banks played by the rules he’d set.
4. HE let all control of credit go so that personal debt went through the roof unchecked
5. When the banks got into trouble HE - and HE alone - forced through the merger of Lloyds TSB - solvent and well managed - with HBOS - a total walking disaster. HE thus created in Lloyds Banking Group a new basket case.

The chickens have all come home to roost so it suits HIS book to blame the bankers for HIS disasters - it plays well politically ! The British public in its present vindictive and hypocritical mood is like a lynch mob and Brown and his government are whipping up the frenzy of the mob even while continuing to make the eventual recovery - IF it happens - that much more difficult.

The City through its profits (and the taxes on the bonuses !) has been contributing to the national exchequer to the tune of £42 billion a year. Cut those bonuses and continue with a 50p top rate tax and that £42 bn won’t be there and YOU and I will have to find the money instead.
Christina

================================

TELEGRAPH 16.11.09

Playing petty politics with Britain's economic future

Telegraph View:

The Thatcher revolution helped create a vibrant, low-tax, lightly regulated environment in which to do business. Yet the Government seems willing to jeopardise all this for the sake of scoring political points.

The Government's harassment of wealth creators for party advantage, first by imposing a 50p top rate of income tax and now by targeting bankers' bonuses, is a dangerous game. Just hark back to the dismal days before the "big bang" deregulation of the City 25 years ago and the creation of a low-tax economy in Nigel Lawson's 1988 Budget. Those radical measures helped turn the City of London from a rather staid backwater into the world's biggest, most dynamic financial centre. Do we really want to return to sleepy hollow? [If we do, prepare for massive cuts in our standard of living and welfare state -cs]

The attack on bonuses is a populist measure aimed at capitalising on the public's justifiable disgust at the way many bankers have behaved. It is not only unenforceable – said bankers would up sticks and move offshore – but is also little more than political posturing. There is no likelihood of the measure reaching the statute book before a general election, which has to be held within six months or so. But then, that is not the point. The purpose of this exercise is to show that Labour is "tougher" on bankers than the Tories, part of the "dividing lines" strategy which Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said at the weekend "is what politics is about".

The same nakedly partisan approach underpins the new 50p top rate of tax on high earners. As our own Boris Johnson argued in these pages yesterday, the move is already triggering an exodus from London of some of our most talented wealth creators. This is a disaster in the making – and for what? Party advantage, pure and simple, for there is no credible economic case. The 50p rate is a "trap" for the Tories, because if David Cameron pledges its repeal, he will be branded a Tory toff whose priority is to help his wealthy friends. [And that’s despite the fact that tax experts predict it will raise no money at all because if the top earners move offshore, not only will they not pay it but they won’t pay at the standard rates either or make any NI contributions. But the Tories seem to think that they must pander to the mob too -cs]

We believe the public is astute enough to see through such childish caricatures, not least because the trap argument works both ways. The big beasts of the financial world generate wealth not solely for themselves. Before the crash, the City was delivering £42 billion a year in tax receipts to the Treasury, equivalent to seven per cent of all government spending. Hundreds of thousands of jobs, many of them modestly rewarded, are dependent on the financial sector and the people who run it. Yet the Government seems willing to jeopardise all this for the sake of scoring political points.

Tomorrow, in his response to the Queen's Speech, Mr Cameron must set out clearly where he stands. The Thatcher revolution helped create a vibrant, low-tax, lightly regulated environment in which to do business.

These spiteful measures threaten to reverse that process just as the global economy enters its most competitive age. Is that what we, as a country, really want?