Cllr. Gavin Ayling

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I have a frequent debate with one particular person about large companies. Her argument is that where they behave in an unethical way or in a way which, were it an individual, would be illegal, they should be rebuked somehow (our discussions never extend to what form that rebuke should take).

And now the Trade Unions, having failed at ruining domestic businesses thanks mostly to Mrs Thatcher (for all her social-engineering faults) are going to try to destroy multinationals instead in a new form of traditional socialism: TUC on multinational businesses.

But I remain confused by this attitude. The trade unions, even now domestically, believe that in private companies where there is genuine competition (and not oligopolies) direct action is a reasonable response to poor behaviour by companies. Surely, actually, companies are the greatest examples of genuine free democracy? Information about publicly listed companies is available to all and, just like Acts of Parliament or decisions made at local government, the people do not read them — they have better things to be doing. But they have access.

So, when people choose to shop at Evil Corp. plc, they are choosing to support exactly what that company is doing. When people boycotted Nestle in the mid-90s, they were reacting, democratically, to what they considered unacceptable behaviour by that company. I am proud to admit I joined in with that boycott and evangelised too.

Trying to react, from within, and unilaterally against a company (as Trade Unions might) is to defeat the general will of the buying public who are exercising their democractic beliefs. Much like terrorism or violent protest (as opposed to civil disobedience, voting and peaceful protest) trade union action is a disproportionate response against what the majority want. And, hopefully, the tyranny of the majority will be avoided by the twin impactors of minor intervention by the State (regulation) and the empathy of that majority acting in the interests of all.

I was appalled, incidentally, to read in Scientific American a while ago (and it came back to me as I wrote today) an article which stated as fact that pure libertarianism was an outdated and simply wrong ideology. I intend to tell you not only why it is not wrong, but also what impact it has on speed limits, in a future post. Please keep comments related to speed limits for that post.

As probably many other Councillors have, I today received a manifesto from The New Party.

The UK has a major problem with new political parties. Inertia amongst the membership of the other parties (and those who are not members of a party) means that new parties must have some major backing to make any headway at all. UKIP is the only recent new party to have gained any sort of significant political power and the last party to start and gain power from the incumbent two is the Labour Party.

So it is interesting that The New Party is offering free membership; it is interesting that The New Party introduction letter is written by a former Labour Councillor; and when you read the detail you can see a bizarre mix of Labour’s social ideals alongside genuine free market economics to reform, positively, the NHS, welfare, pensions and education. In truth, the economic section shines.

But there are problems:
1) Their policy on drugs is out of date and will, inevitably, fail as badly as the other parties’ policies have. Cameron’s hinted at a more relaxed drugs policy and this is right.
2) The Party notes the ideological and practical problems that Planning regulations introduce. But their solution is odd — very odd. They would allow local Councils to set up Planning-free zones. I don’t think I can say anything helpful about this policy but it strikes me as a half-measure. It would be better to limit planning authorities’ powers in some areas (and strengthen in others)? Actually, in my opinion, the single most important area of planning reform needed is a reduction in the number of appeals processes available to people — it should be simpler and much, much quicker.
3) The lovely glossy manifesto completely ignores devolution and the fundamental constitutional problems that it has created.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some great policies in there — some that Cameron would do well to incorporate into a radical first term’s manifesto — but there doesn’t seem to be a single message. I may be wrong here, but I suspect each section was written by different people completely independently of the other sections. The “wills” and “woulds” are particularly jarring.

If you agree with the Manifesto of The New Party you should join it — inertia is a result of people not doing what they should. But you may want to wait for Cameron’s policies to know whether that party reflects your opinions more closely than do the Conservatives. I strongly suspect the Conservatives policies will be excellent with only a very few mistakes (like the Barnet formula’s continuation etc).

This post was not written for the blog.

It is criminal that the arguments of the high-tax left have been allowed to gain credence. Taxation should be about funding services that must be provided by the state. Most people in the UK agree upon the minimum that should be provided by the state and agree that it should be funded through taxation.

But what proportion of a UK citizen’s salary is spent on tax? If you’re a shop worker, office administrator or security guard your wages are taxed and then the Chancellor hands some back. The very act of taxing and refunding wastes money that could better be spent on services or tax relief.

Another argument that surrounds taxation — though perhaps not enough — is the use of tax as an incentive for citizens to behave in a certain way. A government adviser recently suggested to me that the Conservatives should support congestion charging as a use of the market to resolve demand on a limited resource. This sounds, on the face of it, like a reasonable suggestion, but what about those people who have no choice but to use a road for a particular purpose? Not only has the tax incentive failed but that person now has less money to spend on their business or on goods and services: The economy has been shrunk by a tax intended to affect someone’s behaviour.

It would be infinitely preferable if taxation were used solely as a method of funding government actions. The simplest way to do that is quite clearly with one tax that everyone pays. Should those more successful in society pay more than those who are struggling to get by? Absolutely. Should they pay less if they’re rich enough to afford the best financial advisers? No.

The simplest and fairest way of raising revenue to provide services to all in society is to take money from all those who contribute to the country’s economy. If you remove VAT, alcohol duty and fuel duty you have instantly provided significant and beneficial tax relief to those on the lowest wages. If you then levy a flat tax at 25% you provide an up-front tax cut to the vast majority of tax payers. Without wasting money on levying VAT, death tax, congestion charges, road tax and National Insurance and with the added income available from those who would normally avoid almost all these taxes, the UK would have a fairer, more flexible and more robust taxation system that absolutely everyone in the country could understand and judge.

You have to feel sympathy for politicians… They go on the radio and try and defend the indefensible to an interviewer practised in the art of making them look like fools.

Fortunately for Mr Darling the interviewer today was less cruel than she should have been. Alistair Darling was talking about the Act that comes into force in time for the next working week that outlaws non-”objective” age discrimination.

Alistair Darling “would like” the law to abide by common sense. Which is like the fact that I “would like” criminals to be law abiding and that I “would like” addictive drugs not to be addictive. He is either naive or genuinely believes that this Act is well written… Which would be a first for this government.

His indefensible statements, though, came when asked about the minimum wage for under 21s. There is no coherent argument against having the same minimum wage for an 17 year-old as for a 22 year-old. That the minimum wage is an afront to market forces and that 17 year-olds are less likely to get a job on merit grounds is not the point — a fully competent 16 year-old should be paid the same as a fully competent 23 year-old and if the government insists on making laws that protect some wages, they shouldn’t dscriminate based upon age.

But poor Mr Darling had to try to defend this obvious illogical position without having any arguments in his armoury to defend with…

Samizdata have a post about the apparent abandonment of Conservative (read: capitalist) principles over foreign aid and domestic taxation.

I believe that capitalism is the way to solve the world’s ills, but not by having capitalism here and then shipping the proceeds abroad, as Cameron suggested. Rather we need capitalism in India (rather than the socialism that appears to be growing there) and then there will be no need for so-called ‘aid’.

It was interesting on Radio 4’s Beyond Belief yesterday that all the commentators were in agreement — the solution to the Third World’s perpetual poverty is capitalism.

Let’s hope Cameron realises that that’s the solution to our nation’s problems too.