The “Pips” Aren’t Squeaking.

 The “Pips” Aren’t Squeaking.  

Abstract:

The pips just aren't being squeezed or squeaking at all, they know when they are doing well and the poor pips are not squeaking enough, ignorant as they are of being squeezed dry to subsidise the rich, wealthy, businesses and outright evasion. The level of income spread over the past 30 years has become widely divergent and more income is flowing wealth into the hands of the top 12%. With this analogy, one is just trying to establish a base point from which to launch a view that indicates how the switch of the original meaning of the sentiment behind the expression was done to raise hostility to the very idea of it. The original full expression (see later) attempted to serve a rationale but the corrupted often used one, had a specific emotive purpose to stop any effective challenges to the devious hidden privileges of the wealth.

Read on:-

One has borrowed on old expression here and it is an expression that for many will be largely unknown and for a few it will have been understood and quoted deliberately wrong and one thinks, in that sense, the mistake is continuing. As the opportunity arises, it is to be propagated to a receptive audience by special interest sectors that do not wish to analyse the intention of the expression and serious issues behind it.

In essence, with this, one is just trying to establish a base point from which to launch an alternative point of view that indicates how the switch of the original meaning of the sentiment behind the expression was done to raise hostility to the very idea of it. The original expression attempted to serve a purpose but the corrupted often used one, had a purpose to stop any effective challenges to the devious hidden privileges of the wealth.

In some way the same misdirection and obscuration continues to be in practice today and generally from the same reasons, to stop active discussion that might lead to any successful implementation of corrective actions. And the subject that causes so much divertive attention, it is tax.

The expression one is referring to is often spouted as “Tax the rich until the pips squeak”. This sentiment, carefully used today on some occasions, was a deliberate misquotes to hype resistance to what was intended at the time it was said.  In a speech in Lincoln on 18 February 1974 to the labour party faithful, Dennis Healy attempted to make the country aware and the party to realise the financial predicament that the country was in and had to address. This was the often disguised degrading financial stability of the UK, was not helped by the lack of industrial competitive productivity, structural drag of historic politicking, managerial and workforce issues weighted for the inequality of taxation and benefits attached to property and of landed wealth. He said “"I warn you that there are going to be howls of anguish from those rich enough to pay over 75% on their last slice of earnings"  and in his speech he also said, the correct expression, to  "squeeze property speculators until the pips squeak."

It was true, in the 70s, that a very small number of people were hit with a 75% tax (highest was 83%) if they were unfortunate not to be slippery enough to mitigate their taxable income by avoidances. This level only lasted for 3 years and has since been ratcheted down. The highest rate of income tax was in the Second World War at 99.25%, reduced down to 90% over 50s/60s period, then in the late 60s/70s it gradually fell. Crucially in the conservative party’s election victory in 1979, thatcher dropped the high rate down to 60% eventually landing at 40% in 1988. The basic rate of 33%, over a number of budgets also came down to 25% in 1988. This rapid drop in direct taxation became a farcical race by government parties to be the best tax cutters with the medium rate just now at 20% - 45%. This was done as a means of bribing politicians into power however retrenchment in direct income taxation (excluding national insurance tax) also disguised the reduction in corporate and investment taxation rates and the rise in ‘hidden’ indirect taxation, as in purchase tax giving way to VAT and a range of new selective consumer service taxes.  

Healy’s real intent with his speech was to draw into the tax net the landed affluent and property speculators, this was overall in line with Labour party’s long held policy of the redistribution of income and wealth via equitable taxation. In this he did no more that highlight the distinction between both parties in the attitude to unearned wealth, tax and the limited ability to use taxation as a means of prosperity distribution on its own.  

With the metaphor he used in the expression, he was not the first to use “pips squeaks” metaphor, it was began by Sir Eric Campbell-Geddes and later used by David Lloyd-George, although it also appears that it may have been used at a much earlier time.

