The Truth Is Revealed

As has been hinted for a long time by Labour MPs, if they were to be in government middle earners would be taxed more. Well toady* was the day that Labour came clean and revealed to the world what it's new tax policy would be. Labour's Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman said that 'people on middle incomes should contribute more through their taxes'. Very revealing.

I'm sure Ed Miliband really loved Harperson's comments by spilling the beans. Her extra intervention in PMQs of "they should ... it's true" was amazingly helpful also. Labour squeezes the 'squeezed middle'. I hope Ed Miliband has had a really good start to his summer hols.

*Ok it was Yesterday on LBC but everyone was talking about a re-shuffle.

Tax Payers' Alliance in Nottingham

Photo courtesy of the Nottingham Post.

One of my favourite think tanks, the Tax Payers' Alliance, visited Nottingham on Sunday as part of their 'War on Waste' tour of Great Britain. The tour plans to travel the whole country from Brighton to Carlisle and point out local and national government waste across the UK. The TPA is a non party political think tank rightly criticising any party that wastes money whilst in office. The TPA also invited MPs, Councillors and activists of all political persuasions to join them to promote cutting taxes and cutting waste.

The one major fact the Tax Payer's Alliance have been plugging is that £3,800 of your money is wasted every single second by politicians in this country. The TPA were obviously in Nottingham to make aware to people how much of their money has been wasted by the current Labour administration in the City Council. For example Nottingham City Council has wasted £4,450 of our money on just one Christmas Tree. I'm all for festive spirit but not to the tune of the cost of a Caribbean cruise.

Leader of Nottingham City Council, Cllr Jon Collins, is ultimately responsible for all this waste.

Then of course there was all that waste with all those deliberately political and divisive posters. Nottingham City Council thought it would be a great idea to have a website for people to complain to about Government cuts and thus launched this political attack using a poster campaign. The posters made comparison between the well dressed business men of Windsor and the ordinary folk of Nottingham to illustrate the point. This wasted £3,000 of our money (this figure of course doesn't include the loss of advertising revenues form the board, the cost of the website and administration). What a joke and waste that was 'unfair on Nottingham'.

Political waste which is most certainly 'unfair on Nottingham'.

And what do we get out of Nottingham City Council as compensation for all this waste? A 1.99% raise in council tax every year and a work place parking tax on parking at work. They really are bastions of caring for the community. It seems they are intent in making our life just that bit harder every year through mass taxation.

The Tax Payers' Alliance had a very good day in Nottingham. Andy Silvester from the TPA said to the Nottingham Post "Far too much taxpayers' money is wasted, keeping taxes high and taking precious resources away from essential services. It's time for a war on waste right across the public sector.

"It would be nothing short of immoral to saddle the next generation with our trillion-pound debt mountain. We need to strip out wasteful and unnecessary spending and start living within our means again."

Jane Hunt with the TPA in Nottingham. Photo Courtesy of the Nottingham Post.

Jane Hunt, the Conservative candidate for the General Election was also there, helping to defend tax payer value. She has said that "while I don't agree with everything that the TPA puts forward, the principles are absolutely right. We need to help individuals and small businesses in particular by keeping down taxes and cutting waste.

For Nottingham, the workplace parking tax is restricting business in the city. The tram facility will be fine once it is finished and for the areas it covers, but we need to make sure this works for Nottingham, not against it."

I thoroughly recommend backing the TPA's 'War on Waste'. Politicians spend our money and it should be done in a way that is efficient and helps citizens. Waste is a crime against the tax payer and should be stopped. I would urge you to join the TPA to help achieve this.

Fletcher, By-election and Budget: #ThingsElliottSays is Back

Yes, after a fairly long break with not much going on, #ThingsElliottSays is back. We shall continue to show up the socialist oppressors, Europhiles and CF wannabes.

You are probably wondering what has been going on for me to take a long period of time off? Well I was working very hard on the Clifton North by-election, which we sadly lost, and on my essays. I could tell you some wonderful things about the Carolingian Renaissance, Peter the Great of Russia and Stalin but we must move on.

I'm all clued up on Charlemagne.

