The Liberal Democrats' plans contain a number of progressive priorities. But their tax plans are regressive and the funding is "highly speculative", say the IFS.
The Liberal Democrats have today released their manifesto, ‘Change that works for you’. As with the Labour and Conservative documents earlier this week, we assess their document against our readers’ favourite manifesto ideas and examine some of the other progressive areas.
Against our readers’ five manifesto priorities, the Liberal Democrats:
• Make only one mention of the living wage, in the context of a section on a ‘sustainable farming industry’.
• Like Labour and the Tories, do not make explicit reference to a ‘Green New Deal’ but their plan does include plans for a “green stimulus [that] will create 100,000 jobs” The proposals have been praised by Greenpeace Executive Director John Sauven who said:
“The Liberal Democrats have set out the most progressive environmental policies of all the major parties, and they now have a real chance to make them count. As part of a coalition government, this party could establish red lines on issues like Heathrow and coal power and focus instead on developing the clean technologies that will define the 21st century”
• Are committed to “Work with other countries to establish new sources of development financing, including bringing forward urgent proposals for a financial transaction tax and a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions from aviation and shipping.” They will also “introduce a Banking Levy, so that banks pay for their tax-payer guarantee, until the break-up is complete.”
• Go further than Labour on tax avoidance (the Tories didn’t even mention it) by pledging to tackle “avoidance and evasion, with new powers for HM Revenue & Customs and a law to ensure properties can’t avoid stamp duty if they are put into an offshore trust.” They estimate they can bring in £4,625 in tax receipts. Nick Clegg’s rationale at the manifesto launch was that this was 10 per cent of total tax avoidance. But a report by Compass last year said, “Tax avoidance, both corporate and personal, is estimated to cost the UK at least £25 billion a year.” The IFS call the estimates “highly speculative” and Channel 4’s Gary Gibbon has asked “Does it all add up to honesty?”
• Make no reference to water or rail ownership but they do propose an “overhaul [of] Network Rail to put the interests of passengers first and bring it under the Freedom of Information Act to make it more open.”
As we said at the time “our list was never intended to be an exhaustive grouping of manifesto ideas” so it’s also important to look at some other areas. Regardless of whether their costings stack up, this blog has previously questioned whether the £17 billion intended for their flagship tax policy is the best use of the money since households in the second richest decile would gain on average four times the amount than those in the poorest decile. The FT’s Philip Stephens has written, “Raising tax thresholds helps those on low incomes not much at all … only about 6 or 7 per cent – a small fraction – of Mr Cable’s £16bn tax cut would end up in the hands of the lowest 10 per cent of earners.” Channel 4’s Gary Gibbon asks, “Do the poorest really get that much from the new £10,000 allowance when lower earners lose so much in benefits?”
But the Liberal Democrats have been the boldest party in pledging to “Rule out the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system.” As Left Foot Forward outlined last week, Nick Clegg has suggested replacing Trident with Astute. We have previously examined their other key pledges.
UPDATE:
An earlier version of this story suggested that the Lib Dem’s had not mentioned a Robin Hood Tax. They hadn’t but had pledged to introduce a ‘Financial Transaction Tax’ which we had missed. Apologies for that.
20 Responses to “The Lib Dem manifesto: a progressive perspective”
Tasha Tyler
Bill, benefits are worked out on your income before tax rather than after, so this wouldn’t affect those on income-related support like Housing Benefit.
Mr. Sensible
There are certainly some interesting ideas in there.
I am particularly interested in hints they have given before on reprioritising transport spending away from road widening and runway 3 on to rails.
Though I do still believe the railways should be renationalized.
I do not agree with their opposition to ID cards; the reason why I support them is that they cannot just be used to fight crime; they can be used I believe by consumers as a form of ID for goods and services.
And I think we have to have the biometric pastports under European rules anyway?
On tax, I think that clamping down on tax avoidence and increasing aviation duties are a good idea, however, I am not sure how much better off people would be by the changes to income tax when 1 considers the cuts to things like Child Trust Funds.
And I have always stated my opposition to changing the voting system and an elected Second Chamber, but that’s no reason to shut out the debate as the Tories want to do.
So, overall, I don’t agree with everything, but of the 2 opposition parties the Lib Dem manifesto is certainly more sensible than the Tory one.
Danielle Blake
RT @politicsofuk The Lib Dem manifesto: a progressive perspective #ukpolitics http://bit.ly/avFZCt #p2
Tony Hall
RT @politicsofuk: The Lib Dem manifesto: a progressive perspective #ukpolitics http://bit.ly/avFZCt
Josh
Why are you socialists such sanctimonious, self righteous nincompoops? You have this black and white view of the world in which you alone are right and those who oppose are completely wrong, deranged, bigoted, backward-looking, swivel-eyed lunatics? Obama dismisses his unpopularity by saying he hasn’t explained his vision well! It might be due to the fact that twice as many Americans identify themselves as conservatives than liberals, and that America is a conservative country.
All of this self proclaimed ‘progressive’ nonsense is vapid, fatuous and vacuous. The problem with socialism is that it assumes that ‘fairness’ is an objective concept and nobody dissents from what ‘fairness’ ensues. This is absurd nonsense, even more absurd than the Rational Expectations and Efficient Markets balderdash espoused by Chicago School economists (thoroughly rejected by my Austrian school friends of course!). To socialists, an 83% tax rate on the rich is ‘fair.’ To be, it smacks of envy, spite, bitterness and ‘unfairness.’ As Hayek brilliantly explained in his classic polemic, ”The Road to Serfdom,” socialists assume an objective definition of fairness, and therefore they will know the outcome of ‘fair and progressive’ policies, because otherwise, they woulnd’t be ‘fair and progressive.’ However, if the government already knows the outcome, it leaves no choice to the individual citizen. Those who dissent from the Guardian reading orthodoxy are not granted their democratic right to freedom of choice and expression.
So please drop all of this angelic, self righteous nonsense please Mr Straw. You are not progressive, as you wish to take Britain back in time to the attempted creation of a socialist utopia by Atlee and his successors, who failed miserably, creating the welfare state aristocracy of today. Beveridge would be ashamed at how the Labour Party has abused his creation for narrow political ends. As Jonah Goldberg eloquently exposed in ‘Liberal Fascism,’ the intellectual root of modern liberalism (not the Gladstonian liberalism I align myself with) and progressivism is fascism. Fascists and lefties both believe in nationalisation, dirigisme, a large state, a heavily taxed private sector and punitive taxes on the rich. The early fascists were men of the Left. Hitler was a National Socialist. Mussolini ‘Il Duce’ was the leader of the Italian socialists. Fascism is not a far right ideology, but a thoroughly left wing one. Because of the violence associated with it, you disassociated yourselves from it and called it a right wing ideology. Right wing ideology believes in a small state, individual freedom, libertarian economics and some of us believe in libertarian social views also. All of you lefties have to accept your intellectual heritage, including Fabian eugenics and your support for Soviet Communism despite its horrific despotism and mass murdering leadership.
You are not progressives… you are fascists with smiling faces.