Hereditary Peers' By-election

[maxque]

Nov 9, 2014 12:37:06 GMT joe said:

Nov 9, 2014 11:38:01 GMT jamesdoyle said:

Tax cuts don't increase tax revenue. When will the right wing realise that wishing it doesn't make it so. Look at the evidence

It depends on the current level of tax. As a generalist point, your comment is clearly and demonstrably false.

As as an extreme example, decreasing tax from 1% to 0% decreases revenues (duh). Decreasing tax from 100% to 99% clearly would increase revenues as nobody would bother working to earn above the threshold at which the 100% rate applied. 

The arguable point is at which point the tipoff point is not the presence of one. 

But your point is very academic. For current taxation levels, is it true?

[Deleted]

Nov 9, 2014 12:39:14 GMT maxque said:

Nov 9, 2014 12:37:06 GMT joe said:

It depends on the current level of tax. As a generalist point, your comment is clearly and demonstrably false.

As as an extreme example, decreasing tax from 1% to 0% decreases revenues (duh). Decreasing tax from 100% to 99% clearly would increase revenues as nobody would bother working to earn above the threshold at which the 100% rate applied. 

The arguable point is at which point the tipoff point is not the presence of one. 

But your point is very academic. For current taxation levels, is it true?

Income tax? Probably still increasing revenues with increasing taxation, but you are certainly at the point where your return is hugely much diminished from the 20% that you would expect. 

You also have the issue that with high spenders moving abroad you have decreased spending and vat revenues and thus are harming growth and other tax revenues. Marginal? Yes, but we are approaching the flat section of the Laffer curve, so margins are important.

obviously this is merely the thought processes that a lefty should be going through. I personally have zero interest in maximising revenue.

[Devonian]

Crossbench hereditary peers’ by-election

Notice to electors

Two vacancies have been created among the excepted hereditary peers who sit in the House of Lords. These arise from the death of Viscount Allenby of Megiddo on 3 October 2014 and the retirement of Lord Cobbold under section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 on 13 October 2014.

Under Standing Order 10, these vacancies are to be filled by means of a by-election. Both vacancies will be filled in one election.[...]
The timetable for the by-election is:

5 pm, Monday 24 November Deadline for candidate registration and receipt of alternative ballot address from electors.
Wednesday 26 November List of candidates, statements and ballot papers sent to electors.
10 am, Tuesday 2 December Hustings organised by the Convenor of the Crossbench peers, in committee room G.
5 pm, Tuesday 9 December Deadline for receipt of ballot papers.
Wednesday 10 December Count to take place and result of the by-election reported to the House.

One election, with one ballot paper, will be held to elect two hereditary peers. The Alternative Vote System will be used. Voters place the figure 1 in the box next to the name of the candidate they most strongly support, the figure 2 against the next most favoured candidate, and so on. Voters may cast as many or as few votes as they wish. In order to be elected, the first successful candidate must receive at least as many votes as all the other candidates put together. In the event of this not happening after first preference votes have been allocated, the votes of the candidates receiving the lowest number of first preference votes will be shared out according to the second preference marked on them. This will be repeated until one candidate has at least half of the total valid votes.

Once the first candidate has been elected all ballot papers are re-counted to elect the second candidate. In this second count all preferences for the already-elected candidate are transferred to the next preference on the ballot paper. Otherwise the process is repeated as per the explanation above. Even though two candidates are being elected, the ballot paper should be marked with only one “1”, one “2”, one “3”, etc.

www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-information-office/2014/Lords-notice-hereditary-peers-by-election-Nov-2014-allenby-cobbold.pdf

[Deleted]

Nov 9, 2014 12:37:06 GMT joe said:

Nov 9, 2014 11:38:01 GMT jamesdoyle said:

Tax cuts don't increase tax revenue. When will the right wing realise that wishing it doesn't make it so. Look at the evidence

It depends on the current level of tax. As a generalist point, your comment is clearly and demonstrably false.

As as an extreme example, decreasing tax from 1% to 0% decreases revenues (duh). Decreasing tax from 100% to 99% clearly would increase revenues as nobody would bother working to earn above the threshold at which the 100% rate applied. 

The arguable point is at which point the tipoff point is not the presence of one. 

Let's talk about the real world, shall we?

The Laffer Curve has been comprehensively shown to be false. My comment is clearly and demonstrably true. As is normally the case, those on the right argue from no basis in fct at all - they construct a hypothesis, argue that it's true, and when shown evidence that it isn't true, they just insist it is.