So in celebration of #ThingsElliottSays' return let's do a quick summary of three things that have been going on. Firstly, do you remember Cllr Sam Fletcher, the woman and gay hating UKIP councillor from Keighley? Well he has decided again that Facebook is exactly the right place to publicly air his strange views. Cllr Fletcher has called Trans-Gender people "part-time homosexuals" and admitted he was "a bit confused by them". You can see all his delightful comments below and read about them further on the Pink News, The Backbencher and International Business Times. I think the people of Keighley will be demanding a right of recall soon.

On Thursday I was also at a by-election in Gamston, in Rushcliffe. I was out there with Ken Clarke and co. campaigning to get the Conservative candidate Jonathan Wheeler elected to serve on Rushcliffe Borough council. This was a seat we needed to hold and I am glad to say we did so. Jonathan got 444 votes with Labour coming second with 218. UKIP also ran and received 173 with the Lib Dems 4th with 170 votes (this was a much better result for the Lib Dems than the Clifton North by-election where they were beaten by Elvis). I hope Jonathan does well on the Borough council, in the time that I got to know him he seemed to know exactly what needed to be done in the area.

Jonathan, Sam and I just about to go out into Gamston to campaign.

And lastly I want to talk about the budget. The word BINGO could be heard across the whole of England (most notably in Harlow) due to the great work of Robert Halfon MP in getting George to cut Bingo tax by half. Rob is very good at making sure the Conservatives attract that 'white van man worker'. But after Petrol and Bingo being slashed, what will Rob and his team, led by the wonderful ex-University of Nottingham student Emily Burditt, be planning for next year?

Eyes down Rob.

Good work was also done by Michael Ellis MP for his pot hole fund. £200 million has been put aside by the government to help with all those potholes that have been caused a record breaking wet winter. Praise all around to Daisy and Ben, the campaign manager and TCO for Northampton North, who helped massively on that campaign. People back in Wisbech will be very pleased as well as the people of Northampton North.

Michael Ellis MP has got a £200 million government grant for pot holes.

But most importantly, George has made my pint cheaper. Beer duty has been cut twice in a row under this government, something to definitely raise a glass to. Cheers George, students across the country thank you.

Cheers George!

So to end up my summary of the past few days here is one of the best parts of the whole political show around budget day. A song commissioned by Sky News about their coverage of the events.

50p Immorality

Yesterday Ed Balls, who hasn't said anything for a month despite being second in command of Labour, declared that he wanted to bring back the 50p tax rate. Oh dear, when will these people learn.

Firstly let's examine what Ed Balls said:

"When the deficit is still high, when tough times are now set to last well into the next parliament, when for ordinary families their real incomes are falling and taxes have risen, it cannot be right for David Cameron and George Osborne to have chosen to give the richest people in the country a huge tax cut. That's why, for the next parliament, the next Labour government will reverse this government's top rate tax cut so we can finish the job of getting the deficit down and do it fairly. For the next parliament, we will restore the 50p top rate ... reversing this unfair tax cut for the richest 1% of people in the country."

I'd choose Osborne over Balls any day.

Essentially Ed Balls is making a moral statement. He could have said instead "how dare the rich people not contribute more as a percentage in tax. Its their fault for the recession and we want to make them pay. Its not fair for the everyone else". 

The Conservatives brought in the 45p tax rate and now the rich pay more.

There is one killer argument for why it was right for the Conservatives to cut the 50p tax rate. At 45p the rich may be taxed less as a % but the top 1% now pay more money into the treasury. The 50p tax rate raised either a negligible or no money for the Government to spend (we're not exactly sure because if money did come in the amount was too small to notice and record). The Governments policy of cutting the 50p rate to 45p has brought in £1.5 billion in the first month on top of the tiny amount of money that was/wasn't made under a 50p tax rate. In theory the 45p tax rate should at least bring in £18 billion a year to be spent on the public. This figure is much more than the most outlandish predictions of revenues for the 50p tax rate of £3 billion per year when introduced by Alistair Darling in 2010.

This means Ed Balls only one thing. Ed Balls is an immoral man. He is saying to the British People, despite the money raised in this tax cut coming in a free market fashion which boosts business, jobs and living standards, that people should receive a cut in vital services such as health and education to pay for a 'fairer' tax system. I don't know about you but what is not fair is cutting services when you do not have to. Ed Balls is immorally saying to the poorest bare more of the burden, pay more tax and we'll in the mean time moan at the rich for not doing enough. I don't think that is fair. It is immoral, but then that's the Labour Party for you.

Ed Balls learnt from one of the best when it comes to immorality, remember Labour scrapped the 10p tax rate.

