What counts as "attendance" and other thoughts on MP expenses

The Daily Mash has probably got the best summary of Gordon Brown's proposals that MPs should get an attendance allowance instead of a second home allowance:

"Mr Brown has proposed abolishing the controversial £24,000 a year second home allowance and replacing it with a £25,000 a year dragging-your-fat-arse-into-work allowance."

Although what counts as "dragging-your-fat-arse-into-work" if you are an MP? Will there be any requirement to attend the chamber of the House itself or take part in a committee meeting or will it be the clocking on and buggering off routine which is apparently prevalent in the European Parliament (the fact that Brown is considering adopting a system which is being so roundly abused in the European Parliament should be a clue that it is utterly rubbish)? 

On the other hand, in an era when people are able and are encouraged to work remotely rather than commute unnecessiarly, should we really be encouraging MPs to travel to Westminster when they don't need to be there.  There is also the danger that they will want to be seen to be "active" on days when they are claiming their allowance and appear in the chamber simply for that reason, rather than because they have something useful to contribute. 

I have a simple but radical solution: give all MPs a budget roughly similar to the aggregate value of their salary, allowances and staff budgets, then let them decide exactly how they wish to apply them.  If they want the money for themselves (as salary) then it will be taxed as income and if it is spent on staff or legitimate office expenses (including travel) then not.  It would then be simple for voters to compare what each MP decides to keep for him or herself and what is spent elsewhere.  

This would do something to deal with issues of what pay rates are needed to attract the right people (and just because there is a long queue of people wanting to become MPs, doesn't mean that they are the best people for the job, or that the "right" people will be happy to take a pay cut). 

More importantly, it would encourage MPs to look for savings wherever they can in how their offices are run as all savings could be put towards other Parliamentary activities - or even their own salary - which is the same position as any business owner is in when savings are made.

Having previously thought it was fair enough for MPs to employ husbands, wives and children, clearly the behaviour of a few has made this untenable and must be stopped. 

Top rate of income tax could be 60%, not 50%

OK bear with me here, but I think my maths is correct....

In the budget, the Chancellor has just announced that the top rate of tax for people earning over £150,000 per annum will rise to 50% for income over that amount. Cue headlines "Top rate of tax now 50%". BUT, personal allowances are being withdrawn from people who earn over £100,000, with a cut of £1 of allowance, for every £2 earned over £100,000. (see page 109 of this document).

In 2009/10 the basic personal allowance is £6,475 - so anyone earning over £112,950 will get no personal allowance and instead they will pay 40% tax on their earnings over (in 2008/09) £34,600. What I am not clear about is whether the ending of the personal allowance lowers the rate at which higher rate tax payers enter the higher band or whether it is at the same overall level - i.e. that they pay the basic rate for longer.

Assuming it is the former, then the previously tax free personal allowance will effectively be taxed at 40% as well (or at least at 20%).

So, if you earn £100,000 and your salary increases by £2000, you will pay £800 on the increase, plus lose £1000 of personal allowance, so will be paying an additional £400 in income tax - total tax burden on the additional £2000 = £1200 or 60%.

Even if the loss of the personal allowance means you are paying only 20% on that element, the burden will be £1000 (£800 plus £200) on a £2000 increase - 50%.

As ever, the budget is rife with spin and misdirection, but it should be crystal clear that the marginal rate of tax is rising for people earning over £100k, and not just at £150k.

Fred Goodwin - what really happened*

*OK, so this account is entirely based on how I imagined it whilst sitting on the tube this morning having read the papers.

Gordon Brown: Myners, first of all we need to sack the senior RBS management, starting with Fred Goodwin.

Paul Myners: OK Gordon, but you do realise that they are on rich contracts and we'll have to give them a wacking great pay off.

GB: We can't do that - there will be an outcry. You'll have to think of a way around it.

PM: What if we offer him something else such a boost to his pension which noone will pick up on until the dust has settled.

GB: I don't want to know - just sort it out.

PM: Yes, Prime Minister.

------

So there you have it. Proof, if any were needed why the government should not be involved in running businesses, particularly banks. They are bound to take rubbish decisions for political reasons and then we can all sit back whilst some lackey acting on orders from above takes the political fall out.

Paul Myers joined the government as a GOAT ("Government of All the Talents"). Turns out he's a scapeGOAT.

Fame, at last

In a highly unscientific, unverified survey of the "Top 25 UK Political Blog Twitterers" (as in by number of followers on Twitter, rather than by quality or anything else), conducted recently by Iain Dale, I have come in at a highly dubious number 16.  In fact, if you simply rank the Tory aligned/right of centre bloggers/tweeters, I come in at number 6 (if Guido Fawkes is to be included in that list, and he doesn't really tweet anyway, he just has a feed from his site). 

