Coppola Comment

I spent much of this weekend arguing on Twitter. (Yes, I know, nothing new there....) Specifically, arguing that Brexit cannot go ahead without Parliament. I said that before Article 50 is triggered, the result of the referendum must be debated by the full House of Commons, and ratified by a free vote. Unsurprisingly, since I openly supported Remain, a number of people assumed that I was suggesting this as a way of overturning the result. They are wrong. I think a Parliamentary vote is necessary not to overturn the result, but to confirm it. This referendum was in many ways a travesty . It did not require an absolute majority: even a few votes would be sufficient to end forty years of EU membership. There remains a grumbling unease that a majority of the UK population did NOT vote for Leave. and as I have noted before , the conduct of the campaign was shocking. The lies and deception on both sides were so extensive that people cannot possibly have made a fully informed decisio...

This is a version of a speech given at IPPR North on 10th June 2014. How many people reading this post own their own home, or would like to do so? I do. I am one of the 60% or so of people in the UK who own their own home. The percentage is currently falling, as housing becomes more expensive and mortgage standards are tightened. But it is still well over half the population. Opinion surveys consistently show that most people aspire to buy their own home. For many young couples, buying a home together has become a statement of commitment: the traditional sequence of engagement followed by marriage is replaced with moving in together then buying a home together. Property has replaced children as the outward sign of shared lives and shared responsibilities. Nor is it just couples. Single people, too, aspire to buy property. They may not want a relationship but they want to own their own place. But why are we so obsessed with property? It's expensive to buy and ...

My post " Oh no, not again " about Ed Balls' 50p tax rate policy sparked something of a debate.  This post at Pieria disagrees with my view that the 50p rate is pointless and argues that it is justified as a response to growing inequality. I have now posted a response, also at Pieria, which focuses on the morality of taxation - and debunks both the Laffer curve and "trickle down economics". Here's a taster: "In  this recent post , I argued that Ed Balls’ policy of reversing the Conservatives’ 5p cut in the top rate of tax was pointless. My argument was principally an economic one.  Balls had stated that the tax increase would be used to reduce the deficit, but research from both HMRC and the IFS suggests that such a small increase would make little or no difference to tax revenues. Deficit reduction cannot possibly come from minor adjustments to tax codes. What is needed is growth.  "But this is not to say that higher taxes on the rich are nec...

People of libertarian persuasion are often very keen on the idea that Government should "defend property rights". Their view is that the assets they own are theirs by natural right, and it is the Government's job to defend that right. I find this view bizarre. As I've  noted before , there are no "natural" property rights. The law of the jungle, which is the law that holds when all other laws are unenforceable, says that the only property you "own" is what you can defend. If something bigger and stronger than you comes along, points at your property and says "I'm having that", you may put up a fight, but in the end you will lose, and then it is no longer your property. Humans have operated like this for thousands of years, particularly over land. Nearly all wars start when a country that thinks it is bigger and stronger than other countries points to a neighbouring country and says "I'm having that", and the neighbouri...