tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-985080357558043054.post4563344854441131750..comments2024-03-27T18:54:46.951+00:00Comments on Syniadau :: The Blog: The Clown Prince of Comedy MathsSyniadauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876017048168055247noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-985080357558043054.post-63710896763972940752011-11-05T19:37:04.939+00:002011-11-05T19:37:04.939+00:00Peter hain an numbers, eh? He can't even accou...Peter hain an numbers, eh? He can't even account properly for his own election expenses, who who would expect him to understand the intricacies of a country's finances?Siônnynhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00021974709953206048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-985080357558043054.post-75824499326623802402011-11-04T18:03:04.337+00:002011-11-04T18:03:04.337+00:00Much of the blame lies with the media. When can we...Much of the blame lies with the media. When can we expect them to challenge political figures on the comments they make, instead of printing everything uncritically like glorified stenographers?<br /><br />Colwyn.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-985080357558043054.post-91112279083137524172011-11-04T13:25:25.075+00:002011-11-04T13:25:25.075+00:00The final paragraph of your most recent comment ma...The final paragraph of your most recent comment makes a key point. We should indeed use taxation powers to encourage the sort of economy we want to see in Wales. It's almost the complete reverse of the policy pursued by successive Welsh Gvernments, which seems to have been based on trying to attract those industries (e.g. financial services) who benefit from the current tax regime. Whether we 'would' do so (as opposed to 'should' do so) depends on using a bit more imagination than we've seen to date...John Dixonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07447224248021209852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-985080357558043054.post-33125266666297490092011-11-04T12:59:25.545+00:002011-11-04T12:59:25.545+00:00S and Owen, you both mention the £33.5bn figure in...S and Owen, you both mention the £33.5bn figure includes an apportionment of non regionally identifiable expenditure. Comparing like with like for the same year (<a href="http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/pesa09_chapter9.pdf" rel="nofollow">table 9.1</a>), this was £73.3bn which would give us a population share of about £3.6bn. Added to the £25.3bn, this gives £28.9bn.<br /><br />The <a href="http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/pesa2011_chapter9.xlsx" rel="nofollow">figures for 2009-10</a> (only available as a spreadsheet, and with slightly different figures for previous years) are £29.1bn identifiable and £81.2bn non-identifiable (= £4.0bn) amounting to £33.1bn in total. But as has been said, the tax take will also have risen, and this isn't readily identifiable for Wales without doing another Holtham calculation. <br /><br />I could add other factors, in particular the extent to which profits generated in Wales are accounted (and therefore taxed) as having come from elsewhere in the UK. This information simply isn't available, and any calculation has to be made on assumptions (which may of course be completely reasonable). But there was a one-off change to the UK government's accounting methods for exports which gives us a concrete figure of the extent to which this happens. The details are in <a href="http://syniadau--buildinganindependentwales.blogspot.com/2010/10/spiriting-away-our-exports.html" rel="nofollow">this post</a>, but in essence Welsh exports dropped by 13.4% against a UK rise of 2.2% when exports changed from being accounted from the point of production to the head office of the company concerned. If this pattern is generally true for what is produced in Wales but distributed within the UK, it would indicate that about 15% of the wealth we produce is accounted as having come from elsewhere in the UK. The only way we will know for sure is if we require companies in the UK to produce regional accounts. <br /><br />-<br /><br />To Naturiaethwr, I would say that although Labour have been in power locally in much of Wales for decades, they were not in power at Westminster for an unusually long period. The levers of the economy are held at Westminster, and the Tories have also done their fair share of damage to Wales when they held them. <br /><br />The point is that both Labour and Tory governments pursued policies which were designed to benefit the UK economy as a whole. But the trend of the last few decades has been towards services, and particularly financial services; and the profits made (and therefore the tax on those profits) have made a major contribution to the UK economy over the years. Both Labour and Tory governments used their tax levers to play to the strengths of the financial services sector in order to maximize their profitability and therefore the tax take from those profits. They made the perfectly reasonable calculation that the overall tax take for the UK would be greater by playing to those sectors of the economy than to other sectors of the economy. <br /><br />The point I am making is that Wales (which does not have an especially strong financial services sector) would, if we held those same powers of taxation, use them to develop the profitability of the sectors in which we are stronger, or have the potential to be stronger.MHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09329059309196746446noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-985080357558043054.post-70230833824441892452011-11-04T11:04:38.750+00:002011-11-04T11:04:38.750+00:00He should be ashamed and embarrassed at his and hi...He should be ashamed and embarrassed at his and his party's record in Wales. One of the poorest regions in the EU and in the UK. Child poverty rising. Decades of lack of investment etc.<br /><br />Hain's solution: 'Carry on as we are, keep holding out the begging bowl, stay in the workhouse'Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-985080357558043054.post-74412422409249426422011-11-04T10:06:03.650+00:002011-11-04T10:06:03.650+00:00"We shouldn't be ashamed or embarrased by..."We shouldn't be ashamed or embarrased by that". Which party does Hain think has one of the longest one-party domination of any democratic country's politics in history? Perhaps what he's saying is "We [my party] aren't ashamed or embarrassed by that".Naturiaethwrnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-985080357558043054.post-27982886381427869732011-11-04T09:30:40.575+00:002011-11-04T09:30:40.575+00:00If you include a proportional Welsh share of non-i...If you include a proportional Welsh share of non-identifyable expenditure in the <i>latest</i> Treasury figures (not 2007-08 when Holtham was published) then it does add up to around £33.5bn. But that also means that in the tax raised in Wales will have gone up by a similar proportion over the period (i.e VAT hike). It was quoted in the WM (I think) that Council Tax and NDR in Wales now raises £2.2bn for example.<br /><br />..........in short Hain is still wrong.Owenhttp://oggybloggyogwr.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-985080357558043054.post-57955796749091788002011-11-04T09:28:22.947+00:002011-11-04T09:28:22.947+00:00The £33bn is a figure I've heard and used in t...The £33bn is a figure I've heard and used in the past. It's basically taking Wales as 4-5% of the UK spend. It's also, bycoincidence, more or less the same as the Defence budget. It's worth keeping in mind when thinking of Wales as an independent country only to give some ball-pack figure. <br /><br />In any case the £33bn would include spend on things like Defence, embassies, social securiy etc. Things which I beleive aren't to be discussed by the Silk Report.<br /><br />SAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-985080357558043054.post-41237852100280948132011-11-04T08:32:06.406+00:002011-11-04T08:32:06.406+00:00"We shouldn't be ashamed or embarrassed b..."We shouldn't be ashamed or embarrassed by that. Wales' needs are greater than most other parts of UK.<br /><br />No. We should be ashamed of it. We should rightly set out to address any fiscal deficit that we cannot support. The real question is how on earth we can be expected to do this without having our hands on the same enonomic levers that other governments have at their disposal."<br /><br />Absolutely!Welshguynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-985080357558043054.post-43379445878737752292011-11-04T07:36:17.742+00:002011-11-04T07:36:17.742+00:00Hain is an embarrassment - I wonder why Labour kee...Hain is an embarrassment - I wonder why Labour keep him on as shadow Secretary of State? Is it that they don't know what he says has no basis in fact, do they care?Cibwrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07621705905770341542noreply@blogger.com