There is a great campaign song from the 1890’s, of which the chorus goes
The Land! The Land!
‘Twas God who made the Land
The Land! The Land!
The ground on which we stand
Why should we be beggars
With the Ballot in our hand?
God gave the Land to the People!
That key question – why should we be beggars with the ballot in our hand? – was the fundamental driver of the Yes campaign in the Scottish referendum. The answer is, of course, the beggary remains because our corporate masters are enabled to buy off a small but significant minority of the less poor and then brainwash or terrify enough others through their control of mass communication. But so many people are now wondering how on earth we have beggary in a land of so many billionaires, that the question is refusing to go away.
The song above was the anthem of Henry George’s land movement, and it has resonance today. I found land ownership the most passionate of subjects in the referendum campaign. It was as strongly felt in urban communities of Dundee as in the Highlands. There is an excellent article on the subject by George Monbiot today. It ought to be as important in London as in Scotland. The extreme wealth of the Westminster and other London inherited estates ought not be tolerated in a modern society.
I too applaud the Scottish government’s courage in tackling the issue. I wish, however, they had been a bit more bold. That business rate exemption was ever given to sporting estates, by both Tories and Labour, is an abomination. Of course the rate must be imposed. The truth is, much of the Highlands historically supported a greater population than it does now, and there is much land unused that can produce root crops and cattle. The aid for crofting communities acquiring land is also welcome, but should be backed by firm compulsion.
The proposals to end primogeniture may break up large estates over time, but I confess to being not greatly excited by progress measured in half centuries. The major answer should lie in two well understood taxes: inheritance tax and land value tax. I would favour 20% inheritance tax on all estate value above 500,000, 50% on all value above 1 million and 80% on all value above 5 million, with no exemptions or gifting and beneficial ownership ruthlessly traced.
On Land Value Tax, I am particularly attracted by a residency test. LVT should be quadrupled for non-residents, with residence defined as where you pay your income tax. In an independent Scotland, that would sort out a great deal of the problem pretty fast.
Simply repealing the Inclosure Acts would perhaps have difficult ramifications, where the original beneficiaries’ estates have sold land on to become eventually, for example, individual residential plots. But revisiting the Inclosure Acts is a weapon we should not forego when looking at problems like the Buccleuch or Grosvenor Estates. Though for the major aristocratic estates I would favour straightforward nationalisation.
The Establishment, Conservative, Labour and Liberal, have re-introduced the appalling notion of the “undeserving poor”. It is time for action against the undeserving rich.
Complicity means that you know the facts and you participate in the action. I expect that Craig knew that the CIA were actively using Kurdish agents to work with/ spy on Saddam Hussain because Mrs Thatcher sent 3 million pounds to Saddam in 1986/7 ( carrot ), and John Major instigated a no fly zone over Kurdistan in 1991 ( stick ).
From amongst these Kurdish agents supported by the CIA grew several Islamic groups who terrorised villagers north of Sulaimaniyah and engineers who strayed into their areas. These groups exacted money from local government for protection from both Saddam and also Iran, but their principal source of income was the CIA who found Saddam insufficiently compliant to their colonial ambitions.
There’s no point having stooges who don’t stooge. Hence the policy in Iraq of attrition, first by sanctions and then by using Islamic groups such as ISIS after 2003’s invasion to continue to divide the country using sectarian bombing.
This year when stooge Maliki stopped stooging ISIS were sent to terrify the local population and remove power from the hands of Maliki, even though he had actually surrendered before the arrival of ISIS from Turkey to Mosul.
During WWI the UK had flown over and bombed Kurdistan, and Churchill was well aware of the oil reserves under Mosul. When they started to develop the oil the deal was 2% to the Iraqis and the rest to the developers. A deal which led to dissatisfaction of the CIA agents and the consumption of Iraq by violence to prevent USUKIS to benefit from sanctions or invasion.
Once an oil deal had been struck with USUKIS allowing peace to return to Kurdistan in 1991 Craig would also have known that the CIA colluded with the new governments to exile, torture and eradicate the members of the secular or Islamic groups who had originally undermined and spied on Saddam, to prevent them from undermining the new stooges in Kurdish Government.
USUKIS, not trusting Iraqi stooges further than they could throw them immediately set to work on making connections with and asylum for their previous helpers, now persecuted in Kurdistan.
