Tim Worstall

A Good Idea from the new economics foundation?

Yes, it would appear so. Quite remarkable that they’ve managed to put the bongs down for long enough to come up with something sensible but there it is:

MPs’ votes would be weighted according to their constituencies’
incomes, so that rich areas accounting for 15% of the population would
have 60% of the votes. The MP for Surrey would alone have twice as many
votes as the MPs for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Northern
England combined – enough to veto any constitutional change.

Those paying for everything having more votes than those supplicants getting things paid for is such an obviously good idea I’m surprised that we don’t do it really.

Not sure whether they in fact did put the bongs down or whether the work experience lad got confused and picked up skunk by mistake but whatever it was, carry on, first time I’ve seen the nef making sense.

In

9 responses

  1. The Remittance Man Avatar
    The Remittance Man

    Wouldn’t it be far easier to simply restrict the franchise for those who elect the House of Lords/Senate to people with a declared income above the national average?
    Provided the new upper chamber then had an absolute right of veto over anything the fuckwits in the Commons passed things should return to sanity.

    Reply
  2. pommygranate Avatar
    pommygranate

    Or restrict the franchise to taxpayers and retirees.

    Reply
  3. F0ul Avatar
    F0ul

    Wouldn’t it make more sense to restrict voting to people over a certain wealth level? 😉
    Back in the real world, the whole voting thing is tuned to the richer areas anyway. They are usually much more populated, and as such have more MP’s per area.
    As such, a large rural but poor area of Wales will have one MP, where as the same geographical area of the South East of England will have 50 MP’s!
    Tim adds: Actually, constituency sizes work the other way around. Boundaries are redrawn ever decade. But population movements are from poor areas to rich. So poor constituencies usually have fewer voters than rich ones.

    Reply
  4. William Avatar
    William

    “those paying for everything”??
    Then voting should be weighted according to tax payments. You might find all those Surrey rich bastards suddenly disenfranchised then.

    Reply
  5. Matthew Avatar
    Matthew

    His figures are completely screwy. There isn’t an MP for Surrey, but even if there was, the income of Surrey in 2004/2005 was (according to the Inland Revenue) £17bn, whilst for Scotland it was £41bn. So the MP for Surrey would have less than half the MP for Scotland, and much less than that for all the other regions.
    Tax payments, btw, exacerbate the split, as there is a good correlation between income per head and tax payments. Kensington and Chelsea, by far the richest constituency, pays the highest tax as a % of income.

    Reply
  6. David Gillies Avatar
    David Gillies

    I say withdraw the franchise from all those who are net recipients of public funds (i.e. taxpayer’s money). This would include a fortiori Brown’s cockroach army of bureaucratic leeches. No representation without taxation!
    Of course in the case of the World Bank it is entirely right and proper that the richer countries should have a larger say in things. Who pays the piper etc.. The richer nations have shown they have at least some idea how to engineer prosperity. Putting the likes of Senegal on par with France is risible.

    Reply
  7. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    Additional votes for householders, restore the University seats, bring back the property qualification for jury service. Sorted.

    Reply
  8. Guy Herbert Avatar
    Guy Herbert

    <<"those paying for everything"?? Then voting should be weighted according to tax payments. You might find all those Surrey rich bastards suddenly disenfranchised then.>>
    You are only thinking of income tax – and not thinking very well, at that. The rich may pay much lower rates on their marginal, er, controlled cashflow (it escapes confiscation by not being income), but to be able to afford elaborate tax-planning means you are earning so much that your total tax payments on earnings will still be huge. And whether or not getting is taxed, spending by ‘rich bastards’ that goes in tax includes VAT, excise duties, and half the wages of any staff they may have.

    Reply
  9. Marcin Tustin Avatar
    Marcin Tustin

    And what does this do to self-ownership, exactly? Those who aren’t paying tax are still people who will be subject to the laws of parliament. Perhaps you could have taxation-weighted voting to the tax assembly, if you must.

    Reply

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