March for the Alternative - 26 March - demo against the cuts

[Chippy Minton]

Anyone else going to this?

I've got loads of the glossy posters, leaflets etc if anyone wants any to display or to give out to friends/colleagues rather than having to download and print them from here: http://www.unitetheunion.org/marchforalternative

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

What cuts? Both your title and the link are a little woolly on what it's all about.

[Chippy Minton]

hmmmmmm...not sure if this is a deliberate wind up or not, but for clarity, the cuts you seem to have not heard about are the government's programme of fast and deep public spending cuts that will damage public services and put more than a million people out of work. Every person in the country will be affected in some way. They [the cuts] are headline news on TV and radio everyday.

[Jeremy]

Yes, but what cuts in particular do you oppose? I think people of most political persuasions seem to agree that at least some spending cuts are needed.

[Chippy Minton]

This demonstration is not about opposing a particular cut or cuts. There are dozens and dozens of smaller demonstrations held every week throughout the country that allow individuals and communities to focus on issues that particularly matter to them.

The March for the Alternative is a massive national demonstration that will see thousands and thousands of people from all around the country come to London to show the government that they reject their ideologically based cuts and that there is an alternative.

[Huguenot]

Oh thank heavens for that - someone who knows what the alternative is...

What is the alternative that you've all come to London to show?

[Loz]

Well, it took a little digging, but here are Unite's 'alternatives'...

There is an alternative. One based on fair taxation and investment in growth, not deep, rapid cuts.

A Robin Hood Tax

A tiny tax on big financial transactions between banks, known as the Robin Hood Tax, could raise ?20bn a year. There is growing international support for the idea of a global Robin Hood Tax including France, Japan, Germany and Spain, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said it could work.

Cracking down on tax avoidance

Tax avoidance by big companies and the super-rich is more than ?40bn a year. Recruiting an extra 20,000 staff to work on tax collection could bring in an extra ?20bn per year.

Invest in growth long-term

Long-term, sustainable growth is the best way to build a strong economy. Investing in science, technology and

skills and supporting businesses will lay the right foundations for a more sustainable return to growth and a greener economy, which will be less reliant on financial services than in the past.

So, the alternative proposed is:

- a tax that will never, ever get world-wide support, and so would drive our financial sector off-shore. But if you could get international agreement, how many years would that take?

- cracking down on tax avoidance (which is legal, so employing 20000 people would be useless) rather than tax evasion. I am assuming that ?40bn figure is actually the 'Tax Gap' figure from this HMRC Report, which also says that only 17.5% of this (or ?7bn) is attributable to tax evasion.

- spend more money that we don't have

Cloud-cuckoo land...

[DJKillaQueen]

It's a good question H and the website is equally vague. What is the point of any demonstration if the cause isn't clear and forms no sensible debate (including proposed alternative options)? Governments have to make decisions, but where those decisions are one set of choices over another a well organised campaign and lobbying can alter the choices they make over others. In other words...it's about the detail. This demonstration isn't doing any of that. It's simply an act of saying 'we are not happy with cuts per se'. It will mean nothing to those with the power to affect any change.

[Chippy Minton]

You have completely missed the point. The March for the Alternative is not a Unite march. Unite are just backing the march and the original post was simply asking if anyone wanted any of the material Unite have produced to promote it! The link to Unite's website is not meant to provide detail about the alternative options - it is meant to provide detail about how people can promote and get to the demostration. If you want detail I suggest you go to the TUC's http://marchforthealternative.org.uk/ website because it is the TUC that is actually organising the march or if you want detail about Unite's Don't Break Britain campaign go to http://www.dontbreakbritain.org

Loz - I disagree with your 'cloud-cukoo land' assertion. Spending cuts on the scale proposed by the government won?t help the economy - cutting spending is not the same as cutting the deficit. They are trying to close the deficit in just four years by cutting ?4 in spending for every extra ?1 raised in tax, but they have conveiently ignored the fact that the amount of tax they collect depends on how strong the economy is.