[Deleted]

Nov 9, 2014 15:58:19 GMT jamesdoyle said:

Nov 9, 2014 12:37:06 GMT joe said:

It depends on the current level of tax. As a generalist point, your comment is clearly and demonstrably false.

As as an extreme example, decreasing tax from 1% to 0% decreases revenues (duh). Decreasing tax from 100% to 99% clearly would increase revenues as nobody would bother working to earn above the threshold at which the 100% rate applied. 

The arguable point is at which point the tipoff point is not the presence of one. 

Let's talk about the real world, shall we?

The Laffer Curve has been comprehensively shown to be false. My comment is clearly and demonstrably true. As is normally the case, those on the right argue from no basis in fct at all - they construct a hypothesis, argue that it's true, and when shown evidence that it isn't true, they just insist it is.

....?

Firstly, a laffer curve in and of itself is a means of displaying information and cannot be true, false or whatever. Secondly, the idea that a laffer curve is flat is a logical fallacy, I mean to the point of being nonsensical. That it goes negative is only disputed by the utterly crazed fair left brigade, madder than the greens. The point of contention amongst anyone is the broad position of tipping points. 

What surely you find maddening is the over optimistic nature of those on the right with regards to revenue projections. Stating that tax revenue increases linearly with taxation rate is akin to believing that humans and dinosaurs coexisted.

[Deleted]

Nov 9, 2014 22:59:22 GMT joe said:

Nov 9, 2014 15:58:19 GMT jamesdoyle said:

Let's talk about the real world, shall we?

The Laffer Curve has been comprehensively shown to be false. My comment is clearly and demonstrably true. As is normally the case, those on the right argue from no basis in fct at all - they construct a hypothesis, argue that it's true, and when shown evidence that it isn't true, they just insist it is.

....?

Firstly, a laffer curve in and of itself is a means of displaying information and cannot be true, false or whatever. Secondly, the idea that a laffer curve is flat is a logical fallacy, I mean to the point of being nonsensical. That it goes negative is only disputed by the utterly crazed fair left brigade, madder than the greens. The point of contention amongst anyone is the broad position of tipping points. 

What surely you find maddening is the over optimistic nature of those on the right with regards to revenue projections. Stating that tax revenue increases linearly with taxation rate is akin to believing that humans and dinosaurs coexisted.

1. The Laffer curve is not a means of displaying information, it is the representation of the belief that tax revenue will increase when tax levels decrease. This is false.
2. Who said that the laffer curve was flat?
3. No the point of contention is not tipping points, you haven't demonstrated that there IS a tipping point.
4. Who said that tax revenue increases linearly.

So
A (leading from 2 and 3) - stop setting up straw men, and aarue to the point.
B (leading from 3) produce some evidence, rather than keep reiterating the hypothesis. Repeating 'the world is flat' doesn't make it so, no matter how many times you say it.

[john07]

Just how we have got on to a discussion of the Laffer curve in a thread in hereditary peers by-election escapes me. Maybe a new thread under the Economics section could be started.

Tax revenue on a sales tax may fall with increased marginal rates if the price elasticity of demand for the commodity in question was greater than unity. It is for that reason that commodities which are price inelastic such as alcohol and tobacco are often chosen for high rates of tax, otherwise the Laffer curve is total bullshit. The idea that cutting tax rates will generate more revenue is laughable (or laffable?).

[neilm]

It isn't laughable but it is more complex than the curve suggests (as with all of these things). There is undoubtedly an optimum level but the way tax revenue is generated in the modern state makes it hard to identify.

[greenchristian]

Nov 10, 2014 13:37:24 GMT neilm said:

It isn't laughable but it is more complex than the curve suggests (as with all of these things). There is undoubtedly an optimum level but the way tax revenue is generated in the modern state makes it hard to identify.

What's laughable is the idea that you can measure (or even estimate) the impact of tax revenue on the economy without taking into account the impact of government spending. The laffer curve is, at best, a massive oversimplification. And given that any attempt to plot it will make a very large number of unprovable assumptions, it is of no practical use. Which means that the people who bring it up in order to justify the idea that tax cuts will raise revenue have a fairly weak understanding of economics.

[neilm]

All attempts to plot impacts from tax revenue make unprovable assumptions. There is, however, an optimum level in tax terms, if only for political reasons.

I freely admit that I favour low taxes for ideological reasons and use the curve to back that up because it does have validity. I'm more concerned with fiscal crisis and actually the Laffer curve is very useful in that area as a demonstration item.

