Osborne's warning from history

Back when he was young and didn't have so many media advisors, George Osborne said what he thought. In particular, he encouraged people to avoid paying tax.

Warning: contains creepy and sinister facial expressions.

Rights: now a commodity

George Osborne's big idea to save the economy: Share for Rights:

the chancellor unveiled a £100m "employee-owner" scheme that will allow shares worth £2,000 to £50,000 to be exempt from tax if employees give up certain work rights, such as the right to claim unfair dismissal.

Obviously there's a minor and immediate objection: the economy is not screwed because too many people exercise their rights not to be treated like shit by their employer. Far from it: you can be unfairly dismissed for 2 years before your rights even kick in.

There's another obvious rejoinder to this argument too: if settling unfair dismissal, bullying and harassment suits is costing your company a lot of money, don't lobby government to abolish the right not to be bullied, harassed or unfairly dismissed. Just stop bullying, harassing and unfairly dismissing people. You might find that your organisation improves. That's not all either: it includes further restrictions on maternity and paternity leave too.

No. The real reason why this is such a typically terrible idea is that it reveals a deeply unpleasant conception of humanity at the heart of Conservative discourse. To George Osborne, all interactions between human beings are transactional. Somebody - and often both - gets something out of each exchange. Under his proposals, the right not to be harassed, bullied or unfairly dismissed has a cash equivalent. Clearly the right to look forward to a working life in which you're not humiliated or fired is worth somewhere between £2000 and £50,000. I suspect that a cleaner's mental health is worth £2000 and a lawyer's £50,000 (actually, given that high-earners will have lawyers and out-of-court settlements just like now, this scheme is aimed at drones like you and me).

Accepting the deal is like the kid in the playground making a little extra pocket money by allowing other kids to kick him in the balls. In fact, it reminds me of private schools until recently: you paid them to have the right to physically beat you. Osborne's offered a small cash prize to the greedy or simple to give employers the cast-iron right to duff you up for the rest of your working life.

Still, it gives us some guidelines. If you apply for a job with this kind of contract, you know that the company expects you to be bullied, harassed and discriminated against. If you accept the money, you'll get what you deserve. If you're considering a relationship with someone who sells their dignity for £2000 or £50,000, you know they have no self-respect and that they are probably functioning sociopaths with no higher concept of humanity than material exchange.

Who will accept these contracts? The kind of people who want to appear on The Apprentice. It's my job, as your friend, to say: 'don't be that guy'.

Two Cheers for George Osborne

He's got a bum for a nose, got £3m from a family tax-avoiding trust fund for his 21st birthday, has made me and everybody else poorer, thicker and sicker… and yet I feel compelled to shout it from the rooftops:

GEORGE OSBORNE IS RIGHT

He remains the worst chancellor in living memory, a walking talking throwback to the 18th-century, a hypocrite and a liar, but when it comes down to limiting untaxed charitable donations, he's spot on.

Firstly, many of these charities are simply fronts, convenient vehicles for hiding wealth. Remember Northern Rock? Advised by Barclays Capital, Citigroup, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, it used some very dubious shells which technically nominated charities as the ultimate beneficiaries, to avoid tax. The charities were never informed and never received any money.

Other charities are simply hobbies for the plutocratic elite. I like donkeys and opera as much as anybody else - maybe more - but I'd rather an elected government decided where cash needs to be directed than the whim of a fat cat who'd rather fund a polo team or Charity X6839, than a primary school.

X6839 explains here how the UK taxpayer (average salary £26,000) can donate to David Cameron's old school (annual fees: £31,000, music and sport extra), get the government to fork out more and even - if you earn over £42,000 - give you some tax back too! Everyone's a winner!

Net payment to Eton: £100,000
Tax reclaimed by Eton (basic rate plus transitional relief): £28,205
Value to Eton (gross donation): £128,205
Higher rate relief to you: £25,000
Your net cost as a higher rate taxpayer: £75,000

(Example from the Eton website linked to above)

Think of it as 'cashback' for toffs. If you think Lord Fink and his friends are relieving poverty or saving the environment, you're a fool.

However, this is all by-the-bye. The fact is that Osborne's limp little crackdown is simply an attempt to make the rich behave a little more like us.

When you give to charity you're giving from your own income, on which you've already paid tax. If you tick the 'gift-aid' box, the government gives a little bit of that tax to the charity.

The rich don't do it like this. They give to charity, then claim some tax back: they get a cheque from us which goes into their pockets - not to the charity.

Osborne's change is to say that they can only do that with a proportion of their incomes: some of them hide 100% of their cash in offshore charities which don't actually do anything charitable, avoiding all taxation. If they give to a real charity, the donor gets money back from the government. If they give to a shell charity, they rip us off and get paid from the money meant to educate, heal and defend us.