This use was a reputed reinterpretation of the Healy speech by The Times newspaper into the antagonistic "tax the rich until the pips squeak", (1&2) never the less it was a seminal media moment for the right wing press egged on by the munificent affronted wealthy and the Conservative Party and it started the rush to be the lowest tax provider to the deserving affluent.

It estimated that there are, in any one year, some 30.3 million tax payers with National Insurance contributions (NICs) and VAT being the three largest sources of revenues generating two thirds of tax receipts of £700 billion. The spread of payers, (from the Institute for Fiscal Studies - IFS) shows that about 90% of income tax is paid by the 50% of taxpayers with the highest incomes; while an estimated quarter of income tax is paid by the richest 1%.  It is this last figure that is tearfully played out to show how much the economy relies on the 300K generous rich to pay for public services and it is dependent on them reliably paying up; although it is a potential variable and risky reliance due to the latent mobility of the richest taxable incomes.    

Over the years the tax burden has been surreptitiously moved from the wealthy to the undeserving poor and the range of the overall tax take from all sources has increased.  It is the low to middle income earners that pay the most of all taxes (includes the entire hidden and unavoidable tax take) and as proportion of their overall income and asset wealth holdings, pays a disproportion larger amount of tax compared to the tiny 1% to 10%. This inequitable position is of course much more of an issue with anyone on minimum or average earnings or no income at all. For even though some people may not be within the taxable threshold limit, anyone by being a consumer of goods, property holder, energy user etc. the majority of the working (or non working) population contribute to the tax (revenue) take. And furthermore, unlike the wealthy / rich, do not have the ability to mitigate their liability or move to a different ‘beneficial’ tax regime.

From time to time much is always made of the ‘fact’ that the rich pay the most tax; this is wholly wrong and a deliberate misapplication of a ‘sympathy’ of importance intentions. What is irrefutably a fact is that over the years the tax on income and wealth of the rich has become less of a burden to them having reduced by 30% but for low to middle income earners the tax take has been spread but reduced only by approximately 13%. At the same time greater wealth and income has gone to the top 10% and due to the nature of accumulated wealth, they continue to get richer with no effort while incomes for the majority has declined.  

The continued battle to be (superficially seen as) the lowest taxing government has created a problem noted by the IFS were it indicates that alteration in the income tax range masks important changes in the composition of revenues, for income tax is due to raise a lower share of total taxes, more may then need to come from the top 1% of income tax payers, (this is the risk of instability) and as the tax revenue is set to raise less from fuel duties, overall revenue are now more reliant on smaller taxed pathways. However despite governments successfully disguising direct tax to alternative ones in the bribing voters for contained power with income tax cuts; over 5 successive governments, “from 1992 significant tax-raising measures were announced (despite these measures typically not featuring in the winning party’s general election manifesto)”, (3) this is the so called stealth taxes.

There is little in this that is new, much of the essence of it is readily available via many sources and any attempt to discuss a radical reform of the tax structure to make it equitable is shut down for two reason; tax is used as weapon against such a proposition making it a voting negative and the wealthy have a block on revenue raising ability aimed to continue to benefit themselves. As the IFS indicates, freezing a tax stream or reducing it, is not good policy and there are exacerbating developing inconsistencies in the tax portfolio yet it does not stop the need for government expenditure and to pay for it the tax / revenue required has to come from somewhere.

Now we have the same tax bribes being offered by the BOJO government right wing extremists, hell-bent on the overpowering Brexit delivery at any cost. The discovered available largess available for tax reduction and capital spends is being floated to blind economic common sense, distribution is to be opened to businesses and tax payers but these tax reductions are potentially from a much more aggressive optimistic perspective of what the country can afford and will have far reaching financial debilitating consequences, ultimately for individuals and the economy overall.

He is pledged to:-

 a) Raise tax threshold at which tax is paid from 35K to £80K to benefit only12% of income earners.

     (Approx. 3.6m people) at a cost of £9bn.pa.

b) Raise NI threshold to 12.5K to benefit 2.4m people (8% of income earners) at a cost of £11bn. pa.

c) Look at the raising the already very generous pension tax relief for high earners able to place £40k pa. into a private pension. This already cost tax revenue £41bn. pa! A huge benefits cosseting the rich and is set to go higher.

