RED ALL OVER
This is the headline of the Times after the latest Budget. One of the right-wing pretend not-tabloids (Express or Mail) has the headline THEY’VE RUINED BRITAIN, no doubt to chime nicely with the upsurge of nationalism on St George’s Day. A cartoon in one or other paper (I’m not going to buy one, am I?) has a cartoon with Gordon Brown holding a banner proclaiming “TAX THE RICH”.
Of course, the hilarious thing is that in the right-wing consensus that passes for ‘common sense’ in the UK (or at least in the right-wing (there, I said it again) press), this is supposed to be a bad thing. Two quotes from the Times’ front page story:
“The richest 2 percent of the working population will bear the brunt of measures”
“Mr Darling [the Chancellor]…felt that it was right for the better-off to shoulder the burden, but Labour’s claim to be the party of aspiration will suffer.”
Well, good. Labour (as given away a little by the name) used to be the party of Labour. Not the party of the top 2 percent of earners (who don’t necessarily ‘work’) or the ‘better-off’. It seems that after 12 years in power, Labour has passed something starting to resemble a Labour budget. Of course, it’s nowhere near redistributive enough, but a start. It has only done so in what the Treasury Chief Secretary called “exceptional circumstances” i.e. that the UK’s financial service industry-based economy has been hit hard by the surplus of debt backed by no actually existing money at all, the bursting of the giant bubble on which the majority of the UK’s GDP was based.
If the UK’s culture of aspiration is supposed to be based on everyone only getting a job because thy believe that they can be in the top 2 percent of owners, then that culture and that aspiration is a ludicrous myth. I don’t believe for a second that anyone will be put off earning money in case they might reach the stellar wealth of the celebrities, footballers, the Duke of Westminster or Elton John. It’s just a pile of bullshit, or if you prefer, an obfuscation based on discursive constructions designed to divert attention from actually existing conditions. The kind of thing that used to be called ideology.
What will this massive, Robin Hood-style attack on those shining beacons of enterprise, entrepreneurship, hard graft and go-getting competitiveness (a.k.a. “greed”) mean in terms of detail? The Times spells it out:
“About 350,000 people who earn more than £150,000 a year face a triple hit of charges…On average they will be £80 a week worse off”
“A further 750,000 people who earn more than £100,000 a year will…be about £40 a week worse off”
Well, again, good. According to my calculator, £150,000 a year, even with 50% tax taken off, is still £1,442 a week. More than I earn in a month. Take away this £80 and you have ££1,362. I can see how this might be a struggle to live on.
£100,000 a year at 40% tax is £1,153 a week. Again, more than I earn in a month. Take away £40 and you have £1,113. Poor fuckers. So these 1.1M people can buy one less meal in a restaurant a week so that the rest of us don’t have to go without food, heat, or other essentials. My heart bleeds.
Add the public outrage over the highest earners, and the fact that some of the measures in the Budget specifically address the pensions of the richest, and Labour seems to have done something sensible for once. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of NEW Labour. But can you imagine what would have happened if we had had 12 years of Labour policies like that? We might have had an economy that was less damaged by, and better able to weather, the death throes of capitalism.
I think the Express has the headline RETURN OF THE CLASS WAR.
Well, good.