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Read The Book
Before the welfare state
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The Greycoat Hospital
The Greycoat Hospital was once a workhouse. It has since been a hospital and a school. It has a very long welfare history. It has now been taken over by the state.
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The Greycoat Hospital
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Education and State
Licence
Stats
The Spirit Level – “trash social science”
If you want a quick guide what may be misleading about the influential book, The Spirit Level, it worth listening to this interview with Peter Saunders, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Sussex University. This debate is highly important. If it … Continue reading
Italian welfare – a curate’s egg
I have just returned from a visit to Italy where I spoke to quite a lot of interesting people about the welfare state there. I learned too much to put down a fraction of it here. But this, in ultra-brief, … Continue reading
Posted by James Bartholomew
Indexed in Care for the elderly, Education, Healthcare and the NHS, Housing, Parenting, Pensions, Tax and growth, Welfare benefits, Work on the new book
Superb counter-blast against the growing consensus that equal incomes make for happier countries
This is part of a superb counter-blast (see page 4) to the idea – encapsulated in a book called The Spirit Level – that we should aim for more equal societies because they are more cohesive and even happy. The … Continue reading
26 hours to fill in a tax return
This image is, surprisingly, taken from a French website which has an essay about coporate tax rates and also the complexity of the taxes and how long it takes to fill in the forms. The essay seems to be based … Continue reading
Posted by James Bartholomew
Indexed in Tax and growth
There are still high marginal tax rates for the poor
Many of the lowest-paid people in the country and families on middle incomes already pay higher marginal tax rates than millionaires. Now, almost incredibly, they are set to suffer a tax rise next month – unless Chancellor George Osborne acts … Continue reading
The heavy British tax on having an old-fashioned kind of family – a sort that is known to be good for children
Here is an important article about how families with one parent working and the other looking after the children – the old model that worked well – is being more highly taxed in Britain than in other advanced countries. People … Continue reading
Posted by James Bartholomew
Indexed in Behaviour & Crime, Media, including BBC bias, Parenting, Tax and growth, Welfare benefits
Did Channel 4 know what it was doing when it commissioned this film?
A TV programme is coming up on Thursday evening in which I expect I will appear. It is a 90 minute film by Martin Durkin about the huge national debt that has piled up and his solution. He will be … Continue reading
Posted by James Bartholomew
Indexed in Behaviour & Crime, Healthcare and the NHS, Housing, Media, including BBC bias, Parenting, Reform, Tax and growth, Welfare benefits
More on what’s wrong with increasing Capital Gains Tax
One of the points about Capital Gains Tax that is well put in the video below is that when one earns money after tax, one has a choice. Either one can spend it straight away, or else one can save … Continue reading
Posted by James Bartholomew
Indexed in Tax and growth
The proposed top Capital Gains Tax rate would be higher than that in China, where the image of the late Chairman Mao, communist, is displayed on the bank notes
…the tax raised will not be as much as is expected. In the long term, as rich people leave Britain, it may even result in a lower tax take. What happens elsewhere? Let us take some of the countries where … Continue reading
Posted by James Bartholomew
Indexed in Tax and growth
The Tories need to argue that low taxes matter
Osborne was asked on Radio 5 Live whether he wanted to get rid of the new 5% stamp duty on homes sold for more than £1m. He treated this question as though he were a bomb disposal expert and this … Continue reading