On top of these ‘promises’, he and the cabinet are embarking on utilising the Brexit war chest ‘dividend’; spending it pay for a “No Deal” in preparation and prepping the public to fall into line to acquiesce with the Conservative Party of a deliberately caused legal inevitability.

What all this means is that somewhere the compounded costs of all governmental expenditure (which is the people’s money) has to fall onto the tax payer eventually, softened initially by raising deficit (PSBR) and a burgeoning long term debt; in effect predictable higher taxes and extreme pressure on inflationary factors and the value of the pound which has already been devalued since 2008 by 30% and likely to fall more. One might contend that at his current phase of madness, shared by many others supporters, that are wilfully blinded to the  damage they are to cause and defy to know better, one may be witnessing the final braking of an illusionary established financial bedrock of the economy with low income growth, low investment, low productivity, dysfunctional wealth dispersal, shrinking GDP, negative balance of payments, a likely fracturing of the ‘Union’ and a calculated rejection of advantages by trading partners. One can make a leap of similarity here on the basis of ‘having been there and done it’, though some with a lighter view may oppose comparisons; in some ways the perverse success of a Conservative Democratic Unionist Party’s overbearing Brexit, can be the beginning of a not dissimilar situation to the late 60s/70s; the country was heading towards being bust, taxes were ‘higher’ than now to cover the economy under-performances despite the country’s trading and commonwealth links and it was clear the country was being left behind in global growth; things were not economically optimistic and two things saved it, oil and joining the EEC. Well the leaves are not out yet, so, it’s so far so good!

Much is often said, in recent years, about taking the low income earners out of the tax net, but in doing so, with the increase in taxable threshold, it is of marginal benefit to basic tax payers but does considerable more for higher earners. For it does not matter how little tax there is on average income, for those on poor / poverty middle incomes; as a portion of spending power, taking all outgoings into account, they still pay a disproportionate amount of the overall tax take in the UK. And in this they are effectively forced to pay, by various tax raising measure that they cannot avoid, what might be argued a poverty tax for being in that resource deficiency state. Little in this is likely to change without a dramatic shift in the awareness of the populace. And as one has said, discussion about inequitable tax is often shut down by suggestion that is it disgraceful to deny the middle income earners (like doctors, teachers, nurses, police etc) a reduced deserving tax benefit, which ‘of course’ helps (incidentally) the lower paid as well. Until things get demonstrable worse and people realise that they have been lied to, swindled and used by the political establishment owned by the affluent, as a ‘milch cow’ to fund the majority of taxes paid; a forceful demand for a change cannot happen.

What is slowly becoming an issue, which more people are becoming aware of, is the ability of wealth and business to avoid paying tax on extracted profits while the burden of supporting a county’s infrastructures, used by them, is being carried by a declining income taxable structure. This shift has occurred quickly but has been largely ignored by the free market governments particularly in the UK, sold as it is on the idea of unfettered regulation  and low taxation of which the conservative party is a serious exponent but the weight of opinion is moving against this relaxed stance. Although not directly related to this the paucity of action by governments over decades, in addressing the imbalanced in the economy, was touched on in a recent discussion with John Mc Donald and Andrew Marr's political show in June when AM asked J mc. D ‘if he had friends in the conservative party’; to which he replied, after a pause, ‘he had worked with a few on cross party issues’, not as friends and “cannot forgive the conservative party for what they have done to the country”  referencing ongoing class structure and the aspiring of wealth for conservative party supporters.

In this he makes reference to the disparity of wealth and tax which is an expanding problem always rejected by the conservative party even though it is a problem that at some stage has to be dealt with, if only for two reasons, one: the ability of a country to afford its place in the world is being paid by a stagnant income reducing work force and two: the wealth of a country is being siphoned off into a smaller untaxed (or low) cadre of individuals and business.

