Russell and Carol - hayle and hearty

Interesting article by David Mitchell

Which brings me to George Osborne. "Just as we should never balance the budget on the backs of the poor, so it is an economic delusion to think you can balance it only on the wallets of the rich," he said in his speech to the Conservative party conference last week. I think he's misunderstood the whole balancing metaphor. The challenge for a chancellor isn't to balance the budget on something but just to balance it – to make it balance.

...

He plans to allow companies to give their employees the option of forfeiting some employment rights in exchange for shares, any rise in the value of which would then be exempt from capital gains tax. There's a small problem with this, which is that it opens exactly the sort of tax loophole he claims to be trying to close, where ageing male company directors could avoid their capital gains liability by waiving their maternity rights. And there's a big one, too, which is that it's metaphorically letting off a dirty bomb in the middle of a class war.

"You don't need those pesky rights," the chancellor seems to be saying. "You don't need cover against unfair dismissal or redundancy – that's for the sort of loser who gets unfairly dismissed or made redundant. That's not you, you don't need flexible working rights – you want to get on. You just need money, a stake in the company. Come over to the other side – join the strong: the shareholders, the rights withholders." As David Cameron put it in his own conference speech: "I'm not here to defend privilege, I'm here to spread it." But you can't spread it to everyone or it ceases to be a privilege and becomes a right. This policy, and Cameron's attitude, isn't about healing Britain's social divides, it's about recruiting more people to their side of them.

and interesting comment

• Temulkar

  14 October 2012 12:19AM

  At first they go for the easiest prey,
  With the fewest defenses erected;
  With no powerful lobbies to fight for their rights,
  People these days who live unprotected.

  But you're not in this grouping, you've plenty to eat,
  Don't frequent food banks at month's close;
  So you figure, this really is quite sad, that's true,
  But heck, it's no skin off my nose.

  Then cuts in health care, for the aged, the poor,
  But you're not yet old, nor quite poor;
  So you shrug, figure maybe there's no other way,
  And such cuts you can safely ignore

  Next vets take their hits, college student aid falls,
  And maybe you're getting to feel,
  The axe is beginning to chop down your way,
  This reality, though, ain't quite real.

  Then finally it's your turn, to share in the pain,
  To join with the gang on this queue;
  In order the richest can more wealth pile on,
  You'll pay for this trickle up, too.

  Michael Silverstein.

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