Anyone who regularly peruses the left-wing press in this country (and I congratulate them on their intestinal fortitude) would be left with the impression that Britain is rapidly turning into Galt’s Gulch, a rugged, darwinian, freewheeling gold-rush society where tax collectors have been beaten into plough-shares and the shrivelled remnants of the government have been consigned to a mildew-ridden basement room beneath Whitehall with a second-hand computer and a solitary, naked lightbulb.
You can hardly flick through the pages of any centre-left journal without being assailed by some chest-beating, polemical op-ed excoriating New Labour for abandoning socialist principles in favour of ‘market forces’ and ‘Thatcherism’. They bewail the alleged unstoppable growth of ‘free market mania’ and demand that the government return to the old agenda of wealth redistribution and public ownership immediately if not sooner.
Those of us living on Planet Earth don’t quite see it that way. Like the insensitive dolts we doubtless are, we have noticed the extra chunks of GDP that have been grabbed by the government every year since 1997. Nor has it escaped our attention that the ‘Careers Section’ of the Guardian has grown as thick as a telephone directory, replete with advertisements for government sinecures.
Well, boorish we may be but it appears that us Earthlings are right:
Chancellor Gordon Brown’s tax increases are threatening the competitiveness of the UK economy by increasing the burden on entrepreneurs, according to Forbes Global.
Although France maintains its position at the top of the misery index, Forbes detects “an important change in the Misery Index for the UK. For the first time, and surprisingly, it is rising by more than France’s Misery Index is decreasing.” The magazine blames increased social security taxes for this development, but says it will still take many years for the UK to “catch up” with France.
I cannot think of a more appropriate term than ‘Misery Index’ and, believe me, I have tried.
But back to the nitty-gritty. Why this disconnect between perception and reality? Well, it is because Blair and New Labour have pulled off a pretty audacious trick (and it’s a good trick, I’ll grant you) by constructing a convincing and polished patina of ‘Thatherite’ rhetoric full of phrases like ‘modernisation’ and ‘reform’ and ‘consumer choice’ which they have used to mask a stealthy but relentless old socialist agenda.
The inescapable truth (for Earthlings that is) is that, over the last six years, the wealth-creating private sector has been subjected to a ferocious blood-letting in order to feed the voracious appetites of the public sector triffids who, in turn, (and by complete coincidence, of course) vote en bloc for New Labour. Combine this with the gradual ‘Europeanisation’ of our regulatory and legal regime and the result is that a once thriving economy has been plunged into misery of near-Gallic proportions.
There isn’t a single state in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), the only area where comparisons can usefully be made, that is taking less tax from its citizens in 2001 than it was in 1965.
I take no comfort from that fact that we are not alone. If everybody is on the same path of slow-suicide this only serves to convince the looters in Whitehall that they are doing the right thing after all.
Forbes asks: “Are we really living in an era of smaller government?”
No. Nor is that era close at hand. But we’re working on it, Mr.Forbes, we’re working on it.
And that’s just _tax_ misery. Bullying officialdom misery is IMHO an even worse problem, and rising faster still.
Anyone know enough about Forbes’ index to know whether it attempts to count total tax burden, rather than merely the state’s tax take?
On the question of Blairism’s rhetoric and reality, I suggest it is instructive to compare its achievements with the 1983 Labour Manifesto (“The longest suicide note ever written” – G.Kauffman; “Like Your Manifesto Comrade” – Saatchi & Saatchi).
For years, now, I have been burnishing my reputation as a kook with the assertion that anyone who believes that “the Cold War is over” is a myopic fool, at best.
Most of them cannot even locate it properly in history, or state its nature. They believe the paper-thin horseshit that it was subsequent to World War II, and that it was all about ICBM’s set to madmens’ hair triggers. The fullest heights of futility are only scaled in the attempt to point out to them that it actually began in 1789, and that it was — and still is — a fundamental antagonism between collectivism and individualism.
Sooner or later, however, and one way or the other, they’ll get it, Mr. Carr, they’ll get it.
what has happened to Great Britain? And I who thought Sweden was the most horrible place on earth…well, it probably still is but I hope something will change in the UK – soon.
Do these Socialist not remember the 1970’s when Socialism and confiscatory taxes created the infamous “Brain Drain” and Britian’s economy was rapidly headed toward third world status.
