This is going to be a longer and much sharper post than I had originally intended. What first came to mind was an open letter to the new Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, pointing out a simple £50 million cost saving to the welfare bill, but then yesterday the new coalition government handed [...]
By DeusExMacintosh
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Also posted in Britain, Economics, Law, Personal, Politics, Public Policy, Society
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Tagged budget 2010, coalition, conservative party, deficit, disability, disability living allowance, DLA, employment support allowance, Iain Duncan Smith, incapacity benefit, welfare
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Well… maybe. I’m not cheap but I CAN be bought (as the saying goes) and as one of those from the lower end of the British income spectrum, the Liberal Democrat offer to raise the tax-free threshold to £10,000 looks pretty tempting from where I’m typing. The BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders (oakily dokily) was [...]
November 15, 2009 – 9:51 pm
The High Court is on fire at the moment. It has handed down a case declaring certain procedures under the Criminal Assets Recovery Act 1990 (NSW) as unconstitutional: International Finance Trust Company Limited v New South Wales Crime Commission [2009] HCA 49. Put shortly, Acts such as these allow the government to effectively force disgorgement [...]
The body set up to manage taxpayers’ stakes in nationalised banks has said it will be “challenging” to sell the stakes held by taxpayers. UK Financial Investments (UKFI) was set up to manage taxpayers’ shareholdings in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds after they had to be rescued. It said the market value of UKFI’s [...]
As a few people around the place know, I’m currently writing a novel. I’d originally had grand plans of getting it finished before starting at Oxford in 2007, but that didn’t happen. It does look likely that it’ll be finished by the end of this year, however, which is both a great relief and slightly [...]
October 9, 2008 – 8:06 am
Francis Fukuyama has continued to distance himself from the Bush-era neo-conservatism, with an interesting article in Newsweek about the end of the American “brand”. Fukuyama’s argument is that the US brand had two core concepts: The first was a certain vision of capitalism—one that argued low taxes, light regulation and a pared-back government would be [...]
I note that there has been a contretemps between the Federal Government and ABC Learning over ABC Learning’s decision to raise childcare fees, although it insists this is not a respose to the Federal Budget’s decision to increase childcare rebate fees. ABC Learning is not alone; in a strange coincidence, the childcare centre to which [...]
It’s not very often that you get a neat summary of one of the most inspiring libertarian arguments in one short piece, but Jason Soon has done a great job on mutual obligation over at Catallaxy. I agree with him – and I also think mutual obligation is an utterly pointless exercise in time-wasting that [...]
April 11, 2008 – 10:07 am
Turns out that HM Revenue and Customs have been caught out by the complexity of their own legislation. The teacake – a popular British tooth-wrecker – has been wrongly taxed for the last 20 years. Even worse, it’s the teacake sold by British institution, Marks & Spencer, that’s been on the receiving end: The UK [...]
