State of the parties as 2015 General Election looms.

[Beef Oven!]

Nothing at all can be left to free enterprise unlese free enterprise wants rights and jurisdiction over it, which it won't if it cannot be guaranteed to make profits for its shareholders; it is pretty clear that there are quite a few vital things that, on such a basis, free enterprise neither can do or will do.

Free enterprise doesn't mean entrepreneurial capitalism.

Anyway, leave me be (at post #82)!!

[ahinton]

I haven't suggested that all taxes are ideologically driven. I explained what I meant by the term, and it's just taxes like the mansion tax (Clegg), Poll Tax (Thatcher) and bedroom tax (IDS) are.

No, I know that you didn't do that, but there will inevitably be differences of opinion as to whether and to what extent this or that tax policy is ideologically driven.

The "mansion tax" in all the ways in which it has so far been presented is fundamentally flawed on the bases that I've suggested (and no doubt others as well) and it's always marketed as though there's no such thing already, which is misleading in that there's already a top rate of 7% for individuals and 15% for certain companies acquiring residential accommodation valued at more than £2m. It's unlikely to be a success if introduced, although the extent of its unpopularity could only reasonably be assessed if ever it's introduced and once it's been in existence for a reasnable amount of time.

The bringing in of the Community Charge (Poll Tax) - a disaster and one of the nails that embedded itself in the Thatcher political coffin - was an attempt to bring back a type of tax that had long since been widely discredited and, unsurprisingly, it soon became discredited again and was so short-lived that Major was obliged to replace it with Council Tax which was much more akin to what the Comunity Charge had replaced.

The "bedroom tax" isn't like the others in that it applies only to certain people in receipt of state benefits and is a penalty imposed through the benefits system ratgher than a tax per se (although its impact is hardly dissimilar). It's almost as unpopular as the Community Charge.

To what extent any of these three taxes could reasonably be described by the majority of people as ideologically driven is a question as open as it is unanswerable, I think.

[ahinton]

Free enterprise doesn't mean entrepreneurial capitalism.

OK, but could you just let us know how you would define the kind of free enterprise that could and would take on the provision of vital services most of which are unlikely to generate any profit? I don't really understand what you mean here.

[Beef Oven!]

OK, but could you just let us know how you would define the kind of free enterprise that could and would take on the provision of vital services most of which are unlikely to generate any profit? I don't really understand what you mean here.

I haven't said that vital services would be provided without profit. I said free enterprise isn't entrepreneurial capitalism - it's more than just that.

[ahinton]

I haven't said that vital services would be provided without profit.

Again, I realise that you've not said that but you've also not challenged my statement that many of those vital services could not be provided for the public benefit and at the same time generate a direct profit for their providers by telling us how they could be! How, for example (taking an instance from NHS), could such things as A&E services, mental healthcare, the GP facility and other facilities be provided to the public benefit but also at a profit to the providers? If indeed they could, you would appear to be on to something that no state which provides healthcare services and facilities that are by and large free at the point of use has yet discovered and put into practice! - or am I missing something here?

[Beef Oven!]

Again, I realise that you've not said that but you've also not challenged my statement that many of those vital services could not be provided for the public benefit and at the same time generate a direct profit for their providers by telling us how they could be! How, for example (taking an instance from NHS), could such things as A&E services, mental healthcare, the GP facility and other facilities be provided to the public benefit but also at a profit to the providers? If indeed they could, you would appear to be on to something that no state which provides healthcare services and facilities that are by and large free at the point of use has yet discovered and put into practice! - or am I missing something here?

The thing that you are missing is the bit that explains why it cannot be done that way. I understand that it isn't.

Maybe, given the state of our A&E services, GP services and the way we look after the mentally ill, you shouldn't be quite so comfortable about how the state is carrying it out anyway.

[ahinton]

The thing that you are missing is the bit that explains why it cannot be done that way. I understand that it isn't.

