Adam Lent

Public debate in Britain has very rapidly become dominated by an obsession with cutting state spending.  Not only has Cameron made the notion of swingeing cuts to reduce public debt his sole offer to the electorate, David Davis has now waded in with a list of bits of the public sector to chop.

We should be very worried that while UK politicians go into short-term penny-pinching mode, other countries are developing a vision which will make them the new, innovative, competitive economies of the future. 

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• The ‘brain drain’ scare tactic should be ignored
  Paul Sagar at Liberal Conspiracy argues that the 50p tax brain drain scare probably won’t happen, and even if it does it probably won’t be that big, and even if it is it probably won’t make any difference, and even if it did we’d probably actually want them gone anyway.
  (tags: 50ptax)

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Owen Tudor

There’s  a fantastic letter in the Financial Times today by Simon Hallett, who has bucked the trend of people likely to be affected by the new 50p tax rate for those on over £150,000 a year. Since the budget, the FT has been full of articles about how greedy rich people will feel the pain of punitive taxation (sic), and how, in an act of childish pique, they plan to make us ‘suffer’ by leaving the country (I hope my sarcasm is coming over clearly enough here).

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• RIBAJOURNAL.COM – Vote for the RIBA Journal/Schüco Stirling of Stirlings
  The TUC's Congress House headquarters has been nominated for the ‘Stirling of Stirlings’ architecture prize – a prestigious one-off award being run by RIBA, the Royal Institute of British Architects. We’re shortlisted in the early modernism section covering 1934-1958. There is an on-line vote, and of course it would be very unfair to encourage anyone to vote for us. Nor would be it very grown up to note that the CBI's headquarters isn't included.
  (tags: architecture CongressHouse RIBA TUC)
• UK Parliament – Early Day Motions By Details
  A new EDM calling for an extension to the remit of the Gangmaster's Licensing Authority
  (tags: vulnerableworkers migrantworkers)

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Nigel Stanley

Alistair Darling has robustly defended the new 50 per cent tax rate to the Institute of Directors this morning. He didn’t get a very warm reception for this. I doubt whether he will be surprised. Their Director-General Miles Templeman has made the predictable criticisms that it will not yield very much and drive people out of the country – the “vain drain” as it has been described.

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• New cultures & the post-bureaucratic age
  Another contradiction in David Cameron's speech from Chris Dillow
• Scandanavian Social Democracy = Excellent Business Climate | Inclusionist
  It turns out that regulation doesn't destroy economies and that Denmark is best for business
  (tags: Employment law)
• Women take a back seat in David Cameron’s Tory party – Times Online
  The Times reports on the new woman-free Tory front bench. There is now not a single woman in David Cameron's economic team.
  (tags: women Conservatives)

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Adam Lent

Stephen Byers has attacked the Government for introducing the 50p tax band for those earning over £150,000 as a “cynical, political” move that serves no wider economic or fiscal purpose. 

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Janet Williamson

In a useful and timely contribution to the financial crisis debate, PIRC – the Pensions Investment Research Consultants – has published a manifesto outlining its recommendations for reform of corporate governance and capital markets.

PIRC recognises that alongside a catastrophic failure of financial regulation, the financial crisis represents a failure of corporate governance, and its analysis makes a welcome change from the focus on the (admittedly very important) issues of credit, liquidity and financing that have dominated the pages of the Financial Times and other broadsheets in their analysis of the crisis.

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• The national roll-out of a money guidance service could not come at a more urgent time
  A little noticed progressive policy in the budget package

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Nigel Stanley

David Cameron’s proclamation that we are now in the age of austerity will please much of his grassroots. The small state right may be in a minority in the electorate, but they remain strong in the media and among those Conservative core voters who hanker for a return to Mrs Thatcher (though actually she spent and taxed rather a lot – much of it to do with the costs of unemployment at a time when benefits were more generous.)

The intended trap for the Conservatives in the budget was the new 50p tax rate for those earning over £150,000, but such an obvious snare is easy to avoid (though there is perhaps some fun to be had – as William Keegan does – in asking why won’t they repeal a tax that they don’t think will raise serious money). But there is a much more subtle – and unintended – difficulty as well.

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