Universal tax transparency will mean more inequality and concentrate power in the hands of the already rich.

Straight out of the box of ideas marked "Do Yourself A Favour And Say It Out Loud A Couple Of Times Before You Publish It" comes Polly Toynbee's suggestion that we should go down the Nordic route of opening up the tax and finances of every citizen to public scrutiny:

Something deep and visceral has shifted, ending the notion that income is a confessional secret between taxman and individual. The taboo is broken and must lead to universal transparency. Stripping off the veil of financial modesty would be a shock at first, but we would get used to earnings and taxes belonging in the public realm, not the private one – wills are already public documents. What is there to hide, except dishonesty or moral shame at earning multiples more than others who work as hard or harder?

It's a very confused piece, failing to distinguish satisfactorily between publicly funded rulers and the privately-earning ruled. Tom Chivers, the token lefty (OK, he's had to double up on that designation since Dan Hodges's arrival) over at Telegraph blogs has explained the illiberalism of all this, with biting clarity:

This is a direct mirror image of the Right-wing illiberalism of snooping on emails and pushing "victim's rights" in court. 

There is a further point to be made, over her central assertion that...

...Secrecy encourages inequality.

No. It doesn't. At least, not as much as full transparency will.

Once you are in work, one of the best ways of improving on your current salary and benefits is by moving between employers. This is because your current employers already know what you're on and your remuneration is anchored to that figure. One of the great (maybe only) advantages that you have as a job candidate over your new employers is that they don't know if that salary your negotiating is about the same, a bit better or a whole lot better than your current bunce. Information, as always, is power, here. Ms Toynbee wants to give that power to those towards the pointy end of the free market pyramid.

Let's say you take the job anyway. Now you and your colleagues can start looking up each other's salaries and realise the disparities. Disharmony ensues. And righly so, perhaps. But what will the response be? In the drive for equality and harmony, will attempts be made to raise everyone's wages to the highest benchmark? Or will they be driven down to the lowest? I'm going to go with lowest. Let me just spell that out: L-O-W-E-R, P-A-Y. And where will the surplus that would otherwise have been paid to employees go? (Clue: not to charity or on subscriptions to the Guardian).

That's all if you get the job in the first place. For in this utopia of open information, employers will be more reluctant to employ. Who wants a new colleague whom you barely know going over your personal tax and spend records and judging whether you or the business justify it? How can you be sure that they won't use the information negatively and resentfully? You can't. So maybe when the opportunity to employ a new administration assistant or finance a paid internship comes up, you think that it's probably not worth the scrutiny. And when a management post becomes vacant? Well, that'd be best filled by someone you already know and trust and is probably all too familiar with your fiancial situation. That is, friends and family. So employment opportunities become a little more closed.

How does any of this result in greater equality?

Politics has become less, not more, open in the last week. (But perhaps we can all grow up on one issue, now).

Part of the background music to the London Mayoral campaign has been the usual, slightly whiny harmonies, of anyone who lives outside the M25 questioning how relevant it really is, and whether the national coverage is appropriate.

I'll leave aside Londoners' annual tax export to the rest of the UK (up to £2500 each per year).  And let's ignore the Mayor of London's personal electoral mandate (second largest in the EU after the President of France). For even without those facts, events of the last week around the earnings and tax of the candidates have changed the supposed national 'irrelevancy' of the race to become our Capital's Chief Executive. 

Dan Hodges, over at the Telegraph blogs, has described how the full(ish) disclosure of the candidates' recent financial affairs may have "permanently changed the face of political campaigning". He argues, correctly, that the expectations this creates about candidates' hinterlands, combined with existing prejudices within Parties, will not lead to a brave, new meritocracy. Quite the opposite.

Politics has become less, not more, open in the last week. But perhaps we can all grow up on one issue, now.

The release of tax returns and accounts has been referred to as the "americanisation" of our elections, in reference to the existing convention in the US that those standing for office make full disclosures in these matters.

However, there's one big difference in the States. While the public like to ensure that there has been no wrong-doing and illegality (i.e. tax evasion), they expect that their representatives-to-be have probably done quite, if not very, well for themselves, and are unsurprised if they've exploited opportunities for minimising the tax for which they're liable (I'll come back to the rights and wrongs of this later).

Here, though, when Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone and Brian Paddick opened up their books on Thursday, a good part of the analysis and criticism was over the total amounts they had earned (before we had even got to how efficiently or otherwise they had passed it all through the tax system). Even the blogosphere's most well-defended bastion of economic libertarianism, Guido Fawkes, couldn't help but have a sneer that one of the candidates "isn't doing too badly for himself".

We should know a lot about those who seek to rule us. And we should know even more about them once they're wielding that power: salaries, expenses and other financial interests. But who is going to want every activist, tweeter, blogger and journalist opposed to their Party or to them as individuals, combing through income records and passing judgement on every penny? The calls for household - spouse's or partner's - income to be included could make this a goldfish bowl into which it is even less inviting to jump. The experienced will be even less inclined to trade in their current careers for one in politics. Our Parliament, our Assemblies, our Councils and our City Halls will become less diverse.