If the economy does well, it will help close the deficit. If businesses become more successful and more people are in work then they pay more tax. The scale of cuts will slow down the economy, and therefore reduce the tax taken and putting one million out of work will not increase tax collected either! The cuts are a false economy.

It is a myth that there isn't an alternative - the scale of the cuts are damaging, unfair and unnecessary. Everyone in the country will be adversly affected in some way.

As for the Robin Hood Tax that you seem so dismissive about, I agree it's unlikely to get worldwide support, however why can't individual countries can act alone? Also, I don't accept cost is only reason that financial institutions are in the UK - there is a half per cent UK stamp duty on shares that raises ?3 billion a year, but when it was implemented these financial institutions didn't leave the the country and it's now wholly accepted with the London Stock Exchange second busiest in the world.

If you want to know more about the Robin Hood Tax, this film is pretty good:

Anyway, anyone want any posters or leaflets?

[Loz]

Chippy Minton Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> It is a myth that there isn't an alternative - the

> scale of the cuts are damaging, unfair and

> unnecessary. Everyone in the country will be

> adversly affected in some way.

Well of course everyone in the country will be adversely affected in some way. But.. what is the alternative?

> As for the Robin Hood Tax that you seem so

> dismissive about, I agree it's unlikely to get

> worldwide support, however why can't individual

> countries can act alone? Also, I don't accept cost

> is only reason that financial institutions are in

> the UK - there is a half per cent UK stamp duty on

> shares that raises ?3 billion a year, but when it

> was implemented these financial institutions

> didn't leave the the country and it's now wholly

> accepted with the London Stock Exchange second

> busiest in the world.

That's because if you want to buy shares in UK companies, you come to the UK and the LSE. If you want to route financial transactions around the world, there are many, many ways to do it that avoids Britain.

The equation is simple, Chippy... we borrowed ?163.4bn last financial year. Total government debt now stands at ?890bn - equivalent to 62% of GDP. That is unsustainable. How do you get that figure to come down? Even the much-heralded Robin Hood tax 'could' raise ?20bn. Where is the rest coming from? And you'll need even more if you actually intend to *raise* spending?

In other words: what is this alternative?

[Chippy Minton]

I don't deny we need to close the deficit, just that we need to look at a number of alternatives that don't involve deep, rapid and unfair cuts in spending.

This should involve looking at a longer timetable to allow economic growth and introducing a fair tax system. You remarked previously about tax avoidance, which is obviously perfectly legal, but by closing the ?40 billion annual tax gap by more efficient enforcement and closing loopholes we could go a long way to avoiding the wholescale cuts that we all now face.

[Marmora Man]

The "cuts" seek to bring the % of GDP represented by gov't spending back to levels not seen since 2006. That's hardly revolutionary or cutting a major swathe through the public sector. In absolute financial terms the spending will increase - only less fast than planned, less fast than (we hope) GDP growth and less fast than inflation.

The last government did, in effect, get a significant proportion of the country "hooked" on government finance - despite having to borrow 25% of their spending. So many, many charities have become used to living off government funding - which is hardly charity work, more like a quango or disguised public sector organisation. Equally, many local authorities,. particularly those in areas of high deprivation, became used to receiving unrestricted government largesse, with few if any conditions, rather than having to spend a more restricted budget more wisely.

Hangovers are always painful - and the current cuts are the hangover that follows G Brown's 10 year spending party from 2000.

[DJKillaQueen]

I think there's some truth in that MM. For me the underlying issue is that the private sector doesn't create enough full time jobs, and hasn't done for some time. That's where growth needs to happen.

[HAL9000]

Loz Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Total government debt now stands at ?890bn - equivalent to 62% of GDP.

The Office for National Statistics suggests the UK's national debt is ?4 trillion. See UK's real debt means we each owe ?65,000

The Institute of Economic Affairs suggests it could be as much as ?4.8 trillion. See National debt comes to ?78,000 a head