Election catch-up: Just what the election needs – another superficially popular but foolish policy

Ed Miliband’s promise to abolish stamp duty for first-time buyers is the latest in a long line of economically ignorant gimmicks

John Rentoul
Monday 27 April 2015 13:27 BST
Comments

1. Just what the election needs: yet another superficially attractive but economically ignorant policy from Ed Miliband. A stamp duty cut for first-time buyers that will do nothing for first-time buyers and give a windfall gain to the sellers of houses worth less than £300,000.

Given that first-time buyers pay as much as they can for the houses they want, house prices will rise to make up the difference. So the taxpayer would lose the revenue (to be made up by “tackling tax avoidance by landlords”, if you really want to be upset), and sellers would be up to £5,000 better off, further inflating the prices of houses they go on to buy.

Oh it’s all right, say Labour’s defenders, because Labour is going to build lots of houses and anyway George Osborne started it. Just because the Chancellor introduced a populist (superficially popular but wrong) policy doesn’t mean Labour has to copy him. As for building houses, which would at least change the supply side of supply and demand, (a) biwisi,* (b) it would have a minimal effect as long as we are part of an EU single labour market, and (c) it would be hard and expensive to build houses in London and the south-east, which is where the high demand is.

*Believe it when I see it.

2. So far we have had, among other things: rent controls to shrink the rental sector; a tuition fee cut that would benefit only higher-earning graduates; a freeze for falling energy prices; and a promise to interfere in the work of the independent Low Pay Commission by raising the minimum wage, presumably to a level that the Commission thinks would cause unemployment.

What is the point of Ed Balls, an economist and top-class intellect, if he cannot stop nonsense like this?

3. Lots of things in The Independent on Sunday yesterday. My column was about the tendency of the journalist herd to overshoot, wondering whether the story of the last 10 days of the campaign might change.

Our Poll of Pollsters saw the Conservative lead (in seats) widen very slightly, but not enough, if you consult my flow chart of hung parliament options (thanks to graphics genius Henrik Pettersson), to stop Ed Miliband forming a minority Labour government with SNP support.

4. The Top 10 in The New Review, the Independent on Sunday magazine, was Words That Are The Opposite Of Their Meaning.

This reminded Roger White of “Grelling’s paradox, which greatly exercised logicians in the first half of the last century. Let us call an adjective that describes itself ‘autological’ and one that does not describe itself ‘heterological’. Every adjective must be one or the other. However, is heterological heterological or autological? Suppose it is autological, then it describes itself. But that means it is heterological, not autological. Suppose it is heterological, then it does not describe itself. But that means it is autological, not heterological. So, either way we have a contradiction.”

5. Barack Obama’s address to the White House Correspondents Dinner gets better every year. If you don’t have time for the whole 20 minutes, the five-minute section with his “anger translator” is the most special.

6. Finally, thanks to Moose Allain for this:

“I’m not racist; some of my best friends are running the marathon.”

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