The trickiest part of becoming an MP is the selection process. Navigating the mazes of constituency issues, local party internal politics and national political imperatives while physically campaigning on what is almost a full-time basis is stressful, to say the least. Include the highly personal nature of counter-campaigns and the requirement to demonstrate ideological purity at every turn, and you begin to understand why the several dozens who initially show interest in a vacant seat are soon whittled down to a handful, even before the short-listing kicks in.

Now there could be an extra layer: financial history. The threat is greater for us in the Labour Party. How soon before the offers to publish payslips and mortgages are raised during selection meetings by those who know that they are not "too" rich for the tastes of CLP members? Such a selections culture will benefit the young, the bland and those doing the "right" sort of jobs in which pay bands are already well-known or public.

That's the long-term threat for Labour, in all that has come out of the last week. There is an opportunity for us, too, though.

Tax avoidance has been a dominant issue for the wider Left over the last two years. For UK Uncut and Occupy, it has been the second half, ideologically and mathematically, of their campaigns against austerity in particular, and capitalism in general.

At no point has anybody addressed the question of what tax avoidance is for and why it is used. The caricature painted by tax campaigners is one of faceless multi-nationals abusing accidentally created loopholes to enrich their boards while impoverishing everyone else. The truth is that governments create or allow opportunities for tax avoidance for a reason: because they want the money that would otherwise have been taken by them in tax to go elsewhere. For example, on Research & Development. Or on investments in under-capitalised sectors, such as the arts. Or on employing people. Or on covering losses from a previous year. Or keeping costs low for consumers. Or rewarding shareholders. Or on incentivising the company as a whole to stay based in the UK. In the current furore over Amazon's corporation tax, the EU rules on which tax rates apply to whom, where and when are designed to support the Single Market and the free trade that results from it.

We all got a slightly better understanding of such tax-avoidance-with-a-purpose this week. At least part of Ken Livingstone's tax efficiency arrangements (whatever you may think about them or him) were in order to employ others and start a new venture. When even Ken Livingstone tinkers with his tax arrangements in this way, it is surely time that we on the Left admitted that this is yet another issue which requires a rethink.

By all means, oppose all or any of the aims of tax avoidance and what results from it, if you wish. Seek to have the laws which facilitate them changed. But do so in the first instance by targetting the lawmakers, not individual businesses. There are two reasons for this. First, regulators already step in when tax avoidance is too aggressive and pursued in a way counter to intentions. Second, if it is done in a coordinated way that will apply consistently and at the same time, then you might get quite a few businesses on your side. Of course, some of those will be quite big and will be looking to close those loopholes to help stop smaller competitors getting a foothold in the market - but that's the trade-off you'll have to live with.

But then that's what politics is all about. For some of my fellow Lefties, the world this week got a little greyer and a little less black and white. For the sake of our future success, that is no bad thing.

Mission Accomplished? Why UK Uncut's battle is only just beginning.

The most appropriate quote with which to start this post (covering, as it shall, matters of hubris) is probably the warning given by Harvey Keitel, playing Winston Wolf, in Pulp Fiction:

But what I have been most reminded of in the last few days, by the mutual backslapping amongst Occupy, UK Uncut and their various cheerleaders, is this:

The battling Sunny Hundal has now demanded repentance from those of us who have been less than respectful about UK Uncut's intentions and effectiveness. Apologies are now to be laid at the altar of direct action because the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons has published a report confirming what everyone knew: there is an enormous great load of cash in dispute between Her Majesty's Customs and Revenue, and some large companies. HMRC say a hefty old chunk of this cash is due in tax. The companies disagree.

Campaigners are claiming that this happened because an activist base has, at various times over the last year or so, sat on steps outside St Paul's. Or in shops. Or in banks. Or in Parliament Square. The awareness which this raised has, according to their arguments, led to this unstoppably revolutionary moment: a Parliamentary committee agreeing that there is something to argue about.

Let's leave aside the possible post hoc ergo propter hoc fallaciousness of this. I have never doubted that, to quote Margaret Mead, a small group of committed, thoughtful citizens can change the world. Sometimes campaigning and protesting is raindancing. Sometimes it really is the only way to start change. Sometimes it's a complex mixture of both.

However, I would be more willing to accept the UK Uncut/Occupy claims of "Victory!" if they had at any point proposed (or simply foreseen) the crucial role that they now claim PAC is playing.  Indeed, haven't these people spent a great deal of time and rhetoric claiming quite the opposite? Aren't they usually somewhat contemptuous of Parliament and its MPs? Almost, in fact, violently opposed to this sort of democracy? Well, its good to see them falling in with us brainwashed masses who think that national, representative forums are still the best way to address issues.

