5:19pm Thursday 27th November 2008
By Tomasz Johnson
Amid the furore over the billions the Government will borrow to fund its tax give-away this week, Lib Dem treasury spokesman Vince Cable repeated his oft-voiced call to end the tax breaks for the super rich.
Why this does not get a more sympathetic hearing, or form a much stronger part of the debate over ways to provide a cash-boost to the economy, is almost beyond me.
National Insurance will go up, the to rate of tax will rise to 45 per cent, but the foreign oligarchs who made their roubles plundering state industries and hedge fund managers who made their dollars betting on our economic downfall will remain untouched.
I say almost beyond me, because it’s quite clear that both the Conservative and Labour parties are both in cahoots with the super rich - just ask Lords Levy or Ashcroft - it you can find him.
One of the arguments for letting them off the hook is that if we start to tax them at anywhere near the level we plebs get taxed, they’d clear off to Dubai, Cannes or wherever else they can park their superyachts.
Mr Cable's response to this was: let them go.
One of the arguments used to justify the massive wages paid to public sector executives is that if they were not offered such lucrative wages, they would clear off to the private sector.
I say let them go too.
If any area of the job market should offer fairness to its employees, then it should be the public sector. In truth it is as divided, if not more so, than any.
Teaching assistants at special needs schools and care assistants - although many of them have now been outsourced - have to scrape by on literally a fraction of the wages afforded to executives.
And then there are the consultants, more often than not from Pricewaterhouse Coopers, who earn a tidy wedge of the tax payers’ penny for their advice.
Editorial comments in the Times Series have before argued for constraint in the allowances given to councillors.
Next week the general functions committee will consider a review of the pay grades for senior executives in Barnet Council, 13 ot whom already earn in excess of £100,000 a year.
As new blogger councillor Jack Cohen points out this week, the details of the review are subject to “commercial sensitivity” - that phrase again.
Anyone reckon they’ll be taking a pay cut?
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