George Osborne says we can't afford the welfare state. Here are some reasons why.

George Osborne says we can't afford the welfare state. Of course we can't afford it. £70bn pa in tax avoidance, tax cuts ... Someone has to pay for all that and the 147% pa profit made by the train companies. Fire sales of public assets. All those extra billionaires with tastes to match: £20K cocktails (£35,000 at Movida), £330K rounds of drinks, £49mn apartments planned at Battersea Power Station making residents of No 1 Hyde Park look like paupers, £32mn Ferraris, £6mn bras (see pic above), diamond encrusted everything. Not to mention the odd war (check out those politicians' arms portfolios).

According to The Sunday Times Rich List in 2010, after a short dip in the collective wealth of the top one thousand weathiest Brits in 2008, it went up by a third in one year, 30 per cent in 2009 in the wake of the economic crisis. That's over £77bn up to £333.5bn, the biggest annual increase in the 22-year history of The Sunday Times rich list. Worldwide, the 358 people with assets of more than $1bn were worth more than the combined annual income of 45 per cent of the world's population.

There were 447 billonaires in January 2013. The world's richest hundred people could end world hunger now.

Randeep Ramesh wrote in the Guardian in 2011:

"In Britain, a dramatic rise in inequality has been fuelled by the creation of a super-rich class. The (national wealth) share of the top 1% of income earners increased from 7(.01)% in 1970 to 14(.3)% in 2005. ... Just prior to the global recession, the OECD says the top 0.1% of highest earners – accounted for a remarkable 5% of total pre-tax income, a level of wealth-hoarding not seen since the second world war."

Michael Meacher wrote in his open letter to the press in 2012:

" ... the richest 1,000 people make up only 0.003% of the population and yet they have made £155bn extra in the past three years, in the depths of the recession. If they paid off the entire deficit they'd still have £30bn with which to console themselves. Their combined wealth is the highest in history: 1,000 individuals own £413bn, more than a third of Britain's GDP. Their increase in wealth has been £315bn over the past 15 years. Capital gains tax on this at the current 28% rate would yield £88bn, that's 70% of the entire deficit. And yet it's the poorest and weakest who are paying: 77% of the budget deficit is being recouped by public spending and benefit cuts. Only 23% comes from tax increases, and half of that is from VAT which we all pay and hits the poorest hardest. None of the tax increases are specifically aimed at the super-rich."

Not to mention that the Coalition government has borrowed more in three years than Labour did in 13: £430.072 billion compared to £429.975bn.

C'mon, Tamara Ecclestone has to pay for her half a million quid shelf of Birkin bags somehow.

Listen to The Super Rich with Aditya Chakrabortty, Kate Belgrave and Charles Shaar Murray on Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge, Resonance 104.4FM.

John Kampfner on the history of the super rich.

From Vice magazine: The Seven Reasons Why Super Rich British Tax Dodgers Don't End Up in Jail.

A 2014 report by the Equality Trust revealed that the poorest 10 percent of British households pay eight percent more of their income in all taxes than the richest; 43 percent compared to 35 percent. And that's before tax avoidance schemes have been taken into account. What the rich fail to put in, the rest of the country must cover in taxes like income tax and VAT.

What the Tory bottom-feeders and their Lib Dem low life human shield have done so far

Let's have a quick Tory tally this Easter weekend in case they come to bury bad news, not raise it. How's it going with the Ancien Regime and are we having fun yet?

Ever since they assumed power with the help of their Renfield Lib Dem crew, the unelected Tories have nicked from grannies, pasty-eaters, poor families, children, rough sleepers, college kids and the arts, while continuing to hack away at the NHS ... but they have cut their own taxes. O brave new world that has such people, innit! Noble George Osborne, Boris Johnson et al.

This holiday weekend, we learn that London Mayor Boris Johnson skimmed £5.3mn from the homeless budget, no-one knows what for or where it is.

Not content with raids on pensions and the Granny Tax, plans are afoot to tax pensioners at source in Granny Tax II — this time it's personal. Thus, a weekly pension of £107 miraculously turns into £86.

In a bit of a blur off the top of my head: Arts Council budget has been cut by 30 percent. The EMA £30 per week to college kids has gone. Cuts to services means that youth workers' jobs have been lost. Everything is going up in price despite corporate profits being at a 50-year high. Supermarkets have been caught diddling the public. A world-leading forensic lab has gone.

Anyone still bleating about anarchist Trenton Oldfield should really STFU and focus on where we all are right now because if you can weigh all this up and it's Oldfield's protest that makes you reach for your gun, then you have not been paying attention. Swallow the red pill because the thieving elite in charge is dismantling British society before our eyes.

There's no moral or intellectual content to Tory policy: money-making for their mates is all. Everything's up for grabs like the Russian cowboys' carve-up of state assets in the 1990s.

