Are we prepared for anything?

 

"You all are the weakest line. Goodbye and Good riddance"

We're not prepared for the hot weather, the rail strikes, the chaos at some of our airports, the coming winter and the energy shortfall. We're certainly not prepared for the next Prime Minister voted in by a grossly under representative Conservative Party membership. 

I haven't watched the TV debates, there's enough low brow programming as it is. I thought there was a very sensible proposal from a Tory MP: the Conservative Party members shouldn't have the final vote. His argument was that the Tory MPs (and the votes they collected in the 2019 election) were more representative of the wider electorate that 150k signed up members. I found that argument appealing until I realised that if an election were to be held now - many of those Tory MPs would no longer be in office. They and their voters represent the past, before Brexit and its disasters, Covid and the Gov't's disastrous slow start and inflation etc, etc. And we know there will be no election any time soon after a new PM is chosen - I wonder why.

One thing we are prepared for is tax cuts and we'll get them never mind who wins the contest. I think tax cuts are fine if they're targeted. Specifically reducing taxes for the poorest ( or handing them more money). I'm not, however, in favour of across the board tax cuts - VAT, income tax rates since that usually means the better off pull away once again from the poorest. I'd tax wealth more heavily rather than earnings. ( I'd introduce a special Accountants tax rate of 90% on the tax savings they helped their clients achieve as well as a Truth tax on the media in all its guises) 

One of our problems is lack of investment by the state in health, education, housing, the environment etc (all those "woke" things the ultra conservatives talk about). We need to spend more money on those things - forget about efficiency savings and growing the economy. Recent and not so recent history has shown savings very rarely materialise along with growth. If we want to improve those state provided services ( if you think we don't or shouldn't that's a different debate) then we need to spend money. We could borrow, we could put up interest rates to attract increased capital flows into the UK to fund both investment and tax cuts. Neither would be sensible I'd suggest. Borrowing comes at a significant cost especially in a period of inflation and rising interest rates, besides lumbering future generations. Capital inflows can reverse.

We should be prepared to pay for the services we believe we deserve and are told by politicians we do deserve. If we're not prepared to meet the bill then we need to be told what that will mean in terms of service delivery, and general quality of life, deterioration. Maybe better education, better opportunities, a cleaner, more equable environment is worth fewer overseas holidays, one rather than two cars per household etc. 

Tax increases ( not tax cuts) would help redistribute wealth from people like me to our neighbours who, through no fault of their own, struggle to pay for essentials, live in substandard housing and have fewer life chances. 

Besides the selfishness of tax cuts in the case of the well off - they don't do what they claim they do. Deliver growth, increase productivity. More money in  the pocket doesn't translate into growth - it'll  lead to greater consumption and the risk of higher prices, higher inflation because our moribund economy won't meet the increased demand. Leading to higher interest rates which will suck out of the economy the very money the tax cuts added.

I think we need more taxes not less, so I'm not interested in any of these tax cutting candidates standing to replace  the much lamented late leader of the Conservative Party.