This is a now ancient quest for the black gold in the Middle East and i am involved in the story up to my eyeballs because I married into the family of one of these asylum seekers. I had no idea what a hornets nest I was putting my head in. I was not accustomed to be questioned or spied on about my private life.
I was not expecting to be drawn into theological loyalties as sharp as the peaks of the Alps, after joining Islam. It’s taken 10 years of cultural adjustment to start to comprehend the situation , as it had previously taken me 10 years of cultural adjustment to start to comprehend life amongst Muslims of the Asian Sub-Continent.
In conclusion I re-iterate that it would have been totally impossible for Craig to have thought deeply enough about UK motives and Iraqi motives outside the FCO policy terms. He was therefore not in possession of the facts, based on information or reflection, and in my opinion no-one can accuse him of being complicit in USUKIS misbehaviour towards Iraq or Iraqis.
Though I can see that Phil might be able to make 2 + 2 = 22 from a distance of knowing nothing.
That’s some verbose rationalisation you’ve got going there Guano. Hilarious. You said:
Yes it does. Which is exactly why Craig Murray was complicit. He both knew what was going on and he took part.
The snake oil salesman earlier:
3 December 2014 Last updated at 17:17 Share this pageEmail Print Share this page
Chancellor George Osborne outlines new North Sea tax measures
Aerial view of Golden Eagle Development
Renewed call for North Sea tax break
Autumn Statement: What is it?
North Sea investment ‘could halve’
Chancellor George Osborne has announced a series of tax measures designed to encourage investment in the North Sea oil and gas sector.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-30313108
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0046/00464455.pdf
@Craig, very interesting post, I know that Land Value Taxation was a very popular idea up to the 1930s, but I’ve never read a really clear explanation of how it would work. Older discussions of it seem to focus on the need to get more people back into small-scale agriculture. How much tax revenue could it actually raise? Seems to be an idea that was advocated by some very forward-thinking people such as John Hargrave in the 1930s, but could you suggest a link or a book that explains it clearly, or maybe write a full explanation yourself as a seperate post?
BTW the antispam thing about adding numbers has disappeared.
Fred ^^^^ and which part of that justifies your assertion that smallholdings will have to be broken up?
Craig
“Phil…if you could expend more of your bile on, say, Ian Duncan Smith or Rupert Murdoch, rather than Craig Murray, I would feel that was more just”
Craig, I am certainly do not share your sense of justice.
I am only pointing out your past my friend. Of course you call this bile. Yet your party political attacks on Brown, calling him a war criminal and “evil, are blogging. Hilarious. Your hypocrisy disgusts me.
Here let me remind you of something else you said not so long ago:
“The new drink drive laws came into force today. What affect will they have on the criminals who get plastered and mow down innocent bus queues? Nil,”
____________________________
Wrong again Freddy boy its the 5th of December, have you been at the mulled wine again, by any chance?
http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/Countdown-to-lower-drink-drive-limit-125d.aspx
Phil – Do you grant the possibility that Craig Murray might actually have thought his work prevented Saddam Hussein from getting weapons? The latter did have a rather attrocious record of mass murder, after all.
As one in five Scottish children live in poverty and temperatures fall at the beginning of winter with many families facing the choice between heating their homes or buying food.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie apparently arrived at the conclusion that the most important thing he could be doing with his taxpayer-funded time was occupying the Scottish Parliament with a demand to know (for no immediately apparent reason) how often civil servants had accessed Wings Over Scotland in the six months leading up to the referendum.
_______________________________________
Is there any point to Willie Rennie anymore, in fact is there any point to the Lib/Dem’s at all.
At least we now know where the manager of the Scottish Lib/Dem’s branch, priorities lie.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/souls-in-the-system/#more-64161
Who knows Craig wee Willie Rennie might want to know how many MSP’s have looked at your blog.
“Fred ^^^^ and which part of that justifies your assertion that smallholdings will have to be broken up?”
The part which says they plan to remove the distinction between moveable and immoveable property of course.
It isn’t exactly rocket science is it? If a man has a hundred pounds and four sons it’s easy enough to divide it up, £25 each. If he has 10 acres the only way is to divide it into small plots or to sell it to the large land owner and divide the money. If you divide it into small plots when the four sons die they then have to divide the plots again.
