- Nigel Farage likes to say that Grammar schools are good for the poorest in society. Where they can be good for some (who pass an arbitrary exam at age 11), they contribute to increasing inequality. the Spirit level highlights that inequality itself has a negative impact on educational attainment amongst other things for both the rich and poor........
- An exam at age 11 can not determine how well a child will perform later (certainly not with a 100% success rate) so will wreck some people's life chances at age 11.
- Nigel Farage highlights the need to close the attainment gap between state and private schools. This could more effectively be achieved through increasing investment in education (to Scandinavian levels). More controversially.........private schools could be closed down. That said this would be very difficult to implement and increased investment in state education would have the effect of closing many down anyway.
Tax
- It is good to see that Nigel Farage has got rid of the flat tax policy. I am less happy to see that he still thinks that the maximum the rich should be charged in income tax is 40%. He argues that this is what will bring the maximum amount of income into the Treasury. There are several problems with this policy. Firstly, his evidence is the 70's and 80's. How on earth can you make present tax policy based on what the economy was like years ago?
- Secondly, the policy ignores inequality which is bad for everyone (as highlighted in the Spirit Level- a book I love which you probably can tell). The OECD have highlighted that the higher the highest tax rate, the lower the inequality.
- Thirdly, the policy accepts the state of the economy at the moment. Presently the British economy is dominated by financial industries so Farage is right to state that they don't like high tax. That said, all the businesses that are here at the moment are accepting 45% (don't know how happy they are about it). In many European countries, people and businesses pay more tax and are happier nations- they just decided to build economies orientated more around people not big business.
I realise this blog hasn't been that coherent but hopefully it gives all you UKIP haters out there a little bit more ammunition to fight the anti UKIP revolution ;)
