Another Anti-Immigration Myth Blown Out Of The Water

This was the Daily Express's frontpage on November 2nd 2007.



This myth has been circulated in our mainstream media for the last four years. There are more examples here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Oh and here:



It is total nonsense. The 'maths' to make this myth work is basically equivalent to saying 2 - 2 = 4.

Thankfully, Left Foot Forward has today brilliantly destroyed this argument by doing the same calculation with disabled people.They took 219% of all new jobs last year!

In Praise of U-Turns

Governments have three options:

Option 1: Be a radical, reforming government, and plough on with the reforms you feel are right for the country even in the face of criticism and unpopularity at your ideas.

Option 2: Avoid any reforms that might be controversial to avoid deep unpopularity.

Option 3: Be a radical, reforming government, but be willing to change course to avoid making unpopular and flawed reforms.

Option 1 was clearly favoured by Thatcher, as espoused by her famous quote - "the lady's not for turning". The problem is that such a belligerent attitude is deeply divisive, and while you may win some praise for 'strong leadership', your reforms could create negative consequences that could be avoided if you'd listened to criticism.

Option 2 will no doubt avoid lots of negative press. But what's the point in getting into power, something you've worked for your entire life, only to not do anything with it? You also miss the chance to make changes for the better, simply out of timidity at making a decision.


Option 3 involves changing your mind, and therefore provides an easy opportunity to be attacked as being 'not in control', prone to 'U-Turns', and of 'weak leadership'. However the benefits are numerous - your more popular and less criticised reforms will get through and have a real impact, and the policies that change will end up being better for the country. While you may be painted as 'weak' as you change course, it is clearly stronger than not trying make changes in the first place, and it takes courage to alter your plans in the face of insults thrown from the opposition.

A U-Turning government is a more pragmatic government, a more courageous government, a more democratic government, and if we're to have any faith in democratic process at all, it should prove to be a more successful government.

So here's to listening, engaging, responding, reforming, and yes, U-Turns.

Gordon Brown's 2007 Budget Analysis, Left Foot Forward Style

In the Budget of 2007, the Chancellor Gordon Brown announced to much fanfare that the basic rate of tax would be cut by 2p from 22% to 20%. This policy was great news for taxpayers! Earners received a tax cut of up to £647.

This tax cut was largely paid for by scrapping the 10p tax rate, which hit the lowest earners. But this is immaterial - since the 2p tax cut is worth £8bn, the policy should be looked at on its own merits.

We can therefore conclude that the 2007 Budget was hugely beneficial for the majority of taxpayers, and if we ignore those who suffered, there were no regressive outcomes.

Ta da!

Where Are The Losers?

Over the weekend, Left Foot Forward released a critique of the Lib Dem plan to give taxpayers a £700 income tax cut by raising the personal allowance to £10,000.

Here is the chart they used to demonstrate the allegedly regressive impact of the tax cut:

However, this chart can't be telling the full story. The Lib Dems have always made it clear that the policy is revenue neutral. This means that the policy won't cost the Treasury anything, because the tax cut has been paid for by tax rises in other areas: raising the tax on capital gains, and the new mansion tax on property worth over £2,000,000.

With any revenue-neutral tax change there will be winners and losers. However, the chart above shows everybody winning.

An honest bar chart would show negative bars representing the tax rises that pay for the tax cut. The total area of the negative bars would match the total area of the positive bars. Given the proposed tax rises will hit the wealthiest, these negative bars would be at the 'richest' end of the chart. This wouldn't fit with Left Foot Forward's narrative, so they have used statistical trickery to create a different result.

I suspect that the bars are showing the median of each decile, rather than the mean. This would hide the impact on the richest 5% of households. However since their report does not show how they calculated the impact, I can only guess.

Perhaps Left Foot Forward could come clean on how they have managed to hide the losers in the Lib Dem's tax plans.

What Nick Clegg Actually Said About Tuition Fees

Lots of spinning going on over the Lib Dems commitment to phase out tuition fees. Labourite tweets from the likes of @2pallas tried to suggest that the Lib Dems had scrapped the tuition fees pledge. Conservative blogger Declan Lyons suggested that the policy was all over the place:

the policy was dropped as they couldn't afford it. Then they picked it up again. Now, it has just been extended to be done over more time.

All not true.

The policy was never dropped at Conference. What Clegg said was

Ending tuition fees would cost billions of pounds every year - we need to be certain we can afford it before we make any promises.

So he said that given the state of the country's finances, the policy's affordability needed to be checked.

Then, the new policy of phasing out tuition fees over 6 years was announced last month. This made the long standing commitment affordable.

Today, Clegg has simply restated this pledge as part of a wider message about only promising what could be afforded. On the Today programme, he said:

We will not be able to deliver our pledge on scrapping tuition fees - something we are determined to do - on the timetable we have once envisaged.

So the same policy as announced earlier this month.

Nick Clegg has been totally consistent over tuition fees. Any suggestion otherwise is desperate spin from the opposition.