If a man has two sons and one goes off to college and gets a well paid job in the city while the other one stays home to help his father on the farm why shouldn’t the father be able to leave the farm to that son in his will?
Personally I think the laws regarding immovable property is wrong as well, if a man wants to disinherit one of his children he should be able to especially if they deserve it.
I meant moveable property.
Mansion tax at the servant’s (back) door with today’s stamp duty changes, and its more appropriate than an annual tax on all properties over two million i.e. this is a tax on the super wealthy as and when they choose to purchase multi million pound properties.
Those sensational Knightsbridge properties at £10,000,000 to £150,000,000 to be taxed at 12% over the first 1.5 million, well they are now being properly taxed.
Wonder how much it will bring in?
Hope it will succeed in picking up all sales of offshore companies, which contain valuable properties? How is that policed?
Fred
The smallholding owner can make a will leaving it to any, all or none of his children.
I could have started my very own war in 2003, after we invaded Iraq under false made up premises, but as I’m not a national and had a university course to finish, I did not.
Everybody else who is British and did not get off their arse apart from going to some demo’s, is as guilty of Iraq’s casualties as Craig is.
To use this bilious argument repeating it ad nauseum, even when the target done good work to address the UK filthy torture habit, just to get at someone, is naive, childish and petty.
The Tory Office Minister and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords is, David Howell. shell , BP, British Gas and Marathon Oil, are some of the companies that sponsor his lobbying operation called, Windsor Energy Group.
Mr Howell’s son-in-law is George Osborne, these are some of the companies (Shell,BP, British Gas and Marathon Oil) with major interests in the shale gas business, that stand to benefit from the huge tax breaks, just announced by his son-in-law.
http://munguinsrepublic.blogspot.co.uk/
The greedy fat troughing b*stards have it all sewn up.
“The smallholding owner can make a will leaving it to any, all or none of his children.”
Not if the government removes the distinction between moveable and immoveable property he can’t.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/publications/2005/12/05115128/51285
Fred
You ‘accidentally’ forgot to mention that the clause you quote only applies …. “where the deceased person did not leave a will (intestacy)”
So you still have not justified your assertion that smallholdings will have to be broken up.
After my last post here’s a wee joke to lighten the mood a bit, God knows we need it.
========================
A man died and went to heaven,as he stood in front of the Pearly Gates,he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him. He asked “what are all those clocks for” St Peter answered “Those are lie clocks.”
Everyone on earth has a lie clock, and every time you lie the hands of your clock move. “Oh said the man “Whose clock is that” That’s Mother Theresa’s said St Peter, the hands have never moved, said St Peter, incredible said the man.
And “whose clock is that one” asked the man, St Peter replied, that’s Abraham Lincoln’s clock, the hands have only moved twice.
“Where’s David Cameron’s clock, asked the man, St Peter replied, we’re using it as a ceiling fan.
Bring in more immigrants to drive down the wages of the poor, while breaking up some near worthless landed estates in Caithness and Sutherland so the unemployed of Glasgow know the rich are suffering. LOL.
For half a billion quid you could buy all the rural land in Caithness and Sutherland and have a couple of hundred million left over.
Confiscatory taxes, i.e., neo-Communism, would create havoc. That an SNP politician is advocating such should be set off alarm bells in Scotland. Such measures would drive virtually all movable wealth and entrepreneural talent abroad, mainly to England.
A modest wealth tax is a sensible way to limit disparities in wealth. It works in Switzerland, a haven for the rich, at a rate of around 1.5%. Temporarily, a higher rate justified by a defined purpose might be feasible.
“You ‘accidentally’ forgot to mention that the clause you quote only applies …. “where the deceased person did not leave a will (intestacy)”
Like you ‘accidentally’ forgot to mention:
Where a will has been left, the prior rights described in note 1 above do not apply. However, the legal rights described in note 2 may be claimed by a surviving spouse or civil partner or a child, although any person who has rights under a will as well as legal rights has to choose between them; he or she cannot have both. Thus, for example, if a man dies leaving his widow a bequest of £2,000 in his will, she can choose to accept it,
or alternatively claim the one-third or one-half of his moveable estate which is her legal right.
So if you bother to read the entire document you will see it does apply.
I am sorry, I assumed you were Scottish and had an understanding of Scottish law. Before we proceed do you think you could familiarise yourself with it then you won’t be wasting my time further.