Government will have little choice but embark on establishing a more aggressive tax structure to stop the exportation of extracted untaxed profits and although the UK government has in the past vetoed in the EU, a proposal similar to a “Tobin” tax, one country has decided to force the issue by independently deciding to act.

In France, it is pushing hard to bring in a tax called the GAFA tax, which is an acronym of the US companies it initially wants to target: Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, a total of some 30 companies will also be affected. The proposed tax levy will impose a 3% revenue tax on digital companies with global revenues above €750 million and above €25 million in France. This is being challenged and threatened with trade reprisals by the US Trump regime which France is resisting and seeking EU wide legislation in support. It, like others, sees the stability of its long term economy under increasing threat of collapse with a population that is slowly being impoverished and unwilling to accept deprivation to being ‘left behind’ without a fight. This repositioning of taxes against corporate and individual evasions ought to be the start of progressive tax measures against (what one calls) business and capital usury as it is doubtful that any modern country can overlook the potential of civil unrest of increasing disfranchised populace, in allowing a race to the bottom of the cheapest, flexible, workless and disregarded labour.  

The old Labour party policy of using tax for the redistribution of income and wealth has been proved very successful but achieved principally by the Conservative DU Party by shifting the overall tax burden from the affluent wealthy to the working poor, at the same time presiding over a shift in inequitable income (though the Labour Party played a part in this shift as well). Wealth holding and the easy accumulation of overall prosperity is easy with accumulated capital; something that is financed by the exploitation of resources from the same working underprivileged, to the richest!     

                                           

So, the rich pips just aren't being squeezed or squeaking at all, they know when they are doing well and the poor pips are not squeaking enough, ignorant as they are of being squeezed dry to subsidise the rich, wealthy, businesses and outright evasion. This problem of rich and wealthy vs. the expanding poor is not going to be corrected with minuscule manipulation of the tax system. From low wage earner to middle income earners the tax regime is against them, made profoundly more distorted with the level of income spread over the past 30 years intensified with the changes in volume and shape of labour applications, becoming widely divergent with more capital and asset resources flowing wealth into the hands of the top 12%, and a greater proportion of available remuneration increasingly sucked up by them.

© Renot

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(1) https://wordhistories.net/2017/09/10/until-pips-squeak-origin

(2) Wikipedia

(3) https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications

Cockney Sparrow Shysters

Cockney Sparrow Shysters

The sparrow, is a small brown bird that was very common in many cities streets, parks and hedge rows of the UK, it was common up until the early 18/19th century when it could be seen in small communal social flocks making chirps and twittering sounds, foraging for insects, seeds and around noses bags (feed bags) at feeding time for horses. They did also hang around horse droppings for undigested residue/seed.

The term cockney sparrow, has over time been attributed to a singing voice, a book and a description of a small feisty person, particularly one of London were a person may have been born within ‘earshot of the bells of St Mary- le-bow church’ so being ‘a cockney’ and attached by the supposed social cohesion that cockneys displayed during a time of past threat. More generally being a cockney had later been applied by northerners, as anyone from London whom may have an London ‘accent’ (and so far as Londoners were concerned anything north of Watford gap or ‘the home counties’ was north i.e. northerner) both cockney and northerner where with slight derogatory overtones.

What is less known is that the term ‘cockney sparrow’ was applied originally to specific people not held in high regards due to their particular activity. Prior to the advent of motorised vehicle, the horse was the beast engine of transport. It was so prolific in the1800s that in cities (London) the amount of horse dung manure was a serious health hazard with flies, the smell and in danger of clogging the roads to a standstill. In key affluent areas a band of boys/men were paid to shovel the stuff up into wheelbarrows and cart it away as fertiliser. In less affluent streets boys would swoop in and do the same; neither earning more than a few pence. It was, due to the volume of horse dung being expelled onto the streets, a necessary important role but due to the nature of the task, it was not seen as a pleasant one to be observed by the sensitivities of the affluent classes. However in clearing the manure these boys/men became known as ‘sparrow starvers’ as a number (flocks) of them would descend around areas to clean up the (rich) pickings thereby depriving the sparrows of food. Their task though was therefore viewed in a disparaging way. This term cockney sparrow became more of a proud insult attached to these boys but with the arrival of motorised vehicles in the early 20^th century up to circa 1950 their collection activity coincided as a cause to the decline in the number of flocks of sparrows in cities. These boys/men were the alternative un-bird-like cockney sparrows and that is why they were eventually named, cockney sparrows, mimicking some element of the popular ubiquitous birds. But were the sparrows (birds) were a pleasant, cheerful, sight and sound, the alternative cockney sparrows became not so well thought of even though in doing what they did, it did contribute to making some streets more bearable for foot traffic.

