On Labour's leadership I'm not remotely convinced that Corbyn is dead set for the leadership. The polls are meaningless, there have only been two and not for a month - and even then YouGov haven't exactly covered themselves in glory recently.
Noise on Twitter etc is utterly irrelevant when it comes to voting, as again was shown at the election.
My current gut estimate of the chances is ~50% Corbyn, ~40% Cooper, ~10% Burnham and ~0% Kendall (Cooper boosted to final round due to Kendall's early elimination).
I think Kendall will get more votes than expected and that most of these will transfer to Cooper. It is not impossible that she might win. There are "shy tories" in the Labour party too is my hunch
Aha, so you acknowledge the Non Corbyn candidAtes are just Tory lite? The great comrade's supporters were right all along.
I'm not entirely certain that's correct, at least in my part of the North-West home ownership still seems possible. I was born in the 80s and people started saying in the 2000s that my generation (and those born in the 90s) would struggle to buy a first home. I had to save a few years to get a deposit but do own my own home now and the assumption its going to be difficult has shifted now to the next generation but it was put on ours. I'm sure that's going to be the case for my daughter's generation too, they'll have to save but it will be possible (with people then saying that their children's generation will struggle).
I think this government has done a few good things to encourage this, the Help To Buy ISA announced towards the tail end of the last Parliament for encouraging people to save for their first deposit was a very good idea for that. The problem prior to 2008 was people buying homes without saving enough, we need to encourage people to save and it is possible.
I agree completely that new houses need to be built. My own home is a new build and my town has had thousands of new homes built in recent years and has just announced a new development of over a thousand more to be started soon. Perhaps that's why I have such a sunny outlook where others don't. We need to make sure that land is available to build on in a sensible manner.
Even if there are parts of the country where the problem is less acute, the change is very clear:
I agree that there is a problem and change needs to happen, but that does not mean we need total doom and gloom it means we need to make serious and sensible changes.
Encouraging the saving of deposits is one sensible step (like the Help to Buy ISA I mentioned) and that will take a few years to feed through into statistics since its only relatively recently started and it takes a few years of savings to reach the level of having a deposit.
Encouraging house building is also important. The government did that in the last Parliament with Help to Buy etc
But more needs to be done. The big problem is that house building levels have not been sufficient, we do not need the State to build homes but what we need is the State to stop preventing homes from being built with planning laws that prevent construction. This is not an insurmountable problem though and it one I think the government wants to tackle (and one the last Labour government did not which is when the rot set in) as having a home-owning electorate is good for this government.
I'm going to come in a bit more conciliatory today and pose the question to SO and his fellow travellers with a pro-establishment non-Tory bent and ask what they do think the policies the UK's centre-left should have, I'm genuinely interested? If not halting privatisation and providing a firm counterbalance against the power of super wealthy elites then what?
I quite agree on housing. We are hugely failing anyone under 45 as a country.
Other than houses, most things in this country are not difficult or expensive. But housing makes life very difficult for people under 45. We are not short of space as a country. It's only the antiquated planning system we stick to that makes housing almost impossible to build where people want to live. One day, we'll reform it. Can't come soon enough.
I think we need to acknowledge that we are short of space in parts of the country. Around London, the towns and villages get very close together, and it would not need much building to have one endless urban sprawl. Failure to recognise this is why planning reform keeps on failing. People just oppose it because they live close to the countryside and don't want building right next to them. I think we need a planning reform that recognises people's concerns. We probably need something like:
- A new classification of "areas of natural beauty" that is one level below "areas of outstanding natural beauty", and covers green belt areas that people really treasure. - Green belt to be guaranteed to be maintained as mini green belts around existing towns where there is danger of them joining up - Higher levels of compensation for people in the streets next to where countryside will be concreted over - Allow the rest of the green belt to be built on more easily but with stricter limits on preserving the traditional character of the county in question
And, of course, for the public to accept this, we need to limit immigration. Planning reform is hard enough without having to convince people that we need to do this to accommodate unskilled people from the developing world.
On Labour's leadership I'm not remotely convinced that Corbyn is dead set for the leadership. The polls are meaningless, there have only been two and not for a month - and even then YouGov haven't exactly covered themselves in glory recently.
Noise on Twitter etc is utterly irrelevant when it comes to voting, as again was shown at the election.
My current gut estimate of the chances is ~50% Corbyn, ~40% Cooper, ~10% Burnham and ~0% Kendall (Cooper boosted to final round due to Kendall's early elimination).
