What would Peel think?

There was a curious news item the other day about the “special edition” Charlie Hebdo magazine that was distributed.  Apparently constabulary in England had been put on alert to be ready for any trouble that may flare up as a result of the publications sale in the UK.  So far so good.  Then a constable asked in a newsagent for the names and addresses of all those who bought the publications.  The names and addresses of the buyers were added to an intelligence note and fed into a police crime and intelligence system, police confirmed. Yes, you heard that right.

The said force was sensible enough to see this had been a pretty stupid thing for the officer to do and quickly apologised. Wiltshire police subsequently confirmed that it had deleted the names of the buyers from its system. No formal complaint has been made against the officer who will receive “words of advice” but is unlikely to face any disciplinary proceedings.

But it’s the assumption the officer made that is worrying.  Clearly a policeman is walking our streets thinking he can make up the rules as he goes along.  If you don’t find that worrying you should.

When you combine that with Police Scotland, for “operational reasons”, (that is a useful set of words to cover just about anything the police want to cover) routinely having armed officers on our streets, you can't help but think there is something seriously wrong at the top of our police forces.  And when they encourage the talk of the “police community” they forget there is no such thing.  All police officers are members of the community they serve. All we have done is we have given them permission to exercise the power of arrest.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  They are certainly not part of a separate community. 

Sometimes I think the training of police offers must be somewhat wanting.  They seem to forget in the UK, policing is by consent.  It's one of the original fundamental concepts of British Policing dating back to Sir Robert Peel.  It essentially means the police can only operate with the support of "their" public.  Not by force.   So why does it seem a random officer in Wiltshire thinks differently? And if he was like that, how many other officers are too.

It's outrageous

Richest 1% to own more than rest of world, Oxfam says.

It was quite some headline.  It seemed so unfair.  The top 1% owning all that.  The charity's research  shows that the share of the world's wealth owned by the richest 1% increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% last year.  On current trends, Oxfam says it expects the wealthiest 1% to own more than 50% of the world's wealth by 2016.  And it was neatly timed to coincide with the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos.  The implications were obvious.  

But, wait a minute.  The BBC's head of statistics, Anthony Reuben, said in order to be part of the wealthiest 1% of the world's population, an individual would need to be worth just over half a million pounds.  Yes, everyone with wealth of £530,000 or more.  That includes many people in rich countries who may not regard themselves as particularly wealthy, but who simply own their house outright or have paid off a significant chunk off their mortgage.  In fact it accounts for 2.9m people in the UK.  So the finger pointing at Davos was, at best mischievous.  Like it or not these people have the skills that create successful businesses. And jobs.

Charities like Oxfam have to be careful.  They have a good story to tell.  But they spoil it by sensationalising.  And that not only undermines the credibility of the charity, it also damages the people we seek to serve, the poorest in the world.

The Apple of your eye? Think twice before you buy.

Apple.  In total, the amount of cash in the group is around $178bn. Some $35bn in debt reduces that figure to the $142bn.   Debt?  Sorry, a business with such level of income and profit, and a large amount in the company piggy bank, debt? Why?

Well, it’s really a very simple answer.  They don’t like paying tax and will do all they can not to pay tax.  Apparently 89% of it lies offshore out of the hands of the Internal Revenue Service.

So they could bring it back.  But won't because they don’t want to pay tax unlike like everyone else and every other business has to do.  So they are stuck by their own greed using complex structures including debt to avoid it.  How weird is that?  Think what you could do with that cash. You could wipe out poor water quality in developing countries.  

So next time you are looking for a new device, remember Apple don’t want to be like you, a responsible citizen who pays tax. Now, make your choice.

Alternatives to consider when you vote

A free market economy promises equality of opportunity, and a planned socialist economy promotes equality of outcome.  Which is best for the UK?  Discuss.

What a tangled web we weave....

Did you hear what Ed Miliband had to say about electricity and gas bills a while ago?  It’s pretty clear.  No room for wiggle.  A straight talking politician telling you exactly what they are going to do. Here are his words.  Exactly.  “The next Labour government will freeze gas and electricity prices until the start of 2017.”  That's what he told you and I the voters. And then backed it up with an advert. 