I think this argument is the best at countering opposition to a 45p tax rate. Leave alone how its creates more jobs, allows for wages to rise and brings more intellectuals and ideas to Britain. The killer point is that Ed Balls is really saying to the poorest in society you should have less money so we can pretend to be morally outraged. Ed Balls, Red Ed and the rest of the Labour Party are morally vacuous. 

What is a Mansion?

Today we are wrestling with the age old question that haunts the Liberal Democrats. What defines a mansion? Well it turns out that a Lib Dem mansion is a lot pokier than you might imagine.

Since its socialist turn, the Liberal Democrats have been obsessed about a mansion tax. Vince Cable, that great bastion of a command economy, might as well be saying "How dare the rich own mansions especially when they have worked hard to get them. We should penalise them for working hard and they can give money to the state to hand out to the people obviously oppressed. No matter that these mansion owners have added value to the country through jobs, ideas and making people's lives better off. We don't want people like that." Obviously this is all that is wrong with the Lib Dems, if you ignore that they are liars as well. 

 The main pusher behind the Lib Dem mansion tax is Vincey.

So what exactly do the Lib Dem consider to be a mansion? Well if you take the figure of £2 billion, which the Lib Dems want to raise from a mansion tax, you can work it out. But luckily you don't personally have to now because Knight Frank, the London estate agents, has already done it for you. They have found out to raise £2 billion every house valued at £1.25 million will have to have a mansion tax strapped on it. 

 This considered a Mansion if Vince Cable gets his way. Hopefully the occupier gets rather angry because this house is in Twickenham, where Vince Cable is MP. Vote him out.

Near to where I live you can probably buy a small stately home for that amount. But what is it like in London and the South East? Properties there, in the most dense part of the country, are worth a lot of money. Well it turns out that the 'squeezed middle' are going to be having a tough time because 31% of 'mansions' are terraces, 22% of 'mansions' are flats and 11% of 'mansions' are semi detached; the other 36% of mansions are detached (which can range highly in size). So a big majority of houses taxed by the Lib Dems aren't mansions and have middle income owners in them.

This is a terrible idea. A mansion is not a terraced house. Why should we slap a big tax on the 'squeezed middle' who are struggling through but only just. 

But it gets worse. A mansion tax means a revaluation of all people's houses so guess what that means. Yep everyone's council tax is going to increase. So a tax on the 'super wealthy' who live in terraced houses is actually a tax on everyone. And for those who think its just the nutty Lib Dems, well you may be surprised to hear that Ed Miliband has said he will back a mansion tax raising the same amount.

Its only the Conservatives who can stop a mansion tax and thousands of pounds being taken from people, whatever size house they live in. An English man's home is his castle, but government shouldn't be taxing everyone like it is.

Gap in the Market

Have you had a look at the Unite polling by Lord Ashcroft? Do, it makes good reading to see that only 12% of Trade Unionists want to be Labour party members and 53% of Trade Unionists would not opt into the political party fund. This is bad news for the Labour Party because funding will be cut off and it shows they are not really that in touch with what is their own stereotypical voter base.

 Everyday Ed Miliband becomes more out of touch with the public. No wonder not even Trade Unionists will back him.

But actually this poll is worse for the Conservatives because only 23% of Trade Unionists, who are a good representation of ordinary people, will vote for the Tories in 2015. How can this problem be overcome?

As a foreword nobody should expect a miracle sized amount of Trade Unionists to vote Conservative. The majority of unionists will be tribal or in the public sector who in no way are going to become Conservative voters. But considering that the Conservative Party needs to gain 3% in the polls an attempt should be made to try gain around 10% of trade unionist voters and importantly by doing this will become closer to getting real people in the country to vote for them. The idea at the moment of an 'aspiration nation' is good but the Tory Party must expand and toot three key areas greatly to win these voters and in 2015.  

We have got to keep proving as a party that we are an 'aspiration nation'. Everything needs to be centred round this and policies must be centred around ordinary people.

Education and Training is very important and has arguably been the most successful area of government policy. Parents are very keen children have a decent education and Academies and Free Schools have been improving this throughout the country. But what is also important is the alternatives to secondary school education and university. The lie of university for everyone has been well exposed and people are now looking towards apprenticeships and skill training for a future career. The Conservatives have achieved 63 per cent increase in apprenticeships because of investment. Such moves need to be made easier with greater benefits for firms, a tax cut for employing apprentices for example.