Not that I'm letting Labour off the hook, not when Tony and Cherie Blair (along with former health minister Alan Milburn) have their paws all over NHS privatisation. And certainly not when Jack Straw did what we all know he did on behalf of their Bush government friends and sent British subjects into rendition hell.

We are being run by some rather unpleasant people.

Tory cuts: How to solve the crisis in one easy move

Here's a wise and wonderful post from someone's Facebook I noted last month.

HOW TO SOLVE THE CRISIS IN ONE EASY MOVE

A report in the Independent shows that the richest 1,000 people in the UK could pay off the whole of the £159 billion public deficit tomorrow, just from the profits they have made last year out of the economic crisis.
The collective wealth of the country's 1,000 richest people rose 30% last year in the wake of the economic crisis.
Their combined wealth rose by more than £77bn to £333.5bn, the biggest annual increase in the 22-year history of the Sunday Times rich list.

Sadly, I can't find the report but if anyone can shed further light, it would be most appreciated.

Sunday Times rich list here.

George Monbiot on the Tories seeing this as a long-awaited opportunity.

UPDATE: I'd also like to point out that the left has been worse than fucking useless. Where is the debate? It's been business as usual for these phonies. One demo on the day of the cuts and one at the weekend? A bit late, don't you think? The "leaders" of the left want all the glory and will do none of the slog to ensure there's been a challenge in the media, so the government and the right-wing argument has set like concrete in the minds of the public. YOU DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO SET THE AGENDA!

Thanks to Bilus for the link to this report on taxing the rich to settle the deficit.

How the richest 1,000 could clear the deficit here

Tory cuts: How to solve the crisis in one easy move

Here's a wise and wonderful post from someone's Facebook I noted last month.

HOW TO SOLVE THE CRISIS IN ONE EASY MOVE

A report in the Independent shows that the richest 1,000 people in the UK could pay off the whole of the £159 billion public deficit tomorrow, just from the profits they have made last year out of the economic crisis.
The collective wealth of the country's 1,000 richest people rose 30% last year in the wake of the economic crisis.
Their combined wealth rose by more than £77bn to £333.5bn, the biggest annual increase in the 22-year history of the Sunday Times rich list.

Sadly, I can't find the report but if anyone can shed further light, it would be most appreciated.

Sunday Times rich list here.

George Monbiot on the Tories seeing this as a long-awaited opportunity.

UPDATE: I'd also like to point out that the left has been worse than fucking useless. Where is the debate? It's been business as usual for these phonies. One demo on the day of the cuts and one at the weekend? A bit late, don't you think? The "leaders" of the left want all the glory and will do none of the slog to ensure there's been a challenge in the media, so the government and the right-wing argument has set like concrete in the minds of the public. YOU DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO SET THE AGENDA!

Thanks to Bilus for the link to this report on taxing the rich to settle the deficit.

How the richest 1,000 could clear the deficit here

VAT rise as LibDems aid Tory attack on the poorest

It's official. The poorest ten per cent in Britain will see their shopping bills rise and lose the most as ConDem make up the deficit their banker friends caused by raising VAT to 20 percent and cutting our public services. Nick "Ramsay McClegg" Clegg just helped push through the most draconian budget in decades despite all their promises in the run-up to the election, and gave his party their Clause Four moment.

I listened to Vince Cable squirming last night on C4 News as he was quizzed over the LibDem election pledge not to hike VAT as it is a regressive tax that hits the poorest hardest. We were treated to the usual politicians' weasel words, "I may have said that but that's not what I meant". Humpty Dumpty can make words mean whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

I wonder how the LibDem party faithful feel now when you can search on the internet for "libdem vat election ad" and find the unequivocal image above plastered all over their websites. I wonder if there'll be a swift spate of deletions as this part of their bid for political power gets airbrushed out of history. Will it be like Chinese art during the Cultural Revolution, when a person's party loyalty could be measured by the size of the red tractor in their landscapes? In this case, the rebels feature it prominently, while the greasy-pole ascenders minimise or delete it altogether.

More weasel words as David Cameron learns from 1984 and mangles the English language, calling this budget "progressive" when all the evidence shows that it is no such thing.

How progressive is it to raise a tax where the richest ten percent pay one pound in every £25, while the poorest ten percent pay one in every £7? Not just VAT: by a ratio of four to one, the deficit is being paid for by those who did nothing to cause the recession. Why not raise top rates of tax? Even under Thatcher the top rate was 60%. The only crumb of comfort is the rise in the threshold where you start paying tax, but this still means that the poorest end up paying the most when all the changes are taken into account.

Child benefits have been frozen for three years and public departments cut by 25% , while Morgan Stanley joyfully declares the "Austerity Budget" a big win for business. The corporate tax rate falls 1% per year from 28% to 24% by 2013/2014 but a levy on the banks balance sheets rises to only 0.07% by 2012.