[Devonian]

List of candidates for the 9th December by election


Albemarle, E.

Aldington, L.

Cadman, L.

Calverley, L.

Clanwilliam, E. (L. Clanwilliam)

Darling, L.

Grantley, L.

Harlech, L.

Hood, V.

Kinnoull, E.

Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, E.

Massereene and Ferrard, V. (L. Oriel)

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Russell of Liverpool, L.

Sempill, L.

Somerset, D.

Sudeley, L.

Thurlow, L.


Full details and candidate statements here

www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-information-office/2014/Lords-notice-list-of-candidates-Allenby-Cobbold.pdf

[neilm]

I was expecting Sudeley's to be a bonkers rant but it seems fairly sensible.

Lord Oriel hasn't really grasped this crossbench thing, has he.

[Devonian]

Results of yesterday's by election

On the first count, of the 18 candidates, 7 received one or more first-preference votes.

After 4 transfers of votes, the voting for the final three candidates was as follows:

Lord Russell of Liverpool 13
The Duke of Somerset 5
Lord Thurlow 5

The first successful candidate was therefore Lord Russell of Liverpool.

On the second count, of the 17 remaining candidates, 6 received one or more first preference votes. After 4 transfers of votes, the voting for the final two candidates was as follows:

The Duke of Somerset 12
Lord Thurlow 11

The second successful candidate was therefore The Duke of Somerset.

Full details of the results
www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-information-office/2014/Lords-notice-hereditary-peers-by-election-Dec-2014-result-allenby-cobbold.pdf

[Davıd Boothroyd]

The House of Lords authorities appear to have invented a way of doing multi-member AV elections and which isn't STV. They run the election for one post, then when they have a winner, run it again but with the winner of the first election excluded.

This approach might work in practice, but why not just use STV?

[greatkingrat]

Running it as a two seat STV election could give a different result (maybe not in this case, but in a more polarised election it certainly would).

Doing it this way replicates what would have happened if there was time to hold the first by-election before the second vacancy occurred.

[johnloony]

Dec 10, 2014 19:51:52 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

The House of Lords authorities appear to have invented a way of doing multi-member AV elections and which isn't STV. They run the election for one post, then when they have a winner, run it again but with the winner of the first election excluded.

This approach might work in practice, but why not just use STV?

They haven't invented it, because it's already an existing system (albeit in anoraky textbooks* rather than in the real world). they may have re-invented it , albeit unwittingly and unintentionally, but they didn't invent it ab initio.

Why not STV? Because STV is designed to be proportional (i.e. proportional according to whatever criteria are considered important by the voters (usually party, but not always)), meaning that each elected candidate represents a third of the voters, whereas repeated AV finds the majority opinion repeatedly.

Repeated AV (or Multiple AV, which is similar) are the transferable-vote equivalents of multi-member FPTP, i.e. the largest single party (or the majority party) usually gets all the seats available, whereas under STV they are shared out more evenly.

P.S.

* "Comparative Electoral Systems" by Robert A. Newland
published by the Arthur MacDougall Fund, 1982, ISBN 0 903278 07 3, pages 30 to 32

[maxque]

Who decided to run things that way? The House of Lords, or the "Electoral Reform Services" (part of the Electoral Reform Society), who organised it?

[Devonian]

Another by election for another two vacancies on the Cross Benches. Vote to be held on 2 Feb, results announced 3 Feb

List of candidates

Albemarle, E.
Aldington, L.
Cadman, L.
Clanwilliam, E. (L. Clanwilliam)
Cork and Orrery, E. (L. Boyle)
Darling, L.
Hampton, L.
Hemphill, L.
Hood, V.
Kinnoull, E.
Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, E.
Marlborough, D.
Mountgarret, V. (L. Mountgarret)
Napier and Ettrick, L.
Sempill, L.
Sudeley, L.
Thurlow, L.
Tryon, L.

Full details and candidate statements here

www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-information-office/2014/Lords-notice-list-of-candidates-Chorley-Abernethy.pdf

[neilm]

Lord Sudeley again. Without looking, I bet he mentions the Book of Common Prayer.

[finsobruce]

Jan 22, 2015 0:29:05 GMT neilm said:

Lord Sudeley again. Without looking, I bet he mentions the Book of Common Prayer.

Spot on. Along with a interest in improving the teaching of history in schools to protect the British constitution. 

I see that Lord Lloyd-George has worked in insurance "specialising in political risks" and Lord Cork and Orrery served in submarines and has a life long interest in dendronology. An interesting bunch...