I think Kendall will get more votes than expected and that most of these will transfer to Cooper. It is not impossible that she might win. There are "shy tories" in the Labour party too is my hunch
Aha, so you acknowledge the Non Corbyn candidAtes are just Tory lite? The great comrade's supporters were right all along.
It is a given on here that in shire England two-thirds of the voters are - or at least incline - to the Tories.
On Labour's leadership I'm not remotely convinced that Corbyn is dead set for the leadership. The polls are meaningless, there have only been two and not for a month - and even then YouGov haven't exactly covered themselves in glory recently.
Noise on Twitter etc is utterly irrelevant when it comes to voting, as again was shown at the election.
My current gut estimate of the chances is ~50% Corbyn, ~40% Cooper, ~10% Burnham and ~0% Kendall (Cooper boosted to final round due to Kendall's early elimination).
I think Kendall will get more votes than expected and that most of these will transfer to Cooper. It is not impossible that she might win. There are "shy tories" in the Labour party too is my hunch
Aha, so you acknowledge the Non Corbyn candidAtes are just Tory lite? The great comrade's supporters were right all along.
I used the term ironically, though many no doubt do not!
But the underlying phenomenon is there. From the Cleggasm to the Sindyref to the Israeli and Danish elections, right through to May 2015 we see that expressed opinion on social media and opinion polls is not borne out by actual voting.
The pollsters may well get it wrong again, and this is a very difficult selectorate to poll.
Care to expand, David? The only ones that I can think of that have "faded or gone away" are medical - HIV+ is manageable for example.
You may well have others in mind.
Cultural change - e.g. tolerance of homosexuality (both on a personal level and legally)
I have a London-centric view, so would date that change earlier. May well have been different in the sticks!
David was talking about 30-40 years: certainly in the 70s and 80s things were improving (obviously they had changed legally already) but e.g. you look at the Tatchell by-election and it wasn't all sun and roses
On Labour's leadership I'm not remotely convinced that Corbyn is dead set for the leadership. The polls are meaningless, there have only been two and not for a month - and even then YouGov haven't exactly covered themselves in glory recently.
Noise on Twitter etc is utterly irrelevant when it comes to voting, as again was shown at the election.
My current gut estimate of the chances is ~50% Corbyn, ~40% Cooper, ~10% Burnham and ~0% Kendall (Cooper boosted to final round due to Kendall's early elimination).
Cooper has next to no chance in the final round due to more Burnham voters p referencing Corbyn than Cooper voters yougov is taking a risk leaving its final poll a month old though agreed
Burnham has next to no chance in the final round as he won't be in it.
Around the 39 minute mark Mr. Stewart advocates full fiscal autonomy for Scotland.
Without likewise for England (and Wales), that's a recipe for almost immediate independence.
Not at all just give England a referendum on an English Parliament or Regional Assemblies FFA is what Quebec eventually got after their second referendum
On Labour's leadership I'm not remotely convinced that Corbyn is dead set for the leadership. The polls are meaningless, there have only been two and not for a month - and even then YouGov haven't exactly covered themselves in glory recently.
Noise on Twitter etc is utterly irrelevant when it comes to voting, as again was shown at the election.
My current gut estimate of the chances is ~50% Corbyn, ~40% Cooper, ~10% Burnham and ~0% Kendall (Cooper boosted to final round due to Kendall's early elimination).
I think Kendall will get more votes than expected and that most of these will transfer to Cooper. It is not impossible that she might win. There are "shy tories" in the Labour party too is my hunch
Aha, so you acknowledge the Non Corbyn candidAtes are just Tory lite? The great comrade's supporters were right all along.
Having been derided as Tories by JC's disciples, it would be understandable if they were unwilling to admit their voting intention to YouGov or even to themselves.
On Labour's leadership I'm not remotely convinced that Corbyn is dead set for the leadership. The polls are meaningless, there have only been two and not for a month - and even then YouGov haven't exactly covered themselves in glory recently.
Noise on Twitter etc is utterly irrelevant when it comes to voting, as again was shown at the election.
My current gut estimate of the chances is ~50% Corbyn, ~40% Cooper, ~10% Burnham and ~0% Kendall (Cooper boosted to final round due to Kendall's early elimination).
I think Kendall will get more votes than expected and that most of these will transfer to Cooper. It is not impossible that she might win. There are "shy tories" in the Labour party too is my hunch
Aha, so you acknowledge the Non Corbyn candidAtes are just Tory lite? The great comrade's supporters were right all along.
