Posts Tagged ‘Equality’

Why a tax cut for millionaires is “a good thing”

by Michael Meacher.

Yesterday Parliament debated the 50p tax cut for those earning (or paying themselves) more than £150,000 a year, or £3,000 a week, all the way up to the chief executives of the FTSE-100 companies whose remuneration package today averages £4,80,000 a year, which works out at £93,300 a week. The Tories are in favour, and it’s […]

The state should rid itself of its turbulent church

by Jon Lansman.

Equality and religous freedom. Two fundamental rights, belief in which we share, at least in principle, with the Tory party. Maria Miller, Culture Secretary and minister for equalities, may well have our sympathy, then, in urging the Church of England to think again on women bishops. Some MPs, of all major parties, led by former […]

Reduced spending power is what could finish this government

by Michael Meacher.

Real personal disposable income is arguably the most important index of economic welfare. When families’ disposable income is going up, even if by only a little, there is broad, even if only minimal, contentment. But when it starts to go down, especially if the trend continues to go down for any significant length of time, […]

Who are the super-rich beneficiaries from this Budget?

by Michael Meacher.

There can be no doubt that the nation’s revulsion against awarding a £10,000 tax break to the top 1% of earners and no less than a £40,000 tax cut to 14,000 millionaires was dramatically sharpened by the fact that it was funded by depriving 4.5 million pensioners of £83 a week. But even if that […]

All the nastiest Tory prejudices you’ve always detested will be in this Budget

by Michael Meacher.

No doubt Osborne will never dare use his infamous phrase again “We’re all in it together”. If it was ever true, it was only till the rich wanted out, and as we now see in the run-up to this budget, that was almost immediately as soon as it had the slightest adverse impact on themselves.

Who are the rich that Osborne is pandering to?

by Michael Meacher.

To give a tax break to people on more than £150,000 a year when the rest of the population, and above all the bottom half, are on the rack for a decade of austerity takes some doing. It shows more acidly than anything else could the sheer psychopathic mania of the ruling Tory elite for […]

Tax cuts for the rich, benefit cuts & eviction for the poor

by Michael Meacher.

If Osborne wanted to be as provocative as possible (which he probably does, to appease the Tory right, his future backers for the leadership), he could hardly put together a more incendiary mix than cutting tax rates for the ultra-rich in the budget and then, 2 weeks later, impose swingeing cuts on some of the […]

50p income tax? The rich should count their blessings

by David Osler.

Of course the 50p top rate of income is more important for its symbolism than its efficacy. The free market right should stop griping and thank their lucky stars that the last Labour government lacked the political courage required to reintroduce genuinely progressive taxation. If only they would count their blessings instead of counting their […]

Better to be a banker than on workfare if you do something wrong

by Michael Meacher.

Penalties, as the current bonus season reveals all too clearly, are still a matter of class. If you’re a young person 16-24 on a work experience programme promoted as ‘voluntary’, and you drop out even for good reason, you stood to lose two weeks’ benefit (until the government was forced to back down by public […]

As Hester still gets £6m bonuses, the utterly destitute lose Social Fund

by Michael Meacher.

There are two different universes at Westminster, completely disconnected. One is about Hester who has sacked thousands and still presides over RBS languishing at a share price only half of what taxpayers paid for in the bailout, but who has already on top of his £550,000 salary (£10,575 a week) gained £11m in bonuses and […]

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