The problem with this list and my ranking is that my Twittering and blogging have very little to do with one another. On Twitter, I am mainly connected to people working in the tech sector which has a relevance to my day job and am also followed by a number of other lawyers (mainly US based), a result, I suspect of being on various "lawyers who tweet" lists. 

In fact, my blogging has dramatically as my twittering has increased.  The reason is simple: engagement. I post a tweet, and it might be read by over 400 people  - or many more if it is re-tweeted - the greatest number of hits I have had on a single story on this blog is probably about 250. In reality, each tweet is probably only read by a handful of people, but they are also people I know, like and encounter in real life and so the the effect of their reading a tweet is much more significant than a random stranger stumbling over this blog. 

That said, just being recognised as a blogger by Dale (however tenuously, and having not appeared in the first draft I had to submit myself via the comments), it has reminded me that it is a "good thing" to be doing, which I enjoy and should do more of. 

Watch this space... 

The ever-expanding Baillieu family

It has not gone unnoticed by other members of my family that I have unilaterrally staked a claim to the title "Baillieu Blog" for this blog (despite the url being personal to me), but that I do not write much about my wider family. As it happens, I also maintain a more personal blog for my growing brood - The Baillieu Girls - (formerly, the Baillieu Twins) which has details of our newest addition to the family, but this is apparently not enough.

So to rectify matters, here is a set of photos taken earlier this week at the first gathering of all of my father's seven granddaughters (poor man, still longing for a grandson). They are, in order of birth, Ellie, Clare, Isabella, Francesca, Georgina, Jemima and Henrietta. As is apparent from the photos, Jemima was less than enthusiastic to sit still throughout the "photoshoot".

J.K.Rowling, the Labour Party and the Prince of Darkness

So let me get this straight, J.K.Rowling donates a ton of money to the Labour Party and a few weeks later, "he who cannot be named is back".

Co-incidence?

Twestival Twestival Twestival

@bmje got there first by describing Twestival as a "real tweet" and Mike Butcher has written an excellent post highlighting the raw energy of the event and compared it to the staid proceedings the night before for VC of the year awards, but having taken my trusty flip along to this cracking event, I thought a bit of video blogging was in order and this is the first chance I've had following a busy week and weekend (Wednesday night was Bootlaw, Friday was Minibar - parents' 40th wedding anniversary - and sunshine - this weekend). Even so, I only managed this VERY rough cut with nothing fancy going on such as subtitles...

People to look out for include Benjamin Ellis (@bmje - he has been warned), Jake Stroud (aka Stride aka @jstride), Amanda Rose (@amandita), mad bloke from Geneva (@nuts!) who has sent 36000 tweets, Nick Halstead (@nickhalstead) and Sophie Cox (@sophiecox) discussing the meaning of Twestival, @mbites bidding for a book - and the best bit of all, the live performance by @Ihatemornings - brilliant musician Ben Walker - of the Twitter Song, who kindly gave me permission to upload this footage. Also, bits of Hermione (@hermioneway) dancing a bit madly.

and bits of yours truly - @danversbaillieu

David Milliband - Separated at birth?

I have just started watching Prison Break on iTunes (having loaded up my iPod for the trip to NYC - but never had time to watch the stuff I put on it). Is it just me, or does the lead actor, Wentworth Miller, really look like David Milliband?

You tell me.

The Cognitive Surplus

Last week Clay Shirky was at Web 2.0 in NYC but I missed his keynote. Looking for it on Blip.tv, I ended up watching his keynote to the same conference in SF in the Spring. It strikes a chord with me - particularly as it explains that, amongst other things, this blog is a result of the "cognitive surplus" being put to better use than watching TV - although I do have the Ryder Cup highlights on in the background as I type this, so I am not sure where that leaves us. However, if you have got a spare 15 minutes (and according to Clay, you certainly do), I would recommend you watch it also:

Digital Mission - The Movie

At the suggestion of Hermione Way, who recently declared me to be a "cool lawyer" I purchased a Flip camera last week when I was in New York. I managed to grab a few seconds with some of the Digital Mission companies - and here is the result. Many thanks especially to Sam Michel and his team at Chinwag for organising such a great week.

Digital Mission and when good government is above party politics

This week I am lucky enough to be in New York with 21 British companies who are taking part in Digitial Mission 08. We are hitting the Web 2.0 Expo tomorrow and have already been furiously networking with New York's techno-, digi- and glitterati - and sacrificing our livers for the cause of British exports. You can find out more on the Chinwag Blog, or follow @digitalmission on Twitter for more stories from the front line.