But wait a minute, what’s this in the small print that he didn’t tell the voters.  Labour spin-doctors wish to point out that they said in September 2013 that they would set up a body with “the power and remit to force energy companies to cut their prices when there is evidence of overcharging, for example when wholesale costs fall and the market fails to respond.”  Er, what?

The same note also stated: “we will put a stop to unfair price rises by freezing energy bills up to January 2017 for people coping with a cost of living crisis.”  Got that?  But that’s not the same thing as what Ed said.

So what Ed said to the voters and what Ed's spin team are putting out as small print on the story are rather different.

When the Labour party tweeted today "It’s pretty simple. When energy prices go down, your energy bills should go down too." they showed the Labour Party is complete ignorance as to how the energy markets actually work. Worrying for a party that aspires to government.

But that’s a story for another day.

What is wrong with the NHS in Scotland?

A friend of mine who was an anesthetist in NHS Scotland once lamented at the waste in the system.  £30m a year out of your, the taxpayers, pocket for example, went straight down the drain when people, amazingly, didn’t turn up for operations.  Of course there are cases when at the last minute a person can’t come.  For example, if they have caught a cold.  But they were in the tiny minority. 

And GPs experience the same sort of thing.  People not turning up for appointments.  You would be staggered if you knew how common this was. And the cost?  As a taxpayer it is costing you £16m every single year in Scotland. If you were ill enough to want to see a doctor, why on earth would you just not turn up?  And by not turning up in both cases you have cost the rest of us taxpayers money and you have deprived someone else of an appointment they desperately wanted.

So that's us just saved £46m a year.

Then when I pop into my local hospital for a regular check-up I’m met by a clerk who asks my name, then asks me to go to sit down and wait.  Past another person who is sitting waiting to call out patients when their time has come.  Why are two people doing a job that could be done by one person?  You can see where this is going. We are wasting money that should be going into patient care.

The real problem with the NHS is that it is a monolithic throw back to days when it was thought the State had to be cradle to the grave in its provision.  These days have long gone in most peoples minds.  But not in the minds of those who benefit most from a monopolistic health service.  I’m not referring to the nurses and doctors and porters and clerical staff as being the ones to blame.  No, the real problem lies in the place where change and reform are dirty words.  The Unions who are bankrolled by the millions of NHS staff and the Government who, no matter the political colour, are scared to do anything significant to reform the NHS.  No competition means no innovation.  No innovation means things never change.

Everyone wants a better NHS.  But we will never get what we wish for if we keep living in the past.  The NHS should be a concept, a vision, an ideology.  Not a monopolistic delivery service.   We have made it an institution with none of the disciplines and tools that would allow it to become what we all want it to be.  The best in the world.

Oil and taxation

So the price of Brent Crude goes down.  And every one is saying this is terrible.  Except when you go to the petrol pump and discover that petrol is now 20% less that it was a month ago.  So is the drop in the price of Brent Crude good or bad?  Well, it depends where you stand. 

For you and I it means we have more money in our pockets to spend as we see fit.  Which ultimately creates jobs in the productive private sector.

For the Government, it means less tax revenue.  Or does it? Despite George Osborne’s best efforts, petrol retailing remains a joint venture between the taxman and the private sector, with the latter merely a minority shareholder.  As a result, one ought to expect only a small proportion of any fall in the price of oil to filter through to the cost of petrol.

To illustrate what happens, let’s go back to when the price of a litre of petrol was around £1.33 – in other words, before the prices fell.  At the time, duty accounted for 58p, VAT for 22p, the companies that supplied the crude and refined it got 48p and the distributors (the petrol stations and trucks) got just 5p.  Since then, the price of petrol has dropped by 9p, almost all of which has been absorbed by the private sector and very little (bar a dip in VAT) by the Treasury.

The Treasury is still collecting 58p from duty, its take from VAT has dropped slightly to just under 21p, the oil companies get just over 40p (which means that their revenues are down by around 17pc) and the retailers still make as little as 5p.  Needless to say, none of these figures include the massive tax that the Government grabs on oil companies’ profits.