You'll be hearing a lot from various good charities and the posh universities about this. Oxford, Cambridge and so spend an awful lot of time beguiling the rich. Well, I don't care. This university is cramped, understaffed and under-resourced. We don't have a fleet of punts to maintain, and no billionaires are queuing up to endow us with funds. I'm quite happy for Oxbridge donors to shell out for research or the college wine cellars - but they should pay their taxes first, just like the rest of us. If they won't give without a tax break, they're giving for the wrong reasons.

So: Two Cheers For George Osborne.

News Bounty

Good morning, readerinos! After yesterday's mammoth editing session (I reduced a paper from 19000 to 8500 words - each one soaked in blood), I'm back with a vengeance. Sort of. I've to write a lecture on Literature in the West Midlands (all suggestions welcome) for Saturday's promotional event. So far, I have a massive list, and I'm attempting to construct a spine for it, probably along the lines of 'The West Midlands: Culturally Impenetrable (And That's Just The Accent)'.

The other excitement of the day is the Chancellor's speech on the state of the British economy. Normally, one word would do ('screwed'), but his job is to repeat the very tired mantra 'we inherited a mess from the last Labour government' - they'll be his dying words - and pretend that slashing services to the poor and subsidising his rich mates with new airports and motorways is a reasonable and workable solution. No doubt he'll also say 'greenest government ever', despite the Tories' despicable secret support for Canadian oil sands production and his get-out-of-jail-free bribe to the worst polluters.

And the Leveson inquiry is ongoing! It's a banquet of news! Now to persuade the media students to have a look… Talking of them, I'm spending my lunchtime leafleting the little darlings to explain tomorrow's strike action. Free stickers to anyone who doesn't spit at me.

Anyway, in tribute to the victims of Torynomics, here's a song about us:

Cracks in Tory Paradise?

Idling through my visitor logs, I discover that someone's been looking at the George Osborne: Artful Dodger poster, detailing his dubious tax-evading multimillion pound trust fund.

Nothing out of the ordinary about that, you may think. Until you see where this reader is.

State/Region	:	Oxfordshire
City	:	Witney

Yes. It's David Cameron's constituency home. You'd think that the Prime Minister would already know the tax avoiding tricks. Osborne lives next door - just call round and ask him about it Dave!

How to be snide

I really like this line from a speech by Denis Healey, 93-years old former Labour Chancellor (far too rightwing for me):

I feel sorry for George Osborne despite his politics (pause), and his personality." 

Now that's a beautiful line, beautifully delivered.

By the way, I'm always hugely amused that Dennis/Denis, one of the most boring names available, is derived from Dionysos, God of Wine and Madness. I gather that Healey is rather fond of rather good claret.

Dennis

Dionysos, God of Wine

Dionysos, God of Madness

The artful dodger

VAT's gone up, books for kids have gone, sport for kids has gone, welfare down, taxes on the poor up - yet the banks and the rich have got away scot free. Perhaps Baronet Osbourne doesn't want to chase tax avoiders like Vodafone because he's a cheat too.

George's Irish Stew

I linked to the article this clip is based on a week ago, but it's a good little reminder of the man you voted in as Chancellor.

Three Cheers For George Osborne

So awfully kind of George to offer we Irish a few billion quid to get us out of a hole. Although it's perhaps a small way of making recompense for the hundreds of years of imperial exploitation.

After all, 'George Osborne' is really Gideon George Osborne, and when Daddy dies, he'll be the 18th Baronet of Ballentaylor (Tipperary) and of Ballylemon in Waterford (despite Ireland being independent for 90 years and a Republic for 61 years, the aristocracy hangs on to the glory days).

One city financier (via Paul Mason's very good blog) reckons that Osborne's offer is actually a bit of a cheat: it's a way of handing more British taxpayers' cash directly to the banks to get the economy going without using the magic words 'helicopter money' (i.e. quantitative easing, or throwing cash at the country to keep it circulating) and to prevent more British banks going bust:

City economist Graham Turner issued the following note to clients:

"In truth, the rumoured £6-7bn of support for Ireland is effectively QE2 by the backdoor. Despite the UK chancellor's denials, the bi-lateral aid for Ireland is absolutely an attempt to pre-empt further difficulties for UK banks. The huge increase in wholesale liabilities of UK banks due to roll over in 2011 shows that perhaps the UK had more than any other country to lose from an outright default of Irish bank and sovereign debt." 

Still, beggars can't be choosers. As this photograph demonstrates: the well-dressed gentlemen are from the International Monetary Fund, come to take Cowen and Lenihan's calculator off them. The seated gentleman - well, he's Ireland. Much respect to photographer Peter Morrison.

He's got an even better one:

Gideon George Osborne, economic genius

This man is in charge of running the UK economy. What did he think of Ireland's economic policies (i.e. the ones that have bankrupted the country and according to the EU President, might destroy the European Union)? Read it and weep…

Look and learn from across the Irish Sea

A generation ago it would have seemed ridiculous to go to Ireland for economics lessons. Not any more.