Taxes are down for the average family in the country but we could do more. Taking out of tax those who earn £10,000 or under is a good policy. Soon everyone hit but Gordon Browns 10p tax rate hike will be out of tax completely. But what about National Insurance for employer and employee which is taken off people's pay packet? There has been little change there and VAT has gone up to boot, not good. And what of those slightly above average? Middle earners are paying the most out of all the levels of tax in the country which is surely not good to inspire people to better their lives. Tax cuts for the average family are what is needed more than ever. We've made a good start but I'd like to see more in the 2014 budget. 

The price of basic commodities that everyone uses must come down too. The government has a large amount of control over the cost of items such as beer and petrol and it should be using this power to keep prices lower when too high. Take fuel duty, the government has already frozen and cut this to a small extent resulting in a motorist being 13p better off per litre than under Labour. However, there is still more to do as the average family still spends £1,700 in filling up their car. This turns out to be one tenth of a families salary so technically most families in the UK suffer from fuel poverty when driving. A sizeable cut in fuel duty and more robust measures to stop cartels would improve people's lives greatly.

The Conservative Party is starting to really get in touch with ordinary families but there is a long way to go before Britain truly is an 'aspiration nation'. There is a gap in the political market because the Unite Ashcroft poll shows Labour is failing on all these three areas. Only then will we win enough Trade Unionists and ordinary people's votes to form a government in 2015. 

On the Buses

The Liberal Democrats are obsessed with buses. I saw this first when I spent time at Cambridge County Council as the local party in the County spent 2/3rds of their allotted time talking about buses. Indeed from what I was told this was not unusual (see http://www.stevetierney.org/the-libs/ for a Blog Piece I did when I was at the County Council). So now the Lib Dems are proposing that under 16s have bus journeys for free despite the fact that we have a massive deficit caused by paying people extra benefits.

I say the Liberal Democrats are oddly attracted to buses because they could spend this money on other things. The reasoning behind this move is not a bad idea on the whole. Nick Clegg has said, although he is denying it now for some reason, that this will be good "to help families with their high cost of living." But surely Cleggers should be supporting those who are on the lowest wages in instead of spending money on something fairly niche. I find the choice of spending bizarre. 

The Lib Dems like a good bus. 

There is one big reason why this policy should not happen. It's very easy to say '"et's spend more on this to help out" but not realise that this will be piling on to the debt. Cleggers will thus not be helping families they will have to pay for this scheme when some are really struggling to pay bills. It would also be the case that a free bus scheme to the under 16s will cost more than if families paid for a bus pass because it would have to be subsidised by the government. A huge loss of money would occur from those who do not take advantage of scheme when offered it. Thus extra money will go to the bus companies despite their being spare capacity. In London where this takes place bus subsidy is the highest in the country at £690 million in 2010 or 56p per passenger. The costs for such a bus subsidy nationwide are going to be in the billions of pounds. I thought as a Coalition there was an agreement to cut benefits and subsidies, obviously not?

We still have a Big Debt and Deficit, we should not be looking to increase benefits.

Nick has said that this should be done as a counter act to the Conservatives Marriage Tax Break but this would be a better investment of money because there will be a greater tax return. I'm no big enthusiast of having tax breaks for married couples except for the fact it's a tax cut. Nick will also find that tax cuts pay for themselves. If you look at the recent cut to the 50p tax rate, which Nick Clegg did not like, the government took in more money to spend on public services. The less people pay the more tax money comes in because the economy grows. This would not be the same with benefits because, although there could be an extra passengers on the buses, the subsidies will cost more and thus there would be a net loss. As an added bonus tax cuts allow independence of spending; not everyone will want to buy a under 16 bus pass. People want different things.

 The reduction of the top rate of tax to 45p brought in more money that it ever did at 40p. More money to spend on helping people or pay of the debt the previous government shafted onto them.

It seems the Lib Dems are just launching this policy to come back at the Conservatives over the planned marriage tax cut and because they like buses so much it is only natural they would go into this area. But Nick should learn that extra benefits mean extra debt and that tax cuts give independence and more money for the government.