Digital Mission has been promoted by UKTI and has direct support from Tom Watson MP, junior Cabinet Office Minister and notable political blogger and twitterer.

I was pleased to have a chance to meet Tom before the Mission got properly underway, having got to NYC a few hours before the main group, a few of us headed to the rooftop bar at the Hudson Hotel and downed one or two beers whilst admiring the sparkling city above and beneath us. Anyone interested in the power of Web 2.0 - not just social networking, but better web applications - to improve government and society should be reassured that someone like Tom is in government and trying to do something with this revolutionary technology. His enthusiasm in describing the project which resulted in the excellent web service for car tax discs online - or his excitement at having met Clay Shirky earlier that day- is truly refreshing- even for a "raging Tory" such as me.

Tom Watson MP address the Digital Mission crew - DB listening intently

Photo from Flikr (Benjamin Ellis) Some rights reserved

The fact that he engenders such loathing amongst the Tory blogosphere (take this example from Iain Dale - particularly the comments) is no doubt because he is capable of being an old school political bruiser - and could certainly pass for a nightclub bouncer. These skills are probably highly valued by Gordon Brown who apparently calls him at all sorts of anti-social hours, and have resulted in his "enforcer" role in government. But, he is clearly very bright and passionate about good government in a way that transcends party politics - there is nothing right or left wing about Web 2.0 in government - and for that I am glad he is in a position of influence. Not to say of course, that I will not hesitate to help the Tories depose him and the rest of the sorry lot currently in power... funny thing politics.

UPDATE - Tom thank you for the comment, however, my name is Danvers, not David....

Reforming the congestion charge

Followers of this blog will know that I have a minor obsession with the workings of London's congestion charge regime. Recently, I have had the relatively pain free experience of moving my resident's discount over to a new car (although there seemed to be no practical way of not getting charged for at least one of the cars on the change over day itself, which seemed a bit unfair), so am feeling relatively well disposed to the process side of the charge, even though I remain opposed to it in principle.

You can therefore imagine my excitement when I saw today that our great mayor, Boris, has started the consultation exercise about the reform of the western zone (press release here). Not that I mind that the leaflet is written in turgid civil service prose, rather than in a more elegant style befitting Boris, but I am sorry to see that the options for reform are so unimaginative.

They are:

1. Introducing payment accounts (applying to the whole zone).
2. Introduce a free period for the Western zone between 11am and 2pm.
3. Increase the resident's discount to 100%.

Item 1 (payment accounts) is a no brainer, was floated during the mayoral elections, and not really anything to do with the Western zone (although no doubt Boris agrees, but is slipping this idea in so he can make the reform and have it covered by this consultation).

Item 2 (free period) is no doubt a sop to businesses and residents who are annoyed by the cost of the zone being passed onto them by their own business visitors. However, it would make the system fiendishly complicated and raises the spectre of cars queuing up outside the zone just before 11am, then racing around to get out by 2pm. In any case, lunchtime is just a busy as any other time (certainly in the centre of town) and the 3 hour window proposed would not be enough time for the delivery drivers, plumbers, builders and others who need to travel by car or van to complete their business.

Item 3 (100% discount), would be nice - especially for those residents who are at work all day and rarely drive their car during the charging hours, but at most represents a £200 tax cut. It does not really address the issues caused by the zone covering such a large residential area.

My main gripe with the zone is that if you live in the zone (as I do, by a matter of metres), it is very annoying that visitors (whether friends, family or tradesmen) have to pay £8 to drive to your house in the day, regardless of how long they wish to stay in the zone. In the case of tradesmen, invariably they seek to pass this cost onto you (along with parking). Given I am trying to move out of the zone, and will lose the discount, I am equally conscious of the unfairness of having to pay £8 per day simply for wanting to visit some shops or other businesses just within the zone, when it is free to drive to those just outside. I also think it is mad that by living in the western zone, your resident's discount applies to the whole zone.

So here are a few of my ideas:

1. Cut the rate in the west: down to £2 or £3 per day. This would be an incentive for some drivers to avoid it (if they can), but not a huge penalty on those who really need to go in.

2. Resident's vouchers: Allow residents to pay the charge (at a nominal rate, say £1 per day) for one "guest" vehicle per day. Limits could be imposed (i.e. max number of days in total or per guest) or intelligent monitoring to prevent abuse and "congestion arbitrage".