Having been derided as Tories by JC's disciples, it would be understandable if they were unwilling to admit their voting intention to YouGov or even to themselves.
Yes, because no one has been insulting the perfectly reasonable bunch who are plumping for Corbyn, say by labelling them 'disciples', rather than just some ordinary people looking for social democratic policies.
I'm not entirely certain that's correct, at least in my part of the North-West home ownership still seems possible. I was born in the 80s and people started saying in the 2000s that my generation (and those born in the 90s) would struggle to buy a first home. I had to save a few years to get a deposit but do own my own home now and the assumption its going to be difficult has shifted now to the next generation but it was put on ours. I'm sure that's going to be the case for my daughter's generation too, they'll have to save but it will be possible (with people then saying that their children's generation will struggle).
I think this government has done a few good things to encourage this, the Help To Buy ISA announced towards the tail end of the last Parliament for encouraging people to save for their first deposit was a very good idea for that. The problem prior to 2008 was people buying homes without saving enough, we need to encourage people to save and it is possible.
I agree completely that new houses need to be built. My own home is a new build and my town has had thousands of new homes built in recent years and has just announced a new development of over a thousand more to be started soon. Perhaps that's why I have such a sunny outlook where others don't. We need to make sure that land is available to build on in a sensible manner.
Even if there are parts of the country where the problem is less acute, the change is very clear:
I agree that there is a problem and change needs to happen, but that does not mean we need total doom and gloom it means we need to make serious and sensible changes.
Encouraging the saving of deposits is one sensible step (like the Help to Buy ISA I mentioned) and that will take a few years to feed through into statistics since its only relatively recently started and it takes a few years of savings to reach the level of having a deposit.
Encouraging house building is also important. The government did that in the last Parliament with Help to Buy etc
But more needs to be done. The big problem is that house building levels have not been sufficient, we do not need the State to build homes but what we need is the State to stop preventing homes from being built with planning laws that prevent construction. This is not an insurmountable problem though and it one I think the government wants to tackle (and one the last Labour government did not which is when the rot set in) as having a home-owning electorate is good for this government.
Part of the problem is quite simple - the end of inflation makes big loans very, very expensive.
According to a SCOT on PB..the Cold war was not real..just a story to scare the kiddies and the vulnerable..that wall down the middle of Berlin was made of lego and ice cream too..the people who were shot and killed getting over and under it were just actors..what a prat...
Care to expand, David? The only ones that I can think of that have "faded or gone away" are medical - HIV+ is manageable for example.
You may well have others in mind.
Cultural change - e.g. tolerance of homosexuality (both on a personal level and legally)
I have a London-centric view, so would date that change earlier. May well have been different in the sticks!
David was talking about 30-40 years: certainly in the 70s and 80s things were improving (obviously they had changed legally already) but e.g. you look at the Tatchell by-election and it wasn't all sun and roses
I don't think I'd date the change legally as being complete until under this PM. Why did we have so much heat and fury about equalising marriage laws if culturally and legally it was equal already?
I quite agree on housing. We are hugely failing anyone under 45 as a country.
Other than houses, most things in this country are not difficult or expensive. But housing makes life very difficult for people under 45. We are not short of space as a country. It's only the antiquated planning system we stick to that makes housing almost impossible to build where people want to live. One day, we'll reform it. Can't come soon enough.
Compared to the 70's everything is expensive. In those days anybody could get a job , houses were available cheap for rent , cars and beer were cheap. A different world to today and people were happy.
I quite agree on housing. We are hugely failing anyone under 45 as a country.
Other than houses, most things in this country are not difficult or expensive. But housing makes life very difficult for people under 45. We are not short of space as a country. It's only the antiquated planning system we stick to that makes housing almost impossible to build where people want to live. One day, we'll reform it. Can't come soon enough.
Compared to the 70's everything is expensive. In those days anybody could get a job , houses were available cheap for rent , cars and beer were cheap. A different world to today and people were happy.
I'm going to come in a bit more conciliatory today and pose the question to SO and his fellow travellers with a pro-establishment non-Tory bent and ask what they do think the policies the UK's centre-left should have, I'm genuinely interested? If not halting privatisation and providing a firm counterbalance against the power of super wealthy elites then what?
The ABC candidates have not advocated expanding privatisation (even Kendall prefers services to be provided by the state provided the quality is there). What Corbyn suggests is re-nationalisation, and frankly that is not where the nations money should go.
