The Pot calling the Kettle black?

"Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner."
- Lao Tzu

Ed Miliband is out in force today at the FT with his new mandate on responsible and long-term capitalism. Clearly criticising the deficit was not working with voter focus groups so our very own Labour muppet (you know he is the spitting image or Bert) has decided to change tack and try to win over the ephemeral 'middle England.'

In his FT piece Ed says;

"the rules that encourage wealth creation focused on short-term returns, fail to reward productive behaviour and skew distribution towards the top."

Now I have a bone to pick with this statement. There is nothing more damaging the the economy and long term wealth of Britain than the electoral cycle. If there is one arbitrary, destructive, short termist impulse pervading all the decisions made on this economy it's the fear of not getting elected. Any politician will try to push the bad economic impact into the next political term with any means necessary.

"If markets are to operate properly and competition is to flourish, consumers need to understand – at the point of purchase – how much they will eventually have to pay."

Now equally I call the government out on this one. There is nothing more opaque and misleading to the populance than the tax system of Britain. How many ordinary people can work out what their marginal tax rate is between National Insurance and Income Tax? Then throw in Child Tax Credits and the personal allowance? In what way, shape or form is the UK tax code anything but deliberatly misleading.

I read once that a Chimpanzee when threatened by the group will lead a charge on a weaker Chimpanzee in order to divert the aggressors away from itself. It seems we have not evolved that much.

The tone starts at the top Ed. How about some responsible politics.