So what does this mean?  Well it means on current pump prices, tax accounts for 63.4pc of the money handed over by you at the petrol station.  This is a ludicrously high percentage.  Can you imagine that level of tax on any other product that you buy?  Yet it is the politicians who are taking the moral high ground, and pinning the blame for high prices on the private sector.   

The stark reality is that even if there were collusion of some sort – a point entirely unproved – the worst case scenario probably would be that prices are 1p-2p too high some of the time, a trivial problem compared with 79p “overpricing” caused by taxes.

Counting the days

I suspect there is an election on the way any time soon.  Sounds like it from the crawling to the TV and radio studies of the leaders of the main parties.  In England there is a pretty straight forward choice.  Vote UKIP, get Labour.

North of the border we have a different set of parties.  But the results may be similar in the sense that how you cast your vote will not so much decide whether the party you voted for gets into power at Westminster but some other party.  So with the SNP and Labour in Scotland virtually walking up the aisle together already it looks like a similar outcome north of the border.  Vote SNP, get Labour.

Now I happen to believe the SNP government in Scotland are a pretty competent bunch.  Indeed, I would vote for an SNP member of the Westminster parliament to ensure that the voice of Scotland is heard.  However, if it meant that it would bring Labour back to power in Westminster after they virtually bankrupted our country last time they were in power my vote will be going elsewhere.  Love or loath them, the Conservatives have tried, with varying degrees of success it has to be said, to bring some economic reality to the economy.  And it’s to the economy I will return in other posts.  But think of this before you go and make a cup of coffee.  The government has no money.  It only has ours, taxes from money earned by us.  

So, who is better at deciding how our money should be spent?  A government ?  Or us?  Discuss.

Taxing your brain

There has been rather a lot of ink spilt and blogs filled with righteous anger at the proposal of the government in relation to tax.

But, wait a minute, what short memories we all have.   The PM’s forward promise to move the 40% threshold up to £50,000 means that the rate will kick in at the boundary level last seen in 2009/10 under, yes, him, Gordon Brown.  

Let's look at the details. In 2009 the 40% rate kicked in after £37,400 of taxable income.  Under a Conservative government in 2020 after a decade in office it would kick in at £37,500 (£50,000 – £12,500). A move in the right direction of £100… 

Confused?  

Well the threshold drag has been a hard-to-headline stealthy massive tax hike by this government. With no other deductions and no change in the N.I. rate (which surely will be abolished in a final Lawsonian type reform towards which George Osborne is ideologically inclined)  the net take home figure would only be improved by some £2,100 for a £50,000 earner in 2020 compared to 2010 – a 4.2% relief. 

Whereas someone on minimum wages making £12,500 in 2020 compared to 2010 will see nearly a 100% improvement in their net take home pay…

And how are you going to vote in May 2015 if you are not in the higher wage bracket?  Bit of a no brainer really.

What would £420 million buy?

This is quite extraordinary.  

Today in the Scottish Parliament the First Minster announced that he was introducing legislation that was not in his manifesto and therefore, to paraphrase the SNPs words when referring to Westminster, no one voted for, to stop a properly constituted and statutory legal authority from going about its lawful tasks.  Indeed, it is not just a lawful task, it is their duty.

To what am I referring?  Well, there has been a bit of a stooshie now people have realised that there are responsibilities that go with voting.  Paying your fair share of tax being one of them.  No taxation without representation and all that.  It is a two way street.  Don’t pay your lawful taxes and you really shouldn’t be having a say on how taxpayers money is used.

It seems that many people applied to vote in the recent Referendum who haven’t been contributing their fair share over the years.  May be some couldn’t afford to.  That’s a different debate.  Let’s take a car.  You need to be insured to drive it.  So if you get caught without insurance you pay the penalty.  And there is good reason for that.  Uninsured people cause you to pay £33 more every year on your insurance.  However, it’s more than just the financial cost that counts.  As James Dalton from the Association of British Insurers says, “the cost of crashes caused by uninsured drivers pushes up the insurance premiums of honest motorists, as well as being a danger on the roads.”   Uninsured drivers have been shown to be more likely to have an accident and are more likely to be driving an un-roadworthy car.  These drivers kill 160 people every year and cause 23,000 injuries, all without any means of compensating their victims or paying for the cost of living with their injuries.