In terms of making the Super Wealthy Elite happy, nothing will be more effective than a Tory majority of several hundred, allowing them to completely ignore the strugglers. That is what will happen if Corbyn clings to the leadership.
According to a SCOT on PB..the Cold war was not real..just a story to scare the kiddies and the vulnerable..that wall down the middle of Berlin was made of ledg and ice cream too..what a prat...
You cretinous halfwit , what has being Scottish got to do with it. Take your miserable whinging racist bigotry and stick it where the sun don't shine. It would be nice to meet you one day for sure.
Around the 39 minute mark Mr. Stewart advocates full fiscal autonomy for Scotland.
Without likewise for England (and Wales), that's a recipe for almost immediate independence.
Not at all just give England a referendum on an English Parliament or Regional Assemblies FFA is what Quebec eventually got after their second referendum
England already has full fiscal autonomy and full control of Scotland , wales and NI money as well.
I'm going to come in a bit more conciliatory today and pose the question to SO and his fellow travellers with a pro-establishment non-Tory bent and ask what they do think the policies the UK's centre-left should have, I'm genuinely interested? If not halting privatisation and providing a firm counterbalance against the power of super wealthy elites then what?
The ABC candidates have not advocated expanding privatisation (even Kendall prefers services to be provided by the state provided the quality is there). What Corbyn suggests is re-nationalisation, and frankly that is not where the nations money should go.
In terms of making the Super Wealthy Elite happy, nothing will be more effective than a Tory majority of several hundred, allowing them to completely ignore the strugglers. That is what will happen if Corbyn clings to the leadership.
On the contrary, I feel the super wealthy elite are happiest under a Blairite neoliberal paradise, where there truly Is No Alternative.
Around the 39 minute mark Mr. Stewart advocates full fiscal autonomy for Scotland.
Without likewise for England (and Wales), that's a recipe for almost immediate independence.
Not at all just give England a referendum on an English Parliament or Regional Assemblies FFA is what Quebec eventually got after their second referendum
England already has a Parliament, it is located in Westminster.
Just because the Scots have semi-vacated doesn't mean the rest of us need to too, we just need to stop the Scots from voting on devolved matters and the problem is solved clean and simple.
The current mess that the Blair government has created for Scotland is like a young adult who sort-of moves out of home to Holyrood while simultaneously staying at home in Westminster as well and wanting to boss around everyone left behind, insisting their parents keep a Sky Sports subscription despite nobody watching it at their house anymore.
If you want to move out then fine but you don't get a say anymore.
And you didnt explain what policies you think the centre left should have that make a genuine material difference to a Tory government. I'm all ears, I'm really intrigued, not just being a pain.
On Labour's leadership I'm not remotely convinced that Corbyn is dead set for the leadership. The polls are meaningless, there have only been two and not for a month - and even then YouGov haven't exactly covered themselves in glory recently.
Noise on Twitter etc is utterly irrelevant when it comes to voting, as again was shown at the election.
My current gut estimate of the chances is ~50% Corbyn, ~40% Cooper, ~10% Burnham and ~0% Kendall (Cooper boosted to final round due to Kendall's early elimination).
I think Kendall will get more votes than expected and that most of these will transfer to Cooper. It is not impossible that she might win. There are "shy tories" in the Labour party too is my hunch
Aha, so you acknowledge the Non Corbyn candidAtes are just Tory lite? The great comrade's supporters were right all along.
Having been derided as Tories by JC's disciples, it would be understandable if they were unwilling to admit their voting intention to YouGov or even to themselves.
Yes, because no one has been insulting the perfectly reasonable bunch who are plumping for Corbyn, say by labelling them 'disciples', rather than just some ordinary people looking for social democratic policies.
Not all of his supporters fall into that category, of course.
Care to expand, David? The only ones that I can think of that have "faded or gone away" are medical - HIV+ is manageable for example.
You may well have others in mind.
Cultural change - e.g. tolerance of homosexuality (both on a personal level and legally)
I have a London-centric view, so would date that change earlier. May well have been different in the sticks!
David was talking about 30-40 years: certainly in the 70s and 80s things were improving (obviously they had changed legally already) but e.g. you look at the Tatchell by-election and it wasn't all sun and roses
I don't think I'd date the change legally as being complete until under this PM. Why did we have so much heat and fury about equalising marriage laws if culturally and legally it was equal already?
