Raab’s plans for a Bill of Rights will turn the British courts into a political storm TOM SPENCER IN 2019, the Conservative Party’s manifesto promised reform to the Human Rights Act (HRA), and last Wednesday we finally saw it: the new Bill of Rights. Rather than “enhancing human rights protection” as Dominic Raab has described, it represents a considerable lessening of our liberties in the UK. It shows a government scrambling to find [...]
A slip into recession is a token of the Conservatives’ failure to govern our country Tom Spencer The word recession has not been thought about for years, but after the Bank of England announced that we should expect it by the end of 2022, it has been placed at the front of people’s minds. Of course, external factors do play a massive role in this; the Russian invasion of Ukraine has disrupted [...]
Council tax will cushion the cost of living crisis, but it accepts an outdated policy Tom Spencer With inflation soaring, people are becoming increasingly desperate. Inflation is at record levels, sitting at 4.8 per cent in December and expected to soar as high as 7 per cent by April. The repercussions of this will be particularly strenuous on the most vulnerable. Indeed, the price of essential items that make up a larger [...]
Sadiq Khan’s new congestion charge rules will undermine Transport for London December 21, 2021 Not long ago we were told that Londoners were going to have to pay £20 more in council tax a year for the next three years to bail out Transport for London. London’s transport system simply couldn’t function with the current budget it had, forcing the Mayor to take a seemingly painful decision to increase [...]
Heathrow’s constant queues are more than a nuisance – they’re undermining London November 11, 2021 First impressions count. The truism applies to countries as well as people. When entering a new country our first impression of it will be its border control. I remember fondly arriving in Paphos, Cyprus before and after they joined the European Union and the development was remarkable. It told a story of a country on [...]
DEBATE: Is it fair for businesses to go completely cashless? July 27, 2021 Tom Spencer, chief organiser of the London Neoliberals, says YES A move to a cashless economy has long been met with fear due to the small impracticalities it will have on few people. But we should be embracing this change because it will bring about significant economic benefit. This is because the problem of the [...]
Council tax fails every rule of good taxation and is blowing back holes in local government budgets June 25, 2021 It won’t surprise anyone to hear local governments are in crisis. A decade of austerity has forced councils to cut essential services to the detriment of ordinary people across the country. The pandemic took that gap in funding and turned it into a black hole — one with the potential to force the Government to [...]
DEBATE: Will a global minimum corporate tax lead to real change for multinational giants? June 9, 2021 Chancellor Rishi Sunak has agreed to back a deal with G7 nations to create a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15 per cent. The agreement has been hailed a world-first to crack down on multinationals shifting profits to low-tax countries in order to skirt tax rules. The proposal, however, has also been [...]