And my point is?  It’s not the wrongdoer who pays.  It’s you and I.  And so it is with money to local authorities.  Those that don’t pay are making those who do pay pay more. £420m unpaid at the last count.

I can understand for political reasons the bogey man of the Community Charge (aka the poll tax) being wielded out to try and stop local authorities rightfully reclaiming money from that period. 

"However, the relevance of information from the current electoral register to the position of debts from 25 years ago is difficult to fathom, except through some misguided political intention."  So said the first Minster. 

I'm really not sure what planet he is on.  The law is the law.  If people broke it they will eventually have to pay up.  Now is that time.  It’s a slippery slope he is going down.  What else can we look back 25 years and say we are not going to follow up and pursue some other wrong doing?  

Revisionism is creeping in.  People will say, the Community Charge was different.  It wasn’t.  It was a piece of legislation approved by Parliament.  Like it or not (and I don’t), the UK was and remains the parliament for the whole UK.  Until the day Scotland is a nation again, I’m afraid we have to bow to the legislative chamber of the UK.

I suspect I will not be alone in asking the  Scottish Government for moneys that I had to pay to subsidise those who refused to pay repaid to me.  Sounds fair.  Or are we seriously going to allow the Scottish Government to pass a bill that effectively endorses wrongdoing? 

A tarnished vote

A good friend of mine summed up very nicely what has happend.

"The game was muddied over the last couple of weeks so that ultimately I don’t think many people (apart from the resolute yes or no people) knew really what they were voting for … hence a reversion by many (in my opinion) to traditional party political values.  ‘Job done’ by the Westminster trio + Brown!

The white paper was in circulation for many months and allowed scrutiny on every level by both proponents and opponents of independence.  Better Together could choose their targets (as it was never going to be a perfect manifesto with all the answers), and batter away at it.  The late intervention and “Vow” was never given that same level of scrutiny – it came after purdah, and there weren’t actually any tangible elements to it!

In this sense, while democracy may have been a winner on many levels (85% voter turnout etc), it feels rather tarnished that such an intervention could have been such an apparently crucial game-changer."

I think my friend has got it 100% right.  Mind you, he is my accountant so I'm rather pleased his sums add up.

Who decides what kind of devolution

English votes for English laws.  Has a certain ring to about it. 

I’m assuming all these MPs representing English constituencies will therefore not take part in a debate and vote on what form more devolution to Scotland should take.   

That surely will mean that only those representing Scottish constituencies in Westminster will be able to vote on which of the many and very different options of more devolution for Scotland is selected.

Or will it be imposed by the English MPs?

What actually did we vote for?

Well, it’s the morning after….

Two weeks ago we had one question on the ballot paper.  Should Scotland be an independent country. Yes or No.  That was till two weeks ago.  It was nice straight forward and simple.  Yes or No.

But that actually was not what people were voting on yesterday.  If people think it was, they need to think again.  The status quo was not an option according to the three party leaders and the shadow of Gordon Brown.  What we ended up with was should Scotland be an independent country or do you want Labours vision of Devo, or the Conservative vision of Devo, or the LibDems vision of Devo, or Patrick Harvey’s vision of Devo.  Or indeed, the SNPs vision of Devo.  All very very different.  Then there is the Plaid Cymru version of they want for Wales in this new Devo friendly world.  And the Cornish version.  And the English regions.  

Are we going to be given another vote to decide the options of Devo that Westminster is going to offer us.  It would hardly be fair of have one version which few may support being implemented while another version many would support stays in the sidings. Or will they just impose it.

Oh what a foolish thing the three party leaders and the shadow of Gordon Brown did by intervening. One rogue poll.  They panicked. Showed amazing lack of judgement. They made promises that broke the Edinburgh Agreement.  And they made promises that have now saddled the UK with one massive problem.  All the more remarkable as there was only one of the polls that suggested a No vote. I think most of us expected a very close, but ultimately No vote.  They have given away, or more accurately, have said they will give away, more powers from Westminster. It’s going to be an interesting time.