One knows it is stretching any unlikely coincidences to make a point using the above as example but the valuable tradition of cockney sparrows in cleaning the streets of London (where the description came from) and other cities from being inundated by horse shit; which was a problem so much of the time and taken seriously enough to be held important to be discussed in parliament to find measures to eliminate the stench, flies and mess so despised by all the unfortunate citizens obliged to live and work in the area and whom had no county seat to retreat to for refreshing R&R, it did bring to mind an odd unsound observation.

Currently little England is still grappling with the unresolved debacle of self inflicted stupidity amply demonstrated by the horrendous shenanigans in the fight over who is to succeed (or fail) the Maybots efforts to stuff the UK economy into a land of paradise fit for the deserving believers. The brawl is between two contenders.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson: Born in New York City on 19.6.1964, to prosperous upper-middle class English parents. Boris Johnson (BoJo) was educated at the European School of Brussels, Ashdown House, and Eton College. He worked as journalist at The Times later sacked for fabrication news then later as a Brussels correspondent. His septic articles, as a euro-sceptic, played to influence the British political right wing and media base. As a British politician, and current MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip since 2015, he started as MP for Henley in 2001/2008 then as mayor of London 2008/2016 followed in 2016/18 as Foreign Secretary. In all his roles he distinguished himself for being unfamiliar with, what might be considered by normal balanced personalities, acceptable rules of due diligence and behaviour in the public arena.

As the likely contender for the PM spot, his tenuous policy platform, is based on achieving a hard (at any cost) Brexit, cut taxes for the wealthy and spend billions but is unchallenged as to where the money is to come from.

BOJO has over time been described as a dissembler; liar, incoherent, yank, fabricator, disingenuous, mendacious, evasive, spurious, specious, flippant, (add your own positive adjectives, if any) casual with economic and political specifics and excreting platitudes of concern of no consequence and does not mean a thing he says, should it hinders his self promotion.

Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt: (cHunt) Born in Kennington on 1 November 1966, the son of a senior officer in the Royal Navy. Studied PPE at Magdalen College oxford, elected as Conservative DU Party MP in 2005 for South West Surrey and becoming health secretary for some 5 years leading to foreign secretary in 2018. Having held a number of briefs during his tenure as MP, his prominent role being health secretary for the NHS seems to have done little to reinstate investment deliberately taken out by the CDUP and Liberal party austerity drive building up to a conflict with physician over pay, pensions and the lack consultant weekend availability; which was used as the cause of a higher death rates at weekends (evidence for which was later proved false) gave force to providing in the NHS 24hrs 7 day ‘unfunded’ weekend consultantancy. His now, often irritatingly quoted strong suit, was his entrepreneurial business experience (“I’m a business man who can do deals”) This ‘experience’ drawn from having 3 early failed start-ups and gaining 1 success in 1990s with a company for a IT directory for education guidance courses, a major client fortunately being the British Council. Eventually selling the business and pocketing £14M in 2017. He has come around to possibly seeing better future opportunity and prospects, by being paid by the tax pound.

Initially he was one of the ‘Remainers’ but is now an unconvinced Brexiteer, for a hard or soft deal. He says he will cut taxes for businesses and spend billions on defence, health, social care etc but is also like BoJo unchallenged as to where the money is to come from.