Despite a rise in Capital Gains tax by 10% to 28%, Morgan Stanley says:

In general, we thought this was a sensible, balanced and business-friendly budget, which is actually likely to result in an effective tax cut for UK PLC of c. £2.3bn by 2012/13.

And The Daily Telegraph reports the Planet Business rubbing its hands with glee:

Dismissing fears that increasing taxes and cutting public spending could send the country back into recession, the Institute of Directors (IoD) said the Chancellor had "faced up to the challenge", while the British Chambers of Commerce hailed the strategy as "courageous".

Moustache-twirling, bean-counting, avaricious creeps, the lot of them. But this is to be expected of the Conservatives because this is what they do and that is why more than two thirds of the electorate voted left of centre. In empowering them, Clegg has just crapped over everything the LibDems are supposed to stand for.

We all know by now that 23 out of 29 members of the cabinet are millionaires, including Clegg. One of them is George Gideon Oliver Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer who gave us yesterday's budget, and heir to the wallpaper brand of Osborne and Little. One of the blizzard of tweets yesterday wished for 100% tax on inherited wallpaper fortunes. I've always disliked the company's bland tasteless metallic nouveau-riche designs (explains a lot) and I'd be happy just to see him take a pasting and then get hung.

And a moment of silence for poor old Billy Bragg, a decent man criminally misled by his own wishful thinking.

VAT rise as LibDems aid Tory attack on the poorest

It's official. The poorest ten per cent in Britain will see their shopping bills rise and lose the most as ConDem make up the deficit their banker friends caused by raising VAT to 20 percent and cutting our public services. Nick "Ramsay McClegg" Clegg just helped push through the most draconian budget in decades despite all their promises in the run-up to the election, and gave his party their Clause Four moment.

I listened to Vince Cable squirming last night on C4 News as he was quizzed over the LibDem election pledge not to hike VAT as it is a regressive tax that hits the poorest hardest. We were treated to the usual politicians' weasel words, "I may have said that but that's not what I meant". Humpty Dumpty can make words mean whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

I wonder how the LibDem party faithful feel now when you can search on the internet for "libdem vat election ad" and find the unequivocal image above plastered all over their websites. I wonder if there'll be a swift spate of deletions as this part of their bid for political power gets airbrushed out of history. Will it be like Chinese art during the Cultural Revolution, when a person's party loyalty could be measured by the size of the red tractor in their landscapes? In this case, the rebels feature it prominently, while the greasy-pole ascenders minimise or delete it altogether.

More weasel words as David Cameron learns from 1984 and mangles the English language, calling this budget "progressive" when all the evidence shows that it is no such thing.

How progressive is it to raise a tax where the richest ten percent pay one pound in every £25, while the poorest ten percent pay one in every £7? Not just VAT: by a ratio of four to one, the deficit is being paid for by those who did nothing to cause the recession. Why not raise top rates of tax? Even under Thatcher the top rate was 60%. The only crumb of comfort is the rise in the threshold where you start paying tax, but this still means that the poorest end up paying the most when all the changes are taken into account.

Child benefits have been frozen for three years and public departments cut by 25% , while Morgan Stanley joyfully declares the "Austerity Budget" a big win for business. The corporate tax rate falls 1% per year from 28% to 24% by 2013/2014 but a levy on the banks balance sheets rises to only 0.07% by 2012.

Despite a rise in Capital Gains tax by 10% to 28%, Morgan Stanley says:

In general, we thought this was a sensible, balanced and business-friendly budget, which is actually likely to result in an effective tax cut for UK PLC of c. £2.3bn by 2012/13.

And The Daily Telegraph reports the Planet Business rubbing its hands with glee:

Dismissing fears that increasing taxes and cutting public spending could send the country back into recession, the Institute of Directors (IoD) said the Chancellor had "faced up to the challenge", while the British Chambers of Commerce hailed the strategy as "courageous".

Moustache-twirling, bean-counting, avaricious creeps, the lot of them. But this is to be expected of the Conservatives because this is what they do and that is why more than two thirds of the electorate voted left of centre. In empowering them, Clegg has just crapped over everything the LibDems are supposed to stand for.

We all know by now that 23 out of 29 members of the cabinet are millionaires, including Clegg. One of them is George Gideon Oliver Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer who gave us yesterday's budget, and heir to the wallpaper brand of Osborne and Little. One of the blizzard of tweets yesterday wished for 100% tax on inherited wallpaper fortunes. I've always disliked the company's bland tasteless metallic nouveau-riche designs (explains a lot) and I'd be happy just to see him take a pasting and then get hung.

And a moment of silence for poor old Billy Bragg, a decent man criminally misled by his own wishful thinking.