Growing Optimism

Optimism in the UK is up whether you're in business or in the Conservative Party. The IMF and recent consumer confidence data is starting to show the start of an economic recovery. Because of this, Labour's woes and the Referendum Bill the Conservatives are also feeling a boost. But should both Tories and the general public feel good about the future?

First to the economy and yes things may be about to start to pick up. Business and Consumer Confidence is at an 8 year high and the IMF has said that 0.9% of growth is coming our way this year which is much better than last year's 0.2%. And this year there has been a bit of help from the government with the 1% decrease in corporation tax and a freeze in capital gains tax. But more importantly in boosting confidence there has been some pretty targeted cuts, where alcohol and petrol is now a lot cheaper than it would have been under Labour.

We are back at pre recession levels with consumer confidence but still a while to go before we reach the point the crash actually happened.

The bad news on the economy front is that the confidence from people isn't based on something totally solid. There hasn't been as many tax cuts by the Government as I have would have liked to see. This isn't the case with the Coalition Government which seem to be relying on positive words and a feel good factor, explaining the for the longevity not of recession of going nowhere and then a sudden pick up. The repetition of 'Aspiration Nation' is not necessarily a bad per se but if things go badly or not as good as the small amount of confidence predicts then the economy will be flat again. But then again most economies have a problem like this.

Overall however the economy has made the Conservatives moderately happy and rightly so because it is because of them putting pressure on George Osborne to add these specific tax cuts that we are seeing some sort of change in the economy. The Conservative Party has been on a roll recently to dictating the amount of spending that will happen in the next parliament to pushing the issue of a referendum on Europe.

What does the opposition think at the moment? Well nothing useful as Labour says it wants to match spend the same but wants to borrow more and will not back the basic principles democracy. What's even worse for Labour is they screwing up massively in Falkirk and day by every single constituency in the UK seems to have Labour candidates selected by Unite in a way that is bordering/maybe illegal. The Conservatives are united and aiding a recovery whilst Labour is anything but. No wonder the poll ratings show a decrease in support for Labour.

The Conservatives are really uniting around the EU Referendum Bill.

So all in all good times. But hold on, the Tories should be weary just like the public. The economy is yet to be confirmed to be definitely on the up, the 1st quarter of this year saw only 0.3% of economic growth. Divisions on Europe are unlikely to come back with the Referendum Bill but if it fails tensions may creep up again. Also what if Ed Miliband suddenly supports it? Falkirk could go two ways now. Ed could look strong and shun the Unions to help Labour or look weak and want their money, although either way it is not good for him really.

Labour is still more popular than its leader will ever be.

In general things are looking better though. Red Ed is too dithering to decide whether he should have jam or butter on his toast and things getting worse for the Government seems a distant prospect now. The only major worry is not to make everyone too over confident. The austerity isn't over yet.

One thing we can rely on is the Red Ed will still be weak.

Spend, Spend, Spend

Today was, as you should know, the spending review for 2015/2016. Theoretically this doesn't really need to happen mostly because it is timetabling cuts during the next Parliament, but this is a very politically savy move by the Chancellor to show a plan of action to the Great British public and put Labour on the spot. 59% of the public believe cuts are necessary (up 3 % since the Coalition came to power) but more importantly only 27% of the public think austerity is wrong (down 7% since the Coalition came in). This puts Labour in a tight spot because they can longer credibly say to the public that they will increase spending. The thing the Government is bending the truth a bit on making cuts.

Osborne is being shown up by the Labour Party of the past. I would point out though that the Labour Party at this moment would come no where near to what Healey cut in his time. 

In real terms government expenditure, despite the cuts, is projected to be slightly higher in 2015 than it was in 2011. The broad cut message apart from in 2010 is that in real terms we have stayed very much the same and even went up slightly this year compared to last. But how can this be? It is true that we are cutting lots off government departments, some like Communities and Local Government is going to have over 1/3rd taken off their budget.

We are making real cuts to budgets but overall government spending is going up this year.

So what has gone wrong? Well put simply we haven't seen the growth expected by George Osborne in 2010 and thus tax revenues have been down. Thus to keep our economy going Jeffrey Gideon the Chancellor has decided we need to stimulate the economy to make sure we don't lose the tiny percentage of growth we have at the moment. Because our economy, like somebody dependant on drugs, is so addicted to state spending if we were to start to fix it there would be serious downers experienced, which are politically unpalatable according to the Chancellor.

