Simply Social Security

This week, The Spectator comes out in favour of the Liberal Democrat policy of raising the income tax threshold to £10,000. But that would be meaningless on its own.

We need a ban on anything paying any of its employees more than 10 times what it paid any of its other employees, with the whole public sector functioning as a single entity for this purpose, and with its median wage fixed at the median wage in the private sector, to which manual jobs would no longer be outsourced. MPs and Ministers would be included in that, and there would be a statutory ban on anything, anywhere in the economy, paying anyone more than the Prime Minister. The trick with the Conservatives is to make them think that it was their idea.

In much that vein, there is also the matter of holding Iain Duncan Smith to the logical conclusion of his position, namely a unified system of taxation, benefits, pensions, minimum wage legislation and student funding, to ensure that no one’s tax-free income ever fell below half national median earnings. Some of us have been blogging away for years that there should be a single form of Social Security payment, called simply Social Security, and guaranteeing that minimum income universally.

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