I remember an interview with Tony Benn after the fall of Communism and he was still extolling the virtues of Socialism and damning Capitalism – funny thing, the capitalism he described was right out the 19th! century.
Tallan writes:
“Do these Socialist not remember the 1970’s when Socialism and confiscatory taxes created the infamous “Brain Drain” and Britian’s economy was rapidly headed toward third world status.”
And this is, indeed, very much the point. The great legions who voted for ‘New’ Labour in the last two elections almost certainly do not remember how miserable and disgusting life was under the Labour governments of the 1970s – from Edward Heath’s, onward.
The excuse for the young is youth, for the rest it is due to bovine indifference.
David Carr has put his finger right on the pulse of ‘The Project’ – an elaborate confection aided by smoke and mirrors, in which the impression of one thing is given, while the exact opposite is carried out.
It is for this reason that my contempt for Blair and his cronies is so strong. It’s not simply because what they are doing to this country is wicked. It is because they are frauds, liars, cheats and conmen. And that, I was always given to believe, constitutes a string criminal of offences.
Surely, though, it’s some kind of good sign that New Labour feels it necessary to pretend its brand of socialism is really a flavor of Thatcherism? To borrow its language if not its substance?
Blair, that creature of opinion polls, must know something that the rank-and-file wild-eyed Maggie haters of Old Labour haven’t quite tumbled to.
I’m not sure it’s a good sign that Monsieur Le Blair has adopted the language of Thatcherism.
They keep stealing our words and our phrases, to disinherit us, discredit us, and steal our ground, which is why we can’t call ourselves liberals without Joe Public thinking we’re socialists.
This use of Thatcherite language is, I reckon, part of the same undermining propaganda process.
G Cooper – “an elaborate confection aided by smoke and mirrors” … yes, indeedy. You used so many words in your post that I have used myself to describe the sinister “Project” that I could have written it myself. In fact, at some point, I probably have. I began referring to smoke and mirrors around six years ago, throwing in the odd reference to the Wizard of Oz and the small man operating his controls and images behind the curtain. The policies – theft of the freeborn British birthright, the surgical separation of the British from their ancient folkways and English Common Law which has been developed, by common accord, over a thousand years, the self-righteous, preachy arrogance, the oppression of the citizenry by politically motivated police and judges, the removal of the right of free speech under the nazi “hate crimes” law, the segmenting of society and the encouragement of “special interest” pleading (rather than the encouragement of a cohesive society which rubs along nicely) have been wafted in, as you rightly note, under cover of smoke and mirrors which have disguised the real agenda. I have also long referred to an empty, self-regarding Tony Blair being surrounded by a corrupt court of thugs, chancers, flatterers and “lifestyle gurus” – in fact, the same coterie of individuals who do so well in organisations run by his beloved supranational UN. His desire to make a cult out of his family is sinister as well. As is his vampire-ish hunger to try to upstage the corpse at the royal funerals of Diana and the Queen Mother. Everything must be manipulated and massaged to fit the needs of Tony. Including the war in Iraq. I believe it was right, in a geo-political context, for us to be there so prominently, but I believe Blair was playing to the Old Europe gallery, attempting to look “presidential” for when it gets round to time for those corrupt dinosaurs to choose an unelected president for a non-country – Europe. I hope to god they double cross him.
Yet people like William Hague and Boris Johnson are both on record as saying they like him personally. My god! What’s to like? I keep thinking I must be the only one who is failing to spot the charm quotient. I find him utterly repellent and destructive. I don’t have much to say about Iain Duncan Smith, but he is on record as having a visceral hatred of Tony Blair and all he stands for, and this, in my eyes, counts for plenty. At least we know he has 20-20 vision.
Ms. Belle – I’m not greatly surprised that Boris Johnson likes Blair. BJ has notoriously bad taste in friends by all accounts, but I’m saddened to hear that about William Hague, whose opinions I often share.
‘Empty and self-regarding’ you say about Blair. Precisely and it’s just this that makes him an exceptionally dangerous man. I, too, am deeply troubled and amazed that so many are mesmerised by this wild-eyed pipsqueak.
According to this table from the 2003 Tax Misery Index, the country with the lowest tax burden is… Russia.
Russians apparently keep .6% more of their income than Hong-Kongers.
Have I accidentally wandered into a parallel universe?