3. A bigger, more flexible buffer: As well as cutting the discount to residents in the western zone for the original, central zone, I would introduce a series of "neighbour zones" so that residents within a mile or so of the western zone would get a hefty (e.g. 75%) discount, radiating outwards for several miles in stages until you got to a much lower discount. This would soften the blow on businesses as their local trade would not be so penalised.

4. A measured approach: if users can have payment accounts, why not allow them to pay by the amount of time spent in the zone, say £1 per hour up to a maximum of £8? This can easily be measured by using the current equipment as entry and departure from the zone is carefully monitored. Surely it is far fairer that a driver who nips into the zone for a few minutes is charged less than someone who spends the day (and make it so a 10 minute trip in the zone is free, so that "accidental" visitors are not penalised). This would also allow for the abolition of the free routes through the zone.

If I think of any more, I will put them up here, but in the meantime, I will try submitting them through the online consultation engine.

How not to sell your house

Credit crunch woes are keeping many potential movers out of the property market making it hard enough to sell a house. However, pity the poor folk who are trying to sell in Chiswick. If it wasn't tough enough, the nice people at Rightmove, where your house might be listed in a Web 2.0 sort of way, provide links to the lovely people at Aboutmyhouse, who give information about the location, and in turn serve up maps from Microsoft Virtual Earth. Still with me?

So if you are curious as to what a house really looks like, you can go for the bird's eye view, and if you select it for a particular part of Chiswick, this is what you get:

Hmmm... pass the ear plugs.

Wrapit.co.uk - letter to liquidators

This is a public service announcement.
If you have purchased wedding presents for a happy couple via wrapit.co.uk and need to claim a refund now that they have gone into liquidation, you might want to use the following as a template (you need to fill out the square brackets..):

[YOUR ADDRESS]

The Administrators
Wrapit PLC
c/o KPMG LLP
8 Salisbury Square
London EC4Y 8BB


Dear Sirs

Claim in respect of goods not delivered - order ID [xxx]

On or about [DATE] I purchased a gift (namely: [GIFT DESCRIPTION]) through the Wrapit.co.uk website at price of £[xxx] using my [NAME OF CARD] credit card, in relation to the wedding list for [NAME OF COUPLE]. I understand that Mr & Mrs [NAME] have not received their gift, so I would like to cancel the order and claim a refund. Please confirm you will not be delivering the gift.

If you are unable to issue payment of the refund, please register me as an unsecured creditor of Wrapit PLC.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully

[YOUR NAME]


PLEASE NOTE: as per the disclaimer at the bottom of this page, this is not posted as specific legal advice, and is merely here to be helpful, and therefore does not create any lawyer/client relationship between us- as if you thought it could. If you want proper legal advice, you need to go and retain a solicitor.

Back to NYC

In September I will be spending a week in New York with the companies selected for Digitial Mission, which is being sponsored by my firm, Winston & Strawn. Here is the press release:

UK digital industry will be boosted when enterprise and expertise connect in Chinwag’s Digital Mission to New York from 14th-19th September, 2008, at the renowned Web 2.0 Expo. Organised by Chinwag (http://www.chinwag.com) for UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), the mission includes a programme of meetings, networking events and seminars designed to help UK businesses expand into the US.

Twenty-one UK companies will take part, after selection by an advisory board of notable names including ex-Dragon’s Den star, Doug Richards; Tech Crunch editor, Mike Butcher; and Seedcamp CEO, Reshma Sohoni.

A list of companies nominated for the New York Digital Mission and information about them can be found on the Digital Mission website: http://www.chinwag.com/digitalmission/nyc08-companies Digital Mission’s partners can forge valuable business contacts and new relationships as they market and pitch their services in a globally influential forum. Activities will include a masterclass on doing business in the US, networking events, a reception at the British Consulate and an agenda scheduled around the Web 2.0 Expo event.

Companies nominated for the New York Digital Mission are: B View; Harvest Digital; Head London; Head Shift; Huddle; Idio Mag; KMP Interactive Marketing & Technology; Littleloud; Market Sentinel; Mippin; Quick TV; Slice the Pie; Smarkets; Sweemo; Tactile CRM; Tempero; UGame; UnLtd World; Unruly Media; Veedow and World TV.

Chinwag CEO Sam Michel said: “We’re impressed that so many companies applied for Digital Mission to NYC, especially as the deadlines were so short. The range of companies from start-ups to established agencies demonstrates the strength of the digital sector in the UK. Chinwag will be working closely with our network of contacts and the UKTI team in London and New York to create opportunities for the mission companies to meet US partners, clients and investors.”

