The Tory manifesto was artfully targeted at making everyone a weeny bit richer, and some a lot richer. It offered to raise the income tax threshold to £12,500 (though the rich get more from that than the poor), to lower tax on those on the minimum wage, to raise the higher rate income tax threshold […]
Posts Tagged ‘Inequality’
Aspiration for all would be fine, but neither the Tories nor the Blairites will deliver it
May 14th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.
1,000 richest Britons worth £547bn, 13m others now in poverty, half in work
May 1st, 2015 by Michael Meacher.Murdoch’s Sunday Times has just published its Rich List for 2015 which shows that the richest 1,000 persons based in Britain now have wealth valued at £547.1bn. That works out at an average level of wealth of nearly £550 millions per person, though there are wide variations between the threshold level of £100 millions at the […]
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At the ballot box, we’re all equal for a moment – let’s vote to keep it that way
Apr 30th, 2015 by Jon Trickett.Tonight I came home to find my ballot paper waiting in the letter box. Tomorrow I will be able to cast my postal vote for my Labour candidate (me as it happens). In voting I will be joined by millions of others. Stop and reflect a minute. Because my vote only has the same weight as yours and […]
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Britain’s pay: from £28m 8 weeks into a job to £0 a week on zero hours contracts
Apr 19th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.Some of Ed Miliband’s most popular announcements have been his pledge to abolish non-dom status and to hunt down aggressive tax abusers , not only making them pay up what is owed, but also a fine of an equal amount on top. He would be even more popular if he found a formula to deal […]
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Poverty is the real difference between school attainment levels
Apr 1st, 2015 by Dave Watson.The Scottish Government’s Parentzone website has published data on the performance of school leavers. The Daily Record highlighted how these figures show a shocking class divide between the wealthiest and least well off areas of Scotland. This is Dave Watson’s opinion piece in the Daily Record that ran alongside the article. In it he argues that the difference […]
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£12bn more cuts will crucify poorest in society and are not necessary
Mar 31st, 2015 by Michael Meacher.So the Tories are able to tell us that Labour plans to cut the deficit (which they have never seen) will increase costs by precisely £3,028 per household, a figure now definitively rubbished by the Institute of Fiscal Studies and which the Tory party chairman has now admitted is mere “guesswork”. Yet they can’t tell […]
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Osborne fiddles the figures – again – on living standards
Mar 21st, 2015 by Michael Meacher.In a budget speech spent firefighting against his opponents’ attacks, Osborne’s most eye-catching claim was that household incomes are now higher in 2015 than in 2010. However like everything else this slippery chancellor does, nothing should be taken at face value. And once again the spin he has put on the facts is wildly misleading. […]
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Austerity and economic failure to continue
Mar 20th, 2015 by Michael Burke.The Tory election campaign is based on the claimed success of the government’s economic policy, as the hype around the latest budget confirms. In reality the Tories’ economic record has been unprecedentedly poor. Their economic policy is not primarily aimed at increasing growth or prosperity but rather at effecting a fundamental change in the economy […]
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Osborne’s budget message: government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich
Mar 17th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.Osborne’s shamelessness knows no bounds. Having generated the most polarised society in class terms since the Edwardian era, he has the gall now to be focusing Tory electoral appeal on a brazen tax giveaway confined to the extremely rich. It’s an outrage that with only 50 days to the election he’s now giving notice that, […]
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Performance-related pay is a myth to excuse greed
Mar 5th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.It has been reported today that Bob Dudley, chief executive of BP, received a 25% rise in total pay and bonuses last year even though shareholder returns deteriorated and company profits fell back significantly because of the halving of the world price of crude. According to BP’s annual report published yesterday, his overall pay rose […]