True - I was thinking of decriminalisation. I'd classify the civil partnership and gay marriage laws as just formalising the process of cultural change, but it's really splitting hairs
It seems equality by these measures peaked around 1960...
Dorling is hardly an objective or uncommitted source, and his claims seem to me to be highly suspect just on a basic sanity check.
I note, for example, that his measure of "income inequality" in Table 1 on page 15 are based on "National income share of the best- off 1% ", which is not a measure of the whole population.
Dorling stops his data at 2005, and his claim is that in 2005 the "Top 1%" had 16% of pre-tax income, and 13% of post-tax income.
Two issues - 1, his claimed figures. 2, his chosen measurement. Compare that with Labour's statement after the 2015 budget 6 months ago.
Even on Dorling's figure the 2005 post-tax inequality level is the same as 1935 not 1918, and his figures are massively at variance with others.
By using the numbers for only 1% of the population, does he not ignore the entire redistributive effect of the benefits system since it was introduced? That is at least half of the equation. Ignoring that is a classic amongst those wanting to claim maximum inequality.
According to a SCOT on PB..the Cold war was not real..just a story to scare the kiddies and the vulnerable..that wall down the middle of Berlin was made of ledg and ice cream too..what a prat...
You cretinous halfwit , what has being Scottish got to do with it. Take your miserable whinging racist bigotry and stick it where the sun don't shine. It would be nice to meet you one day for sure.
Hey Malc.. Dontcha know that ...veiled threats against other posters invariably lead to verbal castration..
And you didnt explain what policies you think the centre left should have that make a genuine material difference to a Tory government. I'm all ears, I'm really intrigued, not just being a pain.
It would be interesting, but work calls. Another time?
Around the 39 minute mark Mr. Stewart advocates full fiscal autonomy for Scotland.
Without likewise for England (and Wales), that's a recipe for almost immediate independence.
Not at all just give England a referendum on an English Parliament or Regional Assemblies FFA is what Quebec eventually got after their second referendum
England already has a Parliament, it is located in Westminster.
Just because the Scots have semi-vacated doesn't mean the rest of us need to too, we just need to stop the Scots from voting on devolved matters and the problem is solved clean and simple.
The current mess that the Blair government has created for Scotland is like a young adult who sort-of moves out of home to Holyrood while simultaneously staying at home in Westminster as well and wanting to boss around everyone left behind, insisting their parents keep a Sky Sports subscription despite nobody watching it at their house anymore.
If you want to move out then fine but you don't get a say anymore.
Around the 39 minute mark Mr. Stewart advocates full fiscal autonomy for Scotland.
Without likewise for England (and Wales), that's a recipe for almost immediate independence.
Not at all just give England a referendum on an English Parliament or Regional Assemblies FFA is what Quebec eventually got after their second referendum
England already has a Parliament, it is located in Westminster.
Just because the Scots have semi-vacated doesn't mean the rest of us need to too, we just need to stop the Scots from voting on devolved matters and the problem is solved clean and simple.
The current mess that the Blair government has created for Scotland is like a young adult who sort-of moves out of home to Holyrood while simultaneously staying at home in Westminster as well and wanting to boss around everyone left behind, insisting their parents keep a Sky Sports subscription despite nobody watching it at their house anymore.
If you want to move out then fine but you don't get a say anymore.
Unfortunately, the current proposals for English votes for English laws still give the Scots MPs a say. They should not get input into any stage of English-only laws.
I also think it's wrong that a government without a majority in England should be able to pick the English Health and Education Secretaries.
According to a SCOT on PB..the Cold war was not real..just a story to scare the kiddies and the vulnerable..that wall down the middle of Berlin was made of ledg and ice cream too..what a prat...
You cretinous halfwit , what has being Scottish got to do with it. Take your miserable whinging racist bigotry and stick it where the sun don't shine. It would be nice to meet you one day for sure.
Hey Malc.. Dontcha know that ...veiled threats against other posters invariably lead to verbal castration..
Only a thicko like you could see any threat in that post , back under your rock where you belong.
Comments
(Or at least I would if I could be arsed)
Encouraging the saving of deposits is one sensible step (like the Help to Buy ISA I mentioned) and that will take a few years to feed through into statistics since its only relatively recently started and it takes a few years of savings to reach the level of having a deposit.
