Letter to Western Morning News and West Briton regarding public expenditure and the 'National Insurance' Debate

As a parliamentary candidate I really looked forward to the actual start of the campaign. However, despite a keen interest in current affairs I find the tone of the campaign to date a fundamentally depressing experience.

To illustrate this I will provide the example of the debate over the deficit and national insurance.

The three main parties only seem to vie to be the champion of who can cut public expenditure the most. ‘When’ and ‘How quickly’ are the only questions. No consideration is given to the impact of cuts on ordinary people. Similarly no consideration is given regarding apportioning the blame to those responsible.

What happened is deeply irresponsible. Successive Labour and Tory governments both must share responsibility for the current problems. The Tories failed to support our manufacturing sector in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Its subsequent contraction helped cause the widening gap between tax receipts and money to fund public services. The Tories then sold the ‘family silver’ through privatisation of our assets. The political diaries of politicians on both sides demonstrate it was politically unpalatable to cut public expenditure to pay off the deficit that then accrued. Therefore-despite some efforts by the incoming Labour government in 1997-government metaphorically chose not only to sell the roof over our head through privatisation, but then ‘max out’ on a walletful of credit cards, then carry out expensive balance transfers to keep things ticking over. They allowed the banks and big business to not pay their share of tax through various loopholes and lax regulation. Despite ordinary people paying what tax they could, there is now a gaping hole in the accounts.

There is now a ridiculous debate over National Insurance. As a way of collecting revenue NI contributions, unlike corporation tax, leave big business less ‘wriggle room.’ It is difficult for business leaders to use various creative accounting practices and off shore tax havens to minimise their payments of this tax. No wonder they all are now complaining. Ok for you and me to pay via cuts in public services, as long as they can continue to keep their profits off shore, pay themselves as much as possible and pay as little tax as than can be got away with. The Tories and big business are disingenuous to say this is about jobs. Like the fears spread about the introduction of the minimum wage-they time will show they can absorb the cost.

James Caan- the dragon from the den (or should it be the lair?) stated that the Labour plan would only add £4 to the cost of each employee-hardly enough to cause mass layoffs. The cost to Marks and Spencer of the change(whom Sir Stuart Rose was won of the signatories of the recent much publicised letter against the national insurance rise) would be £10m pa- when they have just paid £15 million as a 'golden hello' to their new boss. The Tory signatories are therefore hardly being honest about their real reasons for their oppostion to the national insurance rise.

Therefore let us have an honest debate not the current misleading tabloid arguments that dominate the discussion. Cutting the deficit should be the responsibility of those who got us into this mess. Banks, the financial sector and big business must pay their share. Those who earn more, have to pay more. There is some room to cut waste in the public sector, but we must protect public services. As the candidate for the Green Party I believe the Green’s are alone in stating this is the real answer to the current situation. Let us be honest about the way forward.