I really agree with you Craig. Monbiot’s column was excellent. I hope these fuckers are starting to realise that we’re onto them.
few sensible people, moved to serious reflection about what principles of governance may be best-suited to guide humanity through the current phase of its development, would concede that an adequate level of respect for ‘personal’ freedom requires allowing certain individuals, or small close-knit groups of the same, to stockpile hi-tech weaponry and with which to equip mercenary armies employed as everyday tools in the furtherance of their otherwise legitimate business interests.
for essentially the same reasons, albeit now clad in less Schwarzneggian garb, we must vigorously contend with the monopolization of any major component or mode of expression of the total accumulated capital available to our species at the present time.
it is time for our dormant intelligentsia to expend some energy on the articulation of a new Theory Of Value. a theory not materialistic and backward-looking, but one suited to our intuited future direction – a theory subtle enough to express the difference in worth of a diamond and a mathematical theorem, or a love poem and a night in a posh hotel with a classy tart.
Fred : “I am sorry, I assumed you were Scottish and had an understanding of Scottish law.”
Oh, now I see, where you’re coming from. I am Scottish and I do have some understanding of Scottish law. The difference between us is in our understanding of families. I would expect families to respect the wishes of parents. You apparently assume that they would disregard those wishes to get as much as possible for themselves.
So when you say that “smallholdings will have to be broken up”, you mean that greedy families may choose to break them up, which is a quite different thing.
you’re assuming that families will disregard their parents’ wishes and contest the will.
Oops ^^^ Ignore the final line, I forgot to delete it.
Fred
3 Dec, 2014 – 3:54 pm
“What affect will [the new drink drive laws] have on the criminals who get plastered and mow down innocent bus queues? Nil, zero, none, they broke the law yesterday and they will break the law tomorrow.”
…………………………………………………………………….
I agree with that observation Fred.
People who drink to a point of stupor and then drive are criminals and their behaviour is not going to change because the drink-drive limit has been lowered.
I’ve known men who get pissed on three or four pints of normal beer or lager but they still think they can drive safely.
On the other hand I’ve known men who can drink that amount and pose no extra risk when driving.
There has to be a legal blood-alcohol limit set at a point that reflects the different effects alcohol has on different people and perhaps the limit is overly cautious and low. But where do you draw the line?
In fatal or serious accidents, where alcohol is the major contributing factor, the drivers’ blood-alcohol levels are invariably off the scale, so no legal limit would have made a difference.
Another point to note is that these days in a road accident the police tend to breathalyse all drivers involved, regardless of culpability.
This can lead to unfairness in certain circumstances.
For example: if a non-drink driver runs into the back of another car waiting at red lights and the driver in front tests positive for alcohol, the non-drinker will be charged with driving without due care and attention and get away with a small fine and an endorsement, while the other driver will get a hefty fine and disqualification.
The above example is what is officially recorded as a “drink-related accident” even though the drink played no part whatsoever.
“The difference between us is in our understanding of families. I would expect families to respect the wishes of parents. You apparently assume that they would disregard those wishes to get as much as possible for themselves.”
I assume people are greedy and that not all families are friendly yes, I am a realist, I’ve seen it happen.
Speaking of human greed I’ve been reading about Black Friday, police had to be called out in Glasgow and Dundee, Glasgow and Dundee, now there’s a coincidence.
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeen/415894/shoppers-hit-the-high-streets-for-black-friday/
Fred : “Speaking of human greed I’ve been reading about Black Friday, police had to be called out in Glasgow and Dundee, Glasgow and Dundee, now there’s a coincidence.”
You ‘accidentally’ forgot to mention Manchester, London, Middleton, Stretford, Salford, Wigan, Hattersley, Bicester Village, Edmonton, Willesden, Surrey Quays, a number of Tesco storesin South Wales, and many more non-Scottish locations.
It is a stormy sea, gale force 10 all day long and Kookies nutjob and his fellow carrot top have been phishing all day, then just as the wind turned, they pulled up the most massive damp squid of the day.
hurray all is won, we can feed on squid for the foreseeable future.
What’s more important than all that damp electoral squid today was, that the Surlingham Tornadoes under 9’s football team, only two years since they were founded, have won the county cup, Canaries eat your heart out….