Ireland stands as a shining example of the art of the possible in long-term economic policymaking, and that is why I am in Dublin: to listen and to learn.

capital will go wherever investment is most attractive. Ireland’s business tax rates are only 12.5 per cent, while Britain's are becoming among the highest in the developed world.

They have freed their markets, developed the skills of their workforce, encouraged enterprise and innovation and created a dynamic economy. They have much to teach us, if only we are willing to learn.

The morning after the night before

Good morning. I assume that, if you're in the UK, you're suffering from a massive politics hangover, having listened to the Chancellor explain that, while we're all in this together, the poor are going to have to pay for the deficit. Not the rich, not the banks, not corporations (their tax is actually going down), but the poor and the young.

Oddly, I was teaching King Lear yesterday. The story of an arrogant, deluded ruler with no grasp of reality who destroyed his country out of selfishness, greed and narcisssism chimed with the day's events, though I doubt that Osborne will ever come to a soul-destroying moment of realisation - he'll always be rich and he's never wanted friends.

How revolting it was to see Liberal Democrats, who campaigned as the 'nice' party, patting the Tory Scum on the back, clapping and laughing as Osborne reduced the state to a shell company for the rich and put the poor and disabled out of their homes. When the election comes, they deserve oblivion.

I couldn't stand it anymore and headed over to Shrewsbury for my regular fencing session. Weirdly, given I was in a terrible mood, it was one of those nights on which everything went brilliantly - I fenced lots of seriously good (and nice) people and beat them all. For the first time in ages, I chose my shots and they all worked. Perhaps cold fury is the key to effective fencing.

From the Department of You Couldn't Make It Up

George Osborne today defended the coalition government's planned spending cuts, claiming they would help create a more progressive society

Housing, welfare and unemployment benefits down, child savings fund abolished, sales taxes up, corporate taxes lowered, spending on nuclear weapons increased to £20 billion. Civil servants sacked by the tens of thousands, including those charged with chasing rich tax evaders. Philip Green, billionaire tax avoider and tax exile hired by the government. University entrance cut, bankers bonuses up.

and that income distribution was not the only measure of fairness.

"Progressiveness and fairness ... operate on a couple of levels," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "Obviously, there's income distribution ... but also it operates on other levels: intergenerational fairness ... equality of opportunity ... and social mobility, making sure people have access to the best education whatever their background." 

Said the St. Paul's School (£27,000 per year: median salary for UK workers in 2009: £21,000) and Oxford educated Bullingdon Club member multimillionaire (inherited: he's never had a proper job outside politics) expenses cheat.

Oh yes, and he's going to be a Baronet when daddy dies.

I told you. Tory Scum.

Yes Gideon, you're absolutely right

At the Tory conference yesterday, Gideon Osborne (who prefers to be known by his middle name, George), kept repeating the mantra 'We're all in this together', which according to Radio 4's Today programme, was nicked from High School Musical.

Of course we are, Gid. Only, most of us haven't inherited millions of pounds, gone to a top public school (boys only, £27,000 per year) then Oxford, where he joined the Bullingdon Club (£10,000 per year, men only), then straight into politics, never having had to find a job, struggle financially etc. Unlike you, we depend on the state services (health, education etc) which you are planning to savagely cut, safe in the knowledge that you can buy privately. The effects of these cuts (designed to sort out a deficit caused by bailing out the bankers and speculators you adore, ideologically align with and who fund your party) will hit us hard, not you. Sure, your investments might only grow from millions to several more millions, but freezing pay for civil servants earning £18000 pounds - enough for two terms at your school - will certainly make them poorer.

You lying, hypocritical wanker. How much contempt do you have for the public? Surely you don't really think that claiming solidarity with the rest of us will really work?

Oh dear - perhaps it will.

You literally couldn't make it up (unless you were very cynical indeed)

I've always thought of Blair as a grasping, hypocritical, lying, ideology-free, sanctimonious turd of a human being, so it's no surprise to learn that he's a thief too. It's the small things which reveal a man's character. What other word can describe a millionaire who claims £7000 from the taxpayer to do up one of his houses two days before resigning as an MP and departing public life?

Likewise, how do we trust Gideon George Osborne. Not only is his idea of fun watching his own speeches on DVD: he charges us for them. Even more revealingly, the subject of his performance is Value for Taxpayers' Money. Laugh? I almost wept.

While I'm in a visual mood

… I'll tease my friends. Hilary is the Liberty statue from a 4th July celebration, the toad appeared in my parents' garden, and the posh blokes include David Cameron (2), Boris Johnson (6) and George Osborne (8) - they've suppressed the picture but I grabbed it before they traced every copy. Neal is straining at the Black Country Living Museum.