Lib Dem Manifesto
I've not read all the Lib Dem manifesto, but the bits I have are impressive. Their pension policy, whilst not going as a far as I would like in ensuring a universal and generous state pension, is a leap in the right direction (a direction which I noted many right-wing economics commentators in the papers are also heading).Oliver Kamm unsurprisingly doesn't like it, saying, "The Liberal Democrats plan to spend taxpayer receipts in order to reward the affluent". By this he doesn't mean it literally, for literally it would be unremarkable as all governments do this to some degree, but overall, insofar that their social provisions (free care for elderly pensions & presumably, though he doesn't say it, the pension policy) and their policy on free tuition fees dominate. Furthermore the 50p top rate of tax would (although presumably progressive) not raise that much money, because it would be aimed at those who were good at avoiding it.
Pensions I will return to in another post. On personal care he says:
On personal care, the fact is that many people don't use it, but for those who do, it's an expensive service used for, on average (as compared with pension provision), a short period. This is a prime case for a system of social insurance
which I don't quite understand. What is the fundamental difference between social insurance and what the Lib Dems are proposing? The thing about personal care for the elderly is that you don't know whether you are going to need it until basically, when you need it.
The gains from a 50p rate of taxation I suspect is only proveable either way empirically, and unless Labour (or perhaps the Tories?) adopt the policy we aren't going to find out, because the Lib Dems are not going to form the next government. Indeed it's this point that makes me wonder how closely Oliver has actually read the manifesto, because I cannot believe if he had read it all he would have passed up on a closing paragraph something like this:
One revealing paragraph begins:
So you want to know how the Liberal Democrat approach is different? Imagine the Liberal Democrats have been in government for five years....
I'm trying to, but it is beyond my powers of imagination. Sorry.
posted by Matthew @ 9/15/2004 07:23:00 AM
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