That Starmer fella...

They also had the magic money tree to counter the costed manifesto as completely pie in the sky unattainable and have since spent way more without any of the extra tax revenue in it.

Unfortunately the WASPI woman pledge wasn’t costed so it gave them something to go at which stuck.

Do we really believe the Tories are heading to the right? I think their shift left is more marked than to the right. To me it seems they’re occupying more of the centre ground than ever before.

It's interesting in that populism tends to be a bit of a chameleon - they'll take whatever will win them votes, there's no underlying coherent message beyond that - which makes arguing against them a bit like trying to wrestle mist. In places they occupy the centre ground - their repudiation of austerity in particular makes it harder for Starmer to occupy the anti-austerity ground that Corbyn made his own - but as far as the culture war is concerned they're way off to the extreme right. Huge numbers of Johnson's own MPs are lockdown sceptics.

I suspect Starmer's strategy is likely to be a similar grab-bag - progressive policies wrapped up in the flag. I'm not sure that's enough, though - we need a big story to push through and we don't yet have that.

EDIT: That WASPI women pledge wasn't the only costing problem with the 2019 manifesto. Let's not pretend 2019 was fully costed. It wasn't. https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-the-gaps-in-labours-spending-plans

If they are populists they are very pragmatic ones.

I think my point was that their strategy seems to be to grow left out to the centre on some issues and right on others thereby occupying so much of the middle ground that Starmer/Labour have nowhere to go but far left. Or also try and hold the middle ground but with a diff message which is an impossible winning position when you're in opposition.

Or also try and hold the middle ground but with a diff message which is an impossible winning position when you're in opposition.

The only way to do this is if there's serious dissatisfaction with the incumbents. If you spend 90% of your airtime agreeing with them and complementing them then you might as well not bother running at the next election.

I think the difficulty with 'populism' is that it's quite a slippery term; to be honest I'm not really sure how much value it adds to political discourse.

I agree with @Señor_Bear that the Tories are clearly shifting leftwards and rightwards on different issues. Economically, at least rhetorically, they are shifting to the left in some senses. It's looking like they're going to combine some foundational elements of the previous decade's dominant policy platform—a squeeze on welfare and the social state in general, for instance—with some highly-trumpeted regional investment programmes which could be seen as incorporating a kind of right-wing Keynesianism. They are also committing to making changes to the structure of the NHS which are moving it in a slightly different direction to that which it has been travelling since the coalition government (see here for more info).

Of course, they are at the same time moving rightwards on some social issues in a manner which could be described as populist; the bluster around Brexit could also be described as populist.

Still, all this shows that they are smarter than Labour, who are left with absolutely zero ideas left in the tank and seem rigidly tied to some sort of image of electability that lacks basis in anything substantive. I understand a certain rationale behind Labour's decision not to back any rises on corporation tax (they want to be seen as 'pro-business', for instance), but politically and economically this is stupid. There are many ways to increase demand that are better than low corporation tax; there is also political capital to be gained from mobilizing public sentiment against profiteers from the pandemic. Not really sure what the party leadership think they're doing with this.

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I think it's pretty simple. Businesses - especially exporters - are struggling under a double whammy of Brexit and Covid, and you don't add hurdles to a course when the runners are in the last mile of their marathons.

Now I think a windfall tax for companies whose profits increased during Covid would be a really smart idea and one that Labour should champion. But a blanket tax on all businesses, many of which are on the verge of bankruptcy already, would be really counterproductive imo.

Corporation tax is only payable on profits though, so (except in the few cases where real world profits are less than tax profits, e.g. where there are disallowed expenses such as too much debt) increase in the CT rate should by definition only affect companies which are profitable.

The corner Starmer has painted himself/Labour into means he can't possibly support anything "anti business", which forces him to the right of the Tories.

And if you don't support tax rises on anything, and you fall into the trap of requiring everything to be "costed", you can't actually promise any increased public spending on anything either.

At which point, what's the point of electing the Labour Party?

Wasn't aware of that, thanks.

I’m no historian, but haven’t the main parties in the UK and US shifted sides before (19C/20C)? Could that happen again here in the 21st century?

And obviously losses can be offset so good years following bad years will still get tax relief.

It's a weird one though is tax increases. Lots of outrage at high revenue companies not putting much tax, regardless of profits. Lots of calls to decrease tax for small companies without realising lots of those measures provide the tax loopholes that people subsequently complain about, wanting tax increases for the wrong type of companies whilst cutting tax for the right sort of company, etc.

It's another of those areas where attempting to back some kind of blanket policy (e.g. no CT rises) would be better spent trying to get people to understand the issue better (e.g. we'll look at CT rises but it won't impact those companies that had a hard time during covid as even if they are making profits they can use those heavy covid losses against their tax bill). Getting that across in a snappy way is the issue though.

Interesting polling here re: 'red wall' voters and environmentalist policies, commissioned by Lisa Nandy's think tank. Hopefully more data like this will go some way towards dispelling the myth of the 'red wall' as a homogenous bloc of reactionary middle-aged men.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/red-wall-voters-back-green-policies-centre-for-towns_uk_603752e5c5b69ac3d35c77c4

Also some profoundly depressing polling re Labour's electoral chances:

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The Democrats and Republicans switched their political positions in the US, I think. I very much doubt it will happen like that here, though—the fundamental function of the Tory party has remained pretty consistent even throughout the pandemic: it has supported the needs of capital at every step along the way.

Isn't "don't raise taxes in a pandemic" plain old Keynesian economics? As opposed to some kind of pro-business political stance

Corporation tax is a total joke. Businesses should be taxed on revenues not profits. I've yet to see or hear anyone explain with any aplomb why this isn't a good idea.

This would be the ultimate levelling-up agenda.

Surely because you could end up with loss making companies having to pay massive tax bills that they don't have any profits to pay with.

All the companies who made big losses this year for instance.

Isn't "don't raise taxes in a pandemic" plain old Keynesian economics?

Any idea where he said this? I'm pretty sure Keynes said taxes would need to go up to pay for the war (albeit that alone wouldn't be enough). But he had various other ideas and mechanisms for paying for this type of stuff, so I'd be curious to know where this comes from.

#notaneconomist

They already are, in one pretty big respect - VAT. It's very close to a turnover tax.

A valid point.

I'd suggest they implement a threshold for starting revenue based CT which would alleviate the need to pay in years 1-x.
And then companies once over that threshold would need to accrue a position to pay their tax, the same way they do for their salaries or rent or whatever.
The idea that a company can do whatever it needs to, to maximise profits and if it's unsuccessful then the govt loses tax revenue is one of the pillars of the broken system. Same for Ltd companies.

Branagh as Johnson:

https://twitter.com/skytv/status/1364902717395775488

Huh? Business aren't paying VAT on their revenue, the consumers are. Businesses are the middle-men collecting it. Sure they pay VAT on things they buy like stock, equipment etc but not on revenue.

Not quite. It's the businesses liability not the purchaser - HMRC could never come after a purchaser if the VAT wasn't paid.

How would a flat revenue tax be different, other than presumably there would be no option for businesses to claim it back on costs they've suffered?

In either case it's exactly the same thing - a cost component of the price paid that will get passed on to the buyer.

I guess I am using "pandemic" as a byword for economic depression there.

I am also categorically not an economist. Don't look too deep into my surface-level analysis 🙂