Quote of the day 20th January 2016

"In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the Mirror of Erised shows everyone what it is they most desire. Margaret Beckett's 35-page report into Labour's surprise defeat in 2015 serves a similar function: every bit of the Labour party will have something it can cling to.

Supporters of Jeremy Corbyn will take heart from the fact that individual left-wing policies, like the mansion tax, were popular. But Corbyn-sceptics will note that it was voters that went for Tony Blair and David Cameron that failed to back the party in 2015, which they will take as an endorsement of a centrist approach. Ed Miliband's diehard supporters - they do exist, believe it or not - will see the report as an endorsement of the Miliband era policy approach but will argue that a more convincing frontman would have sealed the deal."

(Stephen Bush in "The New Statesman" on why The Beckett report won't help Labour win the next election.

The lesson, not just for Labour but for anyone else trying to work out how to learn from a failure is that a report should give a clear indication of what went wrong - not give everyone an answer which fits their prejudices and enables them to stay within their comfort zone.)

Comments

Jim said…
I dont see how a mansion tax ever would help. for ease lets even ignore that all important laffer curve.

But even when we do that, its hard to define what is a Mansion, Now sure Here in cumbria £350,000 will buy you a very nice large house, with a good bit of land, and a 20 car driveway. Most likely for that you can chuck in a swimming pool and a Hot tub (that is if you are daft enough to want a swimming pool in Cumbria)

in london what does it buy you? well a nice flat so long as its out of town, or maybe even a 3 bed semi on the outskirts. - hardly a mansion.

so to define a "mansion" on how much it costs is tripe, but then how else do you do it? Number of bedrooms maybe, well ok, thats a bed room but this room is a study, and this one is a computer room, and this one is the kids play room etc, so that does not work either.

(by the way I am surprised more people did not do this for the "Bedroom tax" just convert a bedroom into a utility room or something)

But any way, its hard to define what a mansion is, so lets just say its a house worth more than £2 million. then what does the mansion tax gain, the answer is not a lot as there are not that many of them.

3:32 pm
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