So if someone tells me they voted No, I will remind them that voting No actually did not mean the status quo.  So which version of Devo did they vote for?

It is quite ludicrous.  There were probably many people who voted No but certainly don’t want Devo anything.  As I head one person say, I just want things to be the same.  Where is their voice in all this?  

I think we can safely say, since the intervention of the three leaders, not only will it never be the same in Scotland, they have dragged the whole UK into this and now it will never be the same for them either.

And a closing thought for those of you who think any of the Devo proposals will sail through Westminster without he Barnett formula ending in tatters, think again. 

11 hours to go

Well, the days have turned to hours.  At 7am the voting starts.  And I gather the polling stations will accept people in the doors up till 10pm and allow them to vote even if it's past the hour when they actually cast their vote.  Just don't risk it though!  With over 4,285,323 people - 97% of the electorate of the nation registered to vote, it is going to be some turn out.  

So time for a few last minute thoughts.  

Health.  UK faces increasing NHS privatisation and there is little Scotland can do if we remain in union.  So said Harry Burns in the Sunday Herald.  Harry of course isn’t an ordinary person like you and I.  Professor of global public health at University of Strathclyde, and the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland from September 2005 to April 2014, I would think he knows what he is taking about.  Indeed, I think he is one of the most trusted people to have contributed to this debate.   If what he says is true, surely there can be only one way to vote.  

Economy.  And what of the economy?  Well, I always tend to put a bit more credence on the views of people who have put their money where their mouth is.  Unlike political parties who put our money where their mouth is.  So when Martin Gilbert, Chief Executive of Aberdeen Asset Management (including Scottish Widows Investment Partnership), backs the economy of an independent Scotland to be a success, I know the economy of an independent Scotland will not be at risk.  The entrepreneur, who co-founded the company in 1983 company which is one of the largest business organisations in Scotland with substantial holdings of over £350 billion, said to the BBC that “An independent Scotland would be a great success.”  Add Sir Brian Souter, Chairman of Stagecoach plc; Ralph Topping who retired last month as CEO of William Hill plc; Sandy Orr OBE, Founder of Mint Hotels; Jim McColl OBE, Chairman and CEO of Clyde Blowers plc; Mohammed Ramzan, Chairman, United Wholesale Grocers, alongside leading finance sector figures like Jim Spowart, Founder, Standard Life Bank and Intelligent Finance and Sir George Mathewson, Chairman, Toscafund.   I’m happy with them to know what’s best for our economy.

Shipbuilding.  Apparently  rUK won’t buy ships in a “foreign” country.  Well, perhaps someone better tell the USA that.  The UK buys US-built  Trident missile system and other assorted weaponry, vehicles and aircraft stateside. They will be disappointed to know the rUK orders are being cancelled.

Borders.  Well, there won’t really be any.  Look at the UK Ireland border.  A change in tarmac colour suffices.  The only way it could be an issue is if it’s made an issue by rUK.  

We could go on.  But afford me one more observation.

The Campaign.  Bad behaviour on both sides, of that there is no doubt.  The mindless vandalism of the people who painted out the No posters.  And the arm up the back tactics from Downing street to business leaders.  Let’s condemn them all.   But as Dr Tim Stanley said in today’s Telegraph, it was the No campaign’s grinding negativity and inability to look anything other than establishment orientated that was its failure.  "The message coming out of the No campaign has been far too focused on what Scotland is incapable of doing by itself (an insult to regional sic pride) and far too obsessed with wheeling out big international names to make its cause (Bill Clinton? Seriously?!)". The No campaign just never came out with a  positive vision, a point echoed by Andy Murray.  Better together is not exactly inspiring.  It just says, lets change nothing.

So will I vote with my head or my heart?  Well, put it this way, I wouldn’t want to wake up on Friday morning and find the Nation had voted Yes and then discover we couldn’t do it.  So hopefully this blog has shown some of the home work I’ve done.  It's been fun.  So now, draw your own conclusions.  

But for me, the Ayes have it, the Ayes have it.