However the growth problem and lack of revenue can be fixed by lowering tax. At a lower level more people are willing to pay and the economy grows creating even more revenue. In the medium term this will get things going again although we would have to cut a lot more at this moment. Overall however, when comparing it over the 20 or more years it will take if noting changes, we wouldn't have to cut so much because debts and deficits are being paid off more by tax income and less by cuts. Short sharp shock treatment that produces confidence by giving people more money in their pocket.

When we cut the 50p tax rate to 45p the government brought in much more revenue than we did when it was higher. 

The thing is, the public actually think we are cutting way more than is actually going on. 39% of people, a lot higher if we discount the 18% who have no idea about this in the polling data, think we are cutting too far and too fast implying that the Government is cutting spending by several percentage points each year at least. Essentially we are taking a big political hit for no real gain. The debt, which is actually the main issue is increasing too much, there is too little growth and government is still the biggest part of the economy. The deficit is borrowing for borrowings sake an important but nonetheless a side symptom of our problem. What the Government has done so far is good, but it could do better.

There is however one piece of good news. The last budget had some very tactical tax cuts. There is a new feeling of slight optimism. It will not be as great as giving people more money to spend but somehow words such as aspiration and growth mentioned very often have inspired enough confidence to possibly start some sort of private sector led growth in the country. 

The words 'aspiration nation' may just save the UK economy.

Moral Crusade

Hasn't everyone got a bit obsessed with tax avoidance at the moment. For some reason there is a moral crusade being launched by the Left and now David Cameron to crack down on people who are not doing anything wrong.

Moral Crusade being launched by the Left.

What's illegal about tax avoidance, absolutely nothing. People want to keep more of their money and stop the government taking it. It could be argued it is more moral to avoid tax than giving money to the government considering they waste so much and cause a lot of damage with it. But what is more important is that we let people make their own decisions in life, so long as they are not breaking any laws. To not do so is interference that deeply annoys people and leads to a less cohesive society. Imagine if we were doing this on whether people should buying and reading the Daily Mail, an activity involving money and one that a large proportion of people criticise. There would be great upset and that is wrong.

So why do we have this moral warfare? The rhetoric doesn't seem to be about reform of the tax law. Apart from George Osborne saying occasionally how the Treasury is trying to close some loopholes there isn't much said by the Left about rewriting tax law. Instead it is more immediate demands of cough up to lots of major companies and well known and important figures from comedians to politicians.

Nigel Farage has been accused of avoiding Tax through the Isle of Mann.

Maybe it's an attempt to punish those people who 'caused' the economic crisis. This idea is a ridiculous one though because of course the economic crisis was caused by a lack of taxation of businessmen and Nigel Farage. More tax causes a worse economy and its is government, which includes civil servants and ministers, getting involved rather than individuals and wealth creators that cause our economic woes. The fact is tax avoidance is done by a very large proportion of the population to some scale through accountants and tips from search engines. I don't see many people blaming the 99%, as the occupy movement always stresses, for the Great Recession.

Guardian tax diagram showing the 'sinners' who owe us money.

Perhaps then it's about actually paying off the debt. According to the Guardian who are experts on tax law (see video below) if we collected all the tax that was 'owed' to us by companies it would meet the amount the Government has cut in the country. The problem is, they forget where this money saved from the taxman is going, it funds peoples jobs and actually helps the economy. What would this money do in state hands? Well the state is a spender, it creates no money. Administration is loss making even on the basis of paying wages and the less said about Keynesian spending the better. The argument here, although sounder than others, is still full of holes that cannot be plugged.

So why is this really happening? It's just the Left hating those that create money and those who stand up for capitalism again. If we look at the Left view optimistically the wealth creators of this country can lose sight of the moral mission they must have to look after people and thus should focus on welfare and not jobs. If we look at it negatively the Left believe that anyone who makes any money is oppressing someone else and that everyone should give almost everything to the saintly state, seemingly the most common view of those most angry crusaders. Thus they will attack anyone they perceive to be doing something to make a profit and tax avoidance is the new way of showing this up whether it be by business or people who defend capitalism.

Capitalism Rocks! The Left will never understand money and the economy. 

I do worry about this idea of moral law, because it is no law at all. I wish Conservatives would show this up more, although recently David Cameron has pointed out Labour's own tax avoidance schemes to show hypocrisy.

Dave is not wearing a tie for tax purposes as it technically resides in the Bahamas.