Monday 30 June 2008

We should declare independence

The Republic of South-East England? A low tax haven comprising of London and the surrounding counties? Any region with a public expenditure to GDP ratio of less than 40 percent can join.

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

If it is good enough for the scots......

Anonymous said...

Not my term, but a good one.....

The People's Republic of Northern Britain.

It aptly describes Labour's client state with its votes bought by our money, and it's "activist" public sector unions banging their hammers and sickles everytime someone mentions "restraint".

Nick

Anonymous said...

Nick, it should be the:

"People's Democratic Republic of Northern Britain"

Anonymous said...

Yeah, the "democratic" bit is beautifully ironic. Like in Congo.

Nick

Anonymous said...

Nick - I thought you might like it. Wes

Anonymous said...

NI is wild - biggest regional housing bubble, and over 62 percent public expenditure to GDP. I call it bubble socialism.

Anonymous said...

The map points to diverging political priorities - separation might be for the best.

rwendland said...

If a company has factories up north, and corporate HQ in London, which region gets the GDP? This analysis looks fraught with difficulty.

Electro-Kevin said...

"It's grim up North" is a myth.

My relatives in Newcastle have always enjoyed a better lifestyle than we southerners.

Anonymous said...

If you do can we sack the place?

I reckon you southern woosters would last about 10 mins on yer own!

Anonymous said...

Factories up north? Don't be daft, there's none of those left in the entire country. So much easier to have them in China!

Anonymous said...

Go ahead and declare independence, as long as we have the OIl, GAS and COAL, how long, do you think it will be, before we make the finance industry come to us?

You Southern parasites have enjoyed a massive subsidy from the rest of the country for YEARs - e.g site of Government, Corporate HQs, Museums, Orchestras etc

powerman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
powerman said...

All countries have some regions which are richer and some poorer. I'm from the East Midlands but I live in the South East.

Splitting the UK up into bite-sized pieces to be digested as regions of the EU is a really bad idea.

Electro-Kevin said...

Amigauser - so long as we can have the Queen and the military sworn to her.

Unknown said...

Just another good example of how we need to recognise the Union is finished.

The 1707 Act of Union with Scotland (that made us one country "to be represented by one and the same Parliament") was torn up by the 1998 Devolution legislation that re-established the Scottish Parliament. The Belfast Agreement set up a schedule for the eventual abandonment of Northern Ireland. And Wales wants to vote to gain a full Parliament with Primary Law-making powers, and once again separating their legal system from England's.

On the plus side we will be financially better off with lower taxes and an end to Celtic interference in our governance and historic liberties, (e.g. the scrapping of Habeas Corpus by the 42 days "terrorism" legislation, which was opposed by English MPs and imposed by Scottish and Irish MPs).

Not only that, but it's a win-win situation for us.

Either they will be successful and we gain rich neighbouring markets that we no longer have to support with our taxes.

Or they are economic basket cases in which case we have our own version of a low-wage Eastern Europe on our doorsteps to make use of.

What's not to like?

Anonymous said...

whenever a soldier's origin is mentioned, I don't recall any coming from the southeast.

Anonymous said...

That's cos in the south east there's better things to do than get shot at

Mark Wadsworth said...

What Wildgoose says.

hatfield girl said...

It's up to Boris. He can do at least as well as Alex Salmond running Scotland, in London and its hinterland . New Labour thought they would never lose London or Scotland, (Wales never even crossed their minds) so the powers of the London mayor, even though hurriedly trimmed when Ken won, are still extensive and autonomous of the London Assembly. For Ireland it has been always a Labour objective to hand over the British part of Ulster to the rest of Ireland.

London is a metropolitan, international trading post surrounded by under-developing badlands.

Anonymous said...

Yawn, grow up you stay at home bores, the UK is a dreary money obsessed shithole.

Anonymous said...

"That's cos in the south east there's better things to do than get shot at"

Really?

What's that?

Talk about house prices....

Anonymous said...

This all falls down to the way in which GDP is calculated. It includes profits from financial services. Ethically, I believe, it shouldn't (since usury is not productive in itself). Of course, the powers that be disagree and intend to tweak the GDP calculation this Autumn to "increase reflection of the contribution of financial services to GDP."

Anonymous said...

Mmm - but surely, the costs to the public purse of bailing out the City-based clearing banks has not been reckoned into these figures yet... and all those juvenile bankers joining the dole queues... B. in C.

Anonymous said...

asteve,

Financial services bring in foreign exchange and pay money which can then be spent. While paper pushing is in itself a worthless activity, if you want to go by that principle you'll probably eliminate about 90% of GDP because most jobs are worthless.

I mean, should Chris Moyles' salary count towards GDP, or an ad agency's revenue, or cans of coke?

Nick

Anonymous said...

Nick,

The argument that financial services bring in foreign exchange etc. is specious because that money is then spent in the economy and recorded anyway.

I see no reason not to consider production, wholesale and retail of products - or voluntary payments for entertainment. Chris Moyles, of course, is paid by the BBC - and, as such, is remarkably close to government spending... so sits in a dubiously grey area between production and plain overhead. The ad-agency should count - unless, of course, it is employed by government... making such spending an overhead imposed on the public.

I don't think GDP is straightforward as a metric to measure economic activity. It is clearly influenced by the ethics, religions and preconceived ideas of its founders. I think that is is perfectly sensible to ask if GDP reflects anything useful. I don't think it appropriate to accept the morals of the IMF's founders without, at least, questioning them.... I see statistics like GDP as representing a partisan stance on international rule... not entirely dissimilar to a revealed religion that dominates a global empire.

On that note, however, I'll stop... before you declare me a whack-job. ;)

powerman said...

Loaning funds is a useful service, so I don't think it fair to declare it 'non productive'. However, being granted a right to create credit out of nothing is a form of legalised counterfeiting or theft. There's a difference.

Anonymous said...

I can see that loaning funds responsibly, and at rates which are not usurious, in a way which does not falsely inflate asset prices, is a useful service.

On the other hand, the near-fraudulent or actually fraudulent hiding of risk and the duping of the incautious into buying the poisonous tranches SIV's in order to steal savings assets on which economies could otherwise build useful growth, if soundly lent, is a counter-productive economic activity.

So perhaps we should rate much recent activity over, say, the last eight years in the City negatively, somehow, and recalculate GDP entirely over that period.

B. in C.

Electro-Kevin said...

I'd like to point out that this isn't a Union flag, y'know.

The Burberry colours are a deliberate allusion to the chav in Chav YooKay since Nu Lab came to office and abolished Britain.

Alas I do think the spectre of civil war will return to these Isles - we are a culturally unstable nation now.

Unknown said...

It's all down to Ricardo's Law!