Encouraging house building is also important. The government did that in the last Parliament with Help to Buy etc
But more needs to be done. The big problem is that house building levels have not been sufficient, we do not need the State to build homes but what we need is the State to stop preventing homes from being built with planning laws that prevent construction. This is not an insurmountable problem though and it one I think the government wants to tackle (and one the last Labour government did not which is when the rot set in) as having a home-owning electorate is good for this government.
- A new classification of "areas of natural beauty" that is one level below "areas of outstanding natural beauty", and covers green belt areas that people really treasure.
- Green belt to be guaranteed to be maintained as mini green belts around existing towns where there is danger of them joining up
- Higher levels of compensation for people in the streets next to where countryside will be concreted over
- Allow the rest of the green belt to be built on more easily but with stricter limits on preserving the traditional character of the county in question
And, of course, for the public to accept this, we need to limit immigration. Planning reform is hard enough without having to convince people that we need to do this to accommodate unskilled people from the developing world.
Without likewise for England (and Wales), that's a recipe for almost immediate independence.
But the underlying phenomenon is there. From the Cleggasm to the Sindyref to the Israeli and Danish elections, right through to May 2015 we see that expressed opinion on social media and opinion polls is not borne out by actual voting.
The pollsters may well get it wrong again, and this is a very difficult selectorate to poll.
'ed did well, we didn't get our message on the economy out' etc etc.
http://www.goldmadesimplenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/home-ownership-uk.png
http://www.economicshelp.org/images/housing/ftb-hp-earnings-2014-q3.jpg
I agree that there is a problem and change needs to happen, but that does not mean we need total doom and gloom it means we need to make serious and sensible changes.
Encouraging the saving of deposits is one sensible step (like the Help to Buy ISA I mentioned) and that will take a few years to feed through into statistics since its only relatively recently started and it takes a few years of savings to reach the level of having a deposit.
Encouraging house building is also important. The government did that in the last Parliament with Help to Buy etc
But more needs to be done. The big problem is that house building levels have not been sufficient, we do not need the State to build homes but what we need is the State to stop preventing homes from being built with planning laws that prevent construction. This is not an insurmountable problem though and it one I think the government wants to tackle (and one the last Labour government did not which is when the rot set in) as having a home-owning electorate is good for this government.
Part of the problem is quite simple - the end of inflation makes big loans very, very expensive.
In terms of making the Super Wealthy Elite happy, nothing will be more effective than a Tory majority of several hundred, allowing them to completely ignore the strugglers. That is what will happen if Corbyn clings to the leadership.
Just because the Scots have semi-vacated doesn't mean the rest of us need to too, we just need to stop the Scots from voting on devolved matters and the problem is solved clean and simple.
The current mess that the Blair government has created for Scotland is like a young adult who sort-of moves out of home to Holyrood while simultaneously staying at home in Westminster as well and wanting to boss around everyone left behind, insisting their parents keep a Sky Sports subscription despite nobody watching it at their house anymore.
If you want to move out then fine but you don't get a say anymore.
I note, for example, that his measure of "income inequality" in Table 1 on page 15 are based on "National income share of the best- off 1% ", which is not a measure of the whole population.
Dorling stops his data at 2005, and his claim is that in 2005 the "Top 1%" had 16% of pre-tax income, and 13% of post-tax income.
Two issues - 1, his claimed figures. 2, his chosen measurement.
Compare that with Labour's statement after the 2015 budget 6 months ago.
"A Labour spokesman said: "Today’s figures show that the share of post-tax income of the top one per cent rose from 8.3 per cent to 9.4 per cent between 2012/13 and 2014/15 after the Tories cut the top rate of tax. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/11411790/Britains-highest-earners-pay-a-quarter-of-nations-income-tax.html
Or this EU page, which puts the post-tax Income Share of the Top 1% at 5-6% in 2011.
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1050&intPageId=1870&langId=en
Even on Dorling's figure the 2005 post-tax inequality level is the same as 1935 not 1918, and his figures are massively at variance with others.
By using the numbers for only 1% of the population, does he not ignore the entire redistributive effect of the benefits system since it was introduced? That is at least half of the equation. Ignoring that is a classic amongst those wanting to claim maximum inequality.
I'm afraid I call bullshit.
I also think it's wrong that a government without a majority in England should be able to pick the English Health and Education Secretaries.
- Health
- Education
- Justice?
- Transport?
- Communities
- Environment
- Work and pensions
I also realise we still have Secretaries of State for Wales and Scotland. I don't think these are needed any more when they have their own assemblies.