My second problem is that those blogging a jig over the alleged success either completely ignore the other factors that have made up the campaign, or subvert these factors as secondary to the direct action.

The Guardian's John Harris is particularly at fault here. After three and a half paragraphs of near-religious adulation for Uncut's shop occupations, he blithely mentions the judicial review process, led by the movement's off-shoot, UK Uncut Legal Action.

About this time last year, I unfairly mocked the possibility of campaign groups using judicial reviews. I was wrong to do so. They are a legitimate and effective form of activism. And, alongside the reporting from whistleblowers and other journalistic investigations, have been the real reason why PAC started taking on the issue of the tax disputes - in July. Mr Harris seems to be arguing that the money to support the judicial review process would not have been raised if it were not for the storming of the High Street. That seems a particularly blunt way to fundraise in the age of internet-based, small total, large volume donations. So far, UK Uncut Legal Action has raised £13,000. That's not to be sniffed at but it hardly suggests a mass, sustainable campaign that has brought people with it on their revolutionary journey. 

Not that it matters: the lawyers working for UK Uncut are doing it on a no-win, no-fee basis, anyway. Money may be needed if they lose (not that anyone in Uncut even considers their arguments anything other than 100% correct) but it's not needed at the moment.

So what do we have to show so far for a year and a bit of occupations and demos? A select committee report agreeing that there is an issue (which everyone said there was anyway); and a small amount of money raised (that isn't needed).

Forgive me if I'm not kitting out the cellar with everything needed for a life post-capitalism, quite yet.

But don't be disheartened, Mr Harris and Mr Hundal have other successes to point to. 

First, Sunny is grateful for support from what he believes to be an unusual quarter:

But no one had ever tried to raise public awareness of corporate tax avoidance in this way before, and certainly no one had got the Daily Mail on side on it either. Only UK Uncut managed that.

Any student of media or politics should be wholly unsurprised by the Daily Mail joining in here. It's entire business model is predicated on reducing complex issues to a a single headline or slogan, pushing opinion as fact, ignoring countervailing arguments, and generating mock outrage based on self-generated half-truths. As an old-fashioned lefty sort, I'd be very wary if the Daily Mail took up a campaign of mine. The "new left politics", apparently, revels in it.

Harris goes even further with his welcome to new, supposedly surprising, allies:

First, there is the small matter of Occupy LSX's achievements: sending the Church of England into such a spin that Rowan Williams suddenly had to align it with what he termed "deep exasperation with the financial establishment"; prompting no end of coverage of the byzantine Corporation of London; and playing a huge role in the pushing of a host of issues around equality that began to snowball in the culture from mid-October onwards.

You're kidding, yeah? The time when the CofE could be described as "The Tory Party At Prayer" is long past. In the last 20, arguably 30, years it has jumped on every populist, trendy liberal bandwagon that's passed down Great Smith Street. Especially so under Rowan Williams. Of course, none of this desperate issue-chasing has had anything to do with declining church attendances. Oh, no. They've all been faith critical, of course. Sharia law, Middle East conflict, republicanism, 'broken Britain', positive discrimination, paganism, ecology, international development. Have I missed anything? If I were John Harris, I'd have been worried if Lambeth Palace did not align with UK Uncut and Occupy. But unsurprised when it did.

The point on City of London transparency is a better one and has the potential for a popular, constructive campaign. But just as it was beginning to gain momentum, Occupy overplayed their hand, mixing sensible proposals for local government reform in the Square Mile, with silliness such as a "truth and reconciliation commission" (lack of perspective, much?) and claims the Corporation is above Parliament.

My favourite bit of his eulogy to Occupy, though, is this:

For sure, their self-comparisons to the rebels of Tahrir Square can easily grate.

To which I would only like to add:

For sure, a Guardian journalist's support for anti-tax avoidance campaigns on the pages of a newspaper owned by a company that practises tax avoidance can easily grate, too.

But I digress.

He ends with a call to "highlight failures which are truly systemic" and to promote them to even greater prominence. 

Highlight. More prominence. Yawn. It is way past time for this phase of the campaign.

The danger now for UK Uncut and its network is that even the argument on tax avoidance can still be lost, despite The Great Leap Forward of the PAC report. As the Committee's inquiry progresses, Uncut's targets will have their "day in court". The case for the defence of Vodafone, for example, has been well articulated here (and that's just one example). Nowhere has there been a rebuttal of points such as these. Nowhere has Uncut or Occupy truly engaged with the debate. They repeat - endlessly - their initial positions and beliefs. They offer little by way of constructive argument.

I certainly want to see the promotion of solutions that do more than take us back to a status quo ante. And I want to see an effective vehicle for radical and effective challenges to the mistakes that got us to where we are now.

But, on their current trajectories, neither UK Uncut nor Occupy will be it.

2011 