It's official!

Reading between the lines in interviews over recent weeks it's been clear, but now the news is out in the open.

Doctor Who is back at 7pm on 31st March, for thirteen episodes. It will also be returning at Christmas and for a fourth (new) series in 2008.

And I commend these lupins to the house...

The budget today illustrated all that is wrong with the politics of taxation.
The fairest way of reducing taxes would be simply to raise the tax free threshold, so that the benefit is the same for rich and poor alike. But tax thresholds mean nothing to many people fixated on how many "pee in the pound" they pay. Where I work we're all above average when it comes to numeracy, so we soon worked out what tosh this was.

The Conservatives did similar things in the 80s and 90s, they cut allowances and other tax benefits that don't appear on many peoples radars. They could do that because people were misdirected towards the fact they were paying "fewer pee in the pound." Brown has effectively done the same. The 10% and 22% tax bands have been rationalized into one 20% band. So, yes, on the portion of income that was in the old 22% tax band, you are paying less tax. But on the portion of your income in the 10% band your income tax has doubled. Yes the band isn't very wide, but those on less than £18605 (thanks Ryan) will be losing more on the tax increase than they gain on the decrease.

Those on low incomes will not be the only ones to lose out. Unless I missed anything, the restructuring will mean charities will be only be able to claim 25% in gift aid instead of 28%. This means if the amount giftaided remains the same in real terms, the amount charities receive from the Inland Revenue will reduce by 10%. People will have to increase their donations by more than the 2% tax reduction to make up for this.

Gordon Brown is beginning to resemble Monty Python's Dennis Moore as played by John Cleese. To start with Moore robs the rich at gunpoint, and steels useless things like lupins in order to alleviate the suffering of the poor. In the end he gets so confused he ends up taking from the poor in order to give to the rich.

My worry here is threefold. One that those of us who see through the Chancellor's prestidigitation and speak out will be seen as pedants, geeks and weirdos by those who don't realise they are worse off. The second is that many of the people aware of how taxation works will be earning enough to make them better off, and be keeping quietly smug. The third being that this state of affairs was the intention of chancellor Moore.

Missing the point

I'd like to endorse the posts written by Anders Hanson and GingaNic.

I read a letter in yesterdays metro which totally missed this simple and obvious point.

As I stated earlier, it's the degree of the individual act of bigotry that makes it good or bad, not the topic of it. The letter said people should learn to deal with small minded abuse and not suffer from it. Which, taken out of context, is good advice. But the letter went on to imply that different kinds of bigotry hold different weights, just because of the topic. This is grade A nonsense.

Patrick Mercer is a grade A twit in condoning racism, but then so are those who are making fun of his statement of fact, that it is no worse to call someone a "black *******" than a "ginger *******".

It is not the topic of bigotry that makes it acceptable or unacceptable, it is the treatment that results from the bigotry. All bigotry, (excepting of course bigotry against the ignorant and bigoted), is unacceptable, whatever the reason. One shout of "black *******" is not in any way worse than one cry of "ginger *******" or "specky *******", and anyone suggesting otherwise needs to get a sense of perspective. However one cry of anything can and should be shrugged off. It's unlikely that the people Mercer was citing as crying racism were reacting to such isolated one-off taunts, but a consistent pattern of abuse.

I find it a bit worrying that some people who have condemned Mercer believe that if you exchange a racial group for a group identified by similar, but no racial, characteristics, abuse becomes somehow less bad. It's not.

I don't find Mercers suggestion that the taunts ginger soldiers receive come with greater or equal frequency and vehemence than those directed against black soldiers, credible and sensible, and his suggestion that racism is OK because others are treated equally abusively is abhorrent. Maybe I'm just a soft case who doesn't understand what it takes to make an army, but if this is what it takes I'm proud to be soft.

Reflecting Britain?

A while back, I added my name to a campaign aimed at trying to get more women and ethnic minorities elected to parliament. The reasoning was simple, rather than mess around with complicated and undemocratic short lists, if we simply have enough strong female and ethnic minority candidates putting themselves forward, then more will get selected, and more will get elected, and the Lib Dems will have done our bit in making the running of our country that bit better.

As it was (and possibly still is) few women were putting themselves forward. Fewer women than men have the competitive traits that drive people in politics, and many feel daunted by the whole process of getting elected, quite sensibly not wanting to put themselves through the wringer. There are plenty of people who have the qualities to make good politicians, but not the brass neck to get them there. And having thought through all that, it worries me. While we have so many white, middle class, men representing us in parliament who got there through their own ambition and bloodymindedness, do we have the right men representing us? OK that one is perhaps for another day.

Anyway, the Reflecting Britain solution was yet another that was so simple it was brilliant.
Actively encourage people from underrepresented sectors to put themselves forward. Seek out potential candidates and tell them they can succeed. Then give them training to give them the confidence and skills to get through selection. They proposed proper funding of the existing party organizations focussed on these areas. (I know of three women who would make great diamonds, but none of them are party political, unfortunately). I remember reading a letter from a Mr Hale of St Albans (no relation I presume) pointing out the biggest problem in appointing more female candidates is getting potential female candidates to chose, and these observations resonate with me.

So what happened? There appears to have been some success, with many women selected in winnable seats, but it also seems there is a bit of putting the cart before the horse. My understanding is that there are resources for constituencies that select candidates from underrepresented groups to fight the subsequent elections, but little help in getting the candidates to come forward in the first place. This seems to me to be putting the cart above the horse.

I'm also concerned that with the mixture of ambition, drive, slickness, and thickness of skin needed to get on in politics, that the white middle-class males we get in parliament may not necessarily be the best white middle-class males for the job. But we have more important things to worry about before we tackle that proble,

Lazy Blogging

Well I could be original, but why just rehash what everyone else has said.

So I enjoyed reading this post, think there is some good thinking going on here, and I found this post interesting.

Blowing my own trumpet

I do have the odd incisive post here. I often take a tack that few people have noticed, that may be only obliquely related to the zeitgeist, but many of the things I discuss still nonetheless important issues.

Some of this goes over peoples heads because I refuse to be patronising and take a shallower approach to my topics. Well, you can choose to change in order to get on, but I'm not currently heading for blog stardom, so for now I don't see any benefit in compromising my moral values.

Links

For no good reason, some recently enjoyed links.

The Republic of Hyde Park, written by a Leeds Councilor who has been acclaimed by our common friends as one of the brightest liberal minds they know.

And Bad Science one of the best blogs on the Internet, exposing media and political ignorance.

The latter has been a bit of a stress reliever recently.

Introducing Lapin

Lapin dries off
Originally uploaded by Biscit aka Simon J.

Here's an old friend of mine, Lapin. Pretty soon Lapin will be leaving me to join a new friend who I'm sure will love him as much as I did.

Lapin has been like a son to me. We don't share any genetic material, but I very much brought him into the world and made him the stuffed toy rabbit he is today.

Lapin leaves behind his sister Elephant, (no relation) who was instrumental in winning Leeds North West at the last general Election.

Unlike some other toys, my children will not be starting their own blogs!