Chinwag has been nominated as the UKTI's designated partner for the Digital Mission to take small-to-medium-sized businesses in the digital sector on two separate visits to the US to make business contacts and promote its companies at two of the most prominent and well-respected global web events. Chinwag will be working with sponsors and international law firm, Winston and Strawn, for both the New York and SXSW Interactive Digital Missions. For more information, about this mission and also for the SXSW Interactive mission, please visit: http://www.digital-mission.org/

PS - I forgot to mention that top lefty political blogger, Gordon Brown hatchet-man and Minister of State for Trade, Tom Watson, may be coming along to New York as well for this, so we should have some stimulating conversation....

Eco ambition

The government's much maligned Eco Towns are palpably nothing to do with being nice to the environment, but the name is supposed to make you think otherwise. A bit like when the barren land next to the North Pole was christened Greenland. However, this is nothing compared to the planned "Nanocity" in India - nano it ain't.

Hat tip: Confused of Calcutta

E-xcellent

Whilst most of the blogosphere has been raving about the Dark Knight (well, the Scottish blogs - here and here, at least, oh, and here), and others have been raving about Mamma Mia (pure crap, by the way, I concur with the Hon Member for Glasgow South), the only thing I have managed to see in the cinema in the last few weeks is Wall-E. Pure comedy genius. But even better, I felt that the environmental message was one of hope rather than impending disaster - the final message is one of hope over defeatism and that the earth can recover from even the most devastating abuse.

Chavtastic Chinawhite

The news that Katie Price aka Jordan was refused a table in the Chinawhite tent at the Cartier Polo last weekend must rate as one of the most bizarre news stories of the summer (that, and that idea that Labour will have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the next election by having Mr Millipede as their leader).

In here eloquent riposte to the "snobs" who excluded her (published in the Times, no less), Katie railed against the unfairness of letting others in, whereas she, who has actually played polo was rejected. Quite apart from the issue of whether the bacchanalian tableaux that is the Chinawhite tent is a suitable day out "for the family", the idea that such an event should seek to exclude anyone on grounds of taste, class or anything else is absurd.

Furthermore, given that Polo as a sport has made at least some progress in widening its appeal, that it should be associated with such daft discrimination is potentially damaging. The Cartier International Day provides the lion's share of funding for the HPA's development budget - and I am sure that China White's contribution to this is substantial. Since it was apparently China White's people who rejected Katie's money, a good start towards showing that polo is not completely up its own backside would be to find another nightclub operator to provide the entertainment at next year's International.

Let the disqussion begin

I have just attempted loading up disqus to handle all the millions of comments I get on this blog. Here's hoping it worked...

PS If anyone can tell me how to get rid of the annoying and pointless ads underneath the top post on the blog, I would be most grateful...

PPS Hurrah, I have fixed it - turns out Feedburner was to blame... Given the low number of visitors I have (yes, I was joking about the millions of comments) and that none of them click on the ads, I do not see the point in having them. I am not exactly going to get rich from blogging....

The joy of recruitment

We are currently looking for an au pair to replace the wonderful Aussie nanny who has been looking after our girls for the past 10 months or so. The process of finding a new au pair has not been without its frustrations given that all we want is a Mary Poppins on the minimum wage...

One of the more important criteria is reasonably good English skills - important for both the twins' language development and ability to communicate clearly in case of an emergency - as well as just not being plain annoying. One hapless candidate on a job website decided (it would seem) to use an automatic translation service to provide the English version of her French description of herself. The French reads, perfectly fluently:

"Je m'appelle [nom] , j'ai 20 ans. J'ai passé mon bac en juin. Ensuite j'aimerais faire infirmière. J'ai 2 grands frères qui ont à eux 2 , 5 enfants agés de 2 à 9 ans. J'aime m'occuper d'eux. Je fais également beaucoup de baby-sitting. je pense passer mon permis cet été. je suis responsable, sérieuse, bavarde, patiente, attentive, sympathique... j'aime lire, faire du shopping, écouter de la musique, voyager, sortir avec mes amis, découvrir beaucoup de choses... je suis non fumeuse !"

However, the English turned out to be not quite so comprehensible:

"My name is [name], I am 20 years old. I crossed my receptacle in June. Then I would like to make nurse. I have 2 elder brothers them with 2, 5 agés children from 2 to 9 years old. I like to be in charge them. I make also a lot of babysitting. I think cross my licence this summer. I am responsible, serious, patient, attentive, nice talkative I like to read, to make of the shopping, to listen to music, to travel, to go out with my friends, to discover many things I am not smoky!"

If I thought her spoken English was that good, she could have had the job, just for the constant comedy value...