He has been describes as flexible opportunist, egotistical, self centre, fixed and disingenuous with business dealings particularly over the news corp. BskyB takeover and denies connection with a plan to the de-nationalisation of the NHS (privatise). He is the punters outsider in the race, even though his position is more balanced in presentation, it does outstrip BoJo.

These two are intent on fighting each other with a much verbosity, inane vague ‘aspiration’ of spending plans for education, health, defence, social care and no tax requirements ever mentioned. All is devoid of any rational practical basis on solving the impasse of the past 3 + years with any degree of new enlighten ideas other than to attempt to bully and threaten in a potential fit of paroxysm, 28 nations as a way of negotiating a good deal. Substantial better than what has gone before for 46 years?

Listening to these two characters, go over the same well worn Maybot verbiage ground, happy to make the hard decisions, deliver the game changing strategy and roll over contradiction of salient views; persuading any to be convinced of their suitability, veracity, integrity and trustworthiness, is just for the birds. It is just like hearing the soft plop of fresh shit hitting the deck. In their case the diatribe of spouting effluence is spread around with little regard of who it gets dumped on. In some way their promotional presentation of fitness for the task is initially aimed at the 160K paid up members who only will make the decision to crown one of them Prime Minister and one can image all of these members still flocking around eagerly to swoop up the pearls of dung for their continuing affluence and sustenance; which seems to be what one observes and hears from their self promotion hustle’s and indicates the essence of the whole supportive Conservative Democratic Unionist Party.

Regrettable the unsustainable verbal paradise shit is also being spread generously for the rests of the MPs of   Conservative DU Party, members whom it must be remembered pushed these two birds as their favourite choice of the sparrow flock and more importantly, the majority of the whole population that has absolute no influence on the outcome of this despicable political episode. One has to bear in mind these two twittering dodos, with their privilege educated £-40K p.a. backgrounds and affluent ‘network’ of connections, have little perceptive understanding of 80% of the working population, mostly having to lifestyle on an average wage of -£28K p.a. One might contend that given the history of the (Maybot proclaimed) “nasty party” they give a good representation of what is wrong with the whole sphere and character of UK political representation dominated for decades by cockneys.

But, as is said, ‘we are where we are’ and these two cockney shysters spread their own postulated dung for all of the UK to fester in and have nothing of their own as a legitimate democratic mandate. Should either one make a mess of it all there may be little choice but to ask the people again. Against the odds, ones punt would be on cHunt to be crowned PM, assuming that there a modicum of intelligent analysis by the 160 paid up members of the existential risks in the decision they are about to make. At least he may have a fair grasp of what needs to be done but the Conservative DU Party are in a precarious position nailed as they are to the mast of the sinking Brexit boat, they will do anything to remain in power and avoid the gifting the crown, terrified as they are of the other potential cockney who just may have to be the cockney sparrow to clean it all up.

But just now there are no obvious imminent tangible cockney sparrows around to sweep the stinking verbal effluent away, the only likely one hides in the shape of:-

Jeremy Bernard Corbyn:  Born 26 5.1949 MP for Islington North since 1983. Leader of the opposition since 2015. Brexiteer and disinclined Remainer, (maybe) activist, campaigner, pacifist, closeted communist. Ideologically identifies himself as a democratic socialist. Although his initial stance on the changes that need to be made to the economy, social structure, inequalities etc chimed with the mood of the austerity times, (or  over the past century) his performance as leader and manager of the Labour party has been lamentable. For a party to be so wracked with media derision, inept administration, floundering in directive policies and disregarded by the majority of a voting public, is, at an opportune time like this, astounding! For the Labour party his chances of becoming the sweeper are slim.

Well, to elongate the sparrow metaphors further, over the past 85 years there have been 18 PM’s of the UK, 12 have been cockneys, i.e. southerner sparrows and 6 of the northern variety; all have been chirping, twittering away and it seems that in participating in reaching the fracturing terminus of the country just now, that the foot-traffic has stopped listening and don’t care much for the droppings from anyone.

Maybe it is time for a cuckoo to perch in the whole political shysters’ nests; yet another perverse analogy to play with?

© Renot

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