Well, now I'm even more confused than before! You wrote
I haven't said that vital services would be provided without profit
and I took this to imply that you thought that they could be and, accordingly, if not, they could not be provided by free enterprise; now you appear to be saying that free enterprise could not and would not provide those services, which doesn't of itself make them any the less vital.

Maybe, given the state of our A&E services, GP services and the way we look after the mentally ill, you shouldn't be quite so comfortable about how the state is carrying it out anyway.

There's no "maybe" about it and certainly no "comfortable" feeling about how those services are being carried out, so your admonition does not stick; for the record, there are indeed flaws in the conduct of these services but my only reason for mentioning them in the present context was to illustrate the point that free enterprise would carry them out no better because it wouldn't assume responsibility for them in the first place. For the record, I happen to get (or rather have available to me) a first class private GP service funded not by private health insurance but by the state; by this I mean that the standard of all aspects of that particular practice's service is of an excellence far beyond anything that I've ever encountered elswhere in the field of state healthcare provision and, of couse, I recognise that I am very fortunate in this.

[Beef Oven!]

......there are indeed flaws in the conduct of these services but my only reason for mentioning them in the presetn context was to illustrate the point that free enterprise would carry them out no better because it wouldn't assume responsibility for them in the first place.

Who took responsibility for Mid Staffs?

[teamsaint]

I really can never understand why wanting to keep taxes low wouldn't be a priority. Maybe not a the top priority , or all the time,or at any cost, but as a general principle.

Unless of course, you think governments spend money better than individuals.
Or like controlling how other people do things.
and so on and so on.

effective marginal rates of around 40% for graduates on £20k, with top rates for the richest at 45 % are economic insanity, and deeply unfair.

[ahinton]

Who took responsibility for Mid Staffs?

Well, not "free enterprise", methinks!

[Beef Oven!]

Well, not "free enterprise", methinks!

So what's your point about free enterprise not 'taking responsibility' if the state doesn't either? A red herring, methinks!

[ahinton]

So what's your point about free enterprise not 'taking responsibility' if the state doesn't either? A red herring, methinks!

No, not a "red herring" at all. My belief that full responsibility for the provision of certain non-profit-making services currently provided by the state would not be assumed by free enterprise which depends in part for its continued existence and development upon the generation of profit in not inherently incompatible with an acceptance that the state may fail to take full responsibility for the same; so, for the avoidance of doubt, yes, the state can by no means be trusted always to provide such services to a satisfactory standard but were it for tht reason to resolve to try to palm them off onto free enterprise they would for the most part almost certainly cease to be provided altogether because there ain't no money in it for the providers. I apologise if I've been insufficiently clear about that previously and hope that I have been clear enough about it now.

[Beef Oven!]

No, not a "red herring" at all. My belief that full responsibility for the provision of certain non-profit-making services currently provided by the state would not be assumed by free enterprise which depends in part for its continued existence and development upon the generation of profit in not inherently incompatible with an acceptance that the state may fail to take full responsibility for the same; so, for the avoidance of doubt, yes, the state can by no means be trusted always to provide such services to a satisfactory standard but were it for tht reason to resolve to try to palm them off onto free enterprise they would for the most part almost certainly cease to be provided altogether because there ain't no money in it for the providers. I apologise if I've been insufficiently clear about that previously and hope that I have been clear enough about it now.

Point being that if no-one can be trusted to 'take responsibility', then it's wrong to rule anyone out, for that very reason.

[amateur51]

Point being that if no-one can be trusted to 'take responsibility', then it's wrong to rule anyone out, for that very reason.

You don't mind who does it as long as you get a loyalty card, innit.

How about John Lewis Partnership?

Such naice shops.

[ahinton]

Point being that if no-one can be trusted to 'take responsibility', then it's wrong to rule anyone out, for that very reason.

Sure, but then I'm not ruling anyone out, not least because it's not for me to rule anyone in or out; if free enterprise - i.e. private firms who practise in the commercial market place - are either not offered assume such responsibilities or, if so offered, decline to assume them because there'd be no possibility of their extracting commercial profit from so doing, they won't do it, so it'll be their decision and no one else's.