This tweet was the first I’d heard of it.
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The Leave campaign have helpfully reminded the good people of the UK that if the UK were to leave the EU, it would be possible to eliminate VAT on domestic heating. This is one of many ills of the monstrous regime of Value Added Tax, which bring with it a gruesomely complex web of regulations and case law, quietly throttling economic activity throughout the EU. In fact, if we left the EU, we would not need to have VAT at all. There would of course be an even bigger hole in the public finances without VAT revenue, but it would be an opportunity to simplify taxation, reduce rates and make an improvement to most people’s standard of living. VAT was a modest 8% when Mrs Thatcher came to power, having promised not to double VAT, she allowed her Chancellor, Sir Geoffrey Howe, to hike VAT to 15%, which had been the plan all along.
I recall reading musings in the press in the 1980s to the effect that moving from direct to indirect taxation was an improvement in terms of liberty. Now at least there is talk of removing some things from VAT. Even in the dying days of the last Labour government, there was a backhanded acknowledgment that reducing taxes is good, when the rate of VAT was lowered from 17.5% to 15% for a year, (with howls of indignation from the Conservatives and Lib Dems) before it was hiked again to its current (Standard) rate of 20%. For some reason, as part of the ‘Single Market’, VAT has to be levied on goods and services in line with EU law at rates that seem to be between 17 and 27%. Quite how this helps free trade is, frankly, opaque. However, as a rule of thumb, the crappier the government, the higher the VAT. May 31st, 2016 | 35 comments - (Comments are closed)
 A common complaint made by Remainers is that Brexiteers constantly say wrong things about what the EU actually does and actually demands. I recall an entire round of the TV quiz show QI, presided over by the lordly Stephen Fry, devoted to exposing such fabrications. Bendy bananas, rules about rubbish disposal, that kind of thing. I can’t recall what all the alleged EU meddlings – there were about half a dozen of them – were. But I do clearly recall the QI verdict that came at the end of the round. Which of these claims is true, and which false?, asked Fry, with a tremendous air of impartiality. All, he subsequently announced, were false. The Brexiteers just do not get their facts right. They are wrong about bendy bananas, etc. etc. Therefore, the clear implication followed, the Brexiteers are wrong about everything, and Britain should Remain, in the EU. I don’t trust QI about things like this. At the very least, I suspect that several of these situations were more complicated than Fry said, but that is not my central point here. Even supposing that QI had got all its facts right, I assert that this sort of confusion, rampant on both sides of this argument rather than just on the one side, is a major fault of the EU itself, at least as much as it is a fault of those who criticise, or for that matter who praise, the EU. Such confusion is built into the very way that the EU operates. Someone proposes some new EU rule or regulation. If it is vehemently objected to, the proposers pull back, often claiming as they retreat that they “never intended” what they intended and will have another go at doing later when the fuss has died down. If, on the other hand – as is much more usual – nobody objects, the rule or regulation goes through, with no discussion. No wonder nobody knows what the hell all these rules consist of. They consist of mostly of those rules that have never been objected to by anyone, and hence never even talked about by anyone, except those who proposed the rules and who will profit from them in some way. The Remainers say that us Brexiteers should become better acquainted with all these rules, that have never been discussed. I say that all this confusion, inherent in the nature of the EU and ineradicable, is yet another reason for Britain to (Br)exit. Discuss. And while discussing, note that any disagreements concerning the facts of what the EU does will only serve to confirm how right I am. May 26th, 2016 | 36 comments - (Comments are closed)
As if Brexit the Movie needed a counter, news reaches us of what appears to be a co-ordinated campaign amongst the ‘Luvvies’ (an affectionate (?) term for those who act or have acted for a living etc.) to implore us to remain in the EU. By their friends shall ye know them.
Well that is quite a remarkable claim. Would Shakespeare have produced better plays if the Spanish Armada had won? Have the Luvvies unleashed a Hellburner into the Leave campaign’s flotilla of arguments? Who said anything about ‘walking away‘? Aren’t we quite happy where geography has put us? But there is reputedly an economic angle:
Good luck with tariffs on theatrical productions, and streaming. A bit of balance in the article from Lord (Michael) Dobbs, a Conservative peer and author.
I’m sure that Soviet and East German Culture owed a lot to the Central Committee, but let’s not go there. May 20th, 2016 | 30 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Shadow Europe minister, Pat Glass, has had a bad day. According to “Politics Home”:
Echoes of Gordon Brown’s encounter with Gillian Duffy it might have, but this was not a case of an “open mic”. Ms Glass did not have Gordon Brown’s excuse: like Emily Thornberry, she chose to say what she did to a mass audience. [Later edit: Commenter Cal has pointed out that accounts differ on that point. She may have thought the interview was over. But as Cal also says, it’s revealing that she felt free to express herself in those terms to BBC reporters.] I would guess that the insult to Sawley, and by extension to all those places like Sawley that parliamentarians never visit except when a vote draws near, is a bigger vote loser than insulting one man. She made it clear that the stops on her campaign trail mean so little to her that she could not even be bothered to remember their names. Anyone who has been embarrassed by forgetting a name might have some sympathy with that, until Ms Glass compounds the offence by making it clear that she regards her presence in such a place as a privilege that can be withdrawn as a punishment. May 19th, 2016 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
It is quite possible the REMAIN side will win the vote regarding the UK’s membership of the sclerotic regulatory suicide club called the EU. This would be a horrendous outcome in my view, but there is something to keep in mind. The EU will be rocked by crisis in the future, that is a certainly, because it is intrinsically unstable. And that means even if the UK is still an EU member when that happens, the LEAVE/REMAIN vote can also happen again. They have to win every single time. We only have to win once. May 18th, 2016 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
Just spotted this splendid summary of the dire consequences of Brexit:
Check out the rest on Raedwald. May 15th, 2016 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
But why should those of us who want to leave the EU feel any obligation to accept the particular vision of the UK’s future offered by Gove or anyone else? Why the insistence that we couldn’t vote to leave the EU without a clearly worked out plan about what happens next? The referendum question boils down to the question of control: who decides what the UK should do in relation to the economy, immigration, trade rules or anything else? Those things should be decided in Westminster, not Brussels. May 13th, 2016 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am watching Brexit: The Movie. I am only about half an hour in and I am learning a lot. I did not realise how little power the European Parliament had or how many different councils and presidents there were. The tone is measured and reasonable, rather than polemical and raving, which makes it useful and easy to share widely. I understand that it focuses on economic issues, which might even change the minds of those who think anti-EU sentiment is confined to xenophobics. The production standards are very high, too. I wonder if it will get any publicity in the mainstream press. May 12th, 2016 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)
There are many, many reasons why the UK economy remains skittish and the global recovery extremely patchy – and almost all of them predate not only this referendum campaign but even the announcement the UK electorate was to be given its first say on our relationship with Europe since the mid-1970s. Yet, while real investors fret about the prospect of another sub-prime style meltdown, a lack of genuine banking reform, the implosion of the eurozone, the lunacy that is negative nominal interest rates and now, we’re told, “helicopter money” – a kind of quantitative easing on steroids – it suits a wide variety of political and financial interests to blame every blip in the British and broader European economy on “the prospect of Brexit”. May 9th, 2016 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
Regular commenter Niall Kilmartin started writing this poem as part of the Erdogan poetry competition but found his thoughts turning in a different direction: A Poem of Two Chancellors Though Erdogan is just the man to merit mocking poetry, ”The best man for the job? Why, choose a woman!” – that’s a bitter joke Think you, if most of them don’t kill, it will not be like World War Two? At least I can be glad most Jews you rule can flee abroad (absurd These two lines made the poem for me:
Over-fearful? I would be glad to think so. I usually do think so. But the quickest of internet searches throws up recent news stories like this one from Spiegel Online International, “Skepticism of German-Israeli Friendship Growing in Berlin”, and this one from Deutsche Welle (DW), “Immigrants Beyond the Law”. The latter story says that migrants from warzones such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are not particularly criminal but says, ‘It is a completely different story with immigrants from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia though. “Activity quotas” for North Africans are no less than 40 percent.’ Wow. You would never guess from the strapline and first few paragraphs of the DW story that it contained such a statistic as that. Such evasion is typical and does much to increase mistrust. May 4th, 2016 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am at Brian Micklethwait’s place for his latest Friday. This argument against leaving the EU was made (I am literally live blogging, this is breaking news!): The good thing about Brussels is that it is impossible to be emotionally attached to it. This weakens the state. Interesting discussion is now ensuing. And we have not even got to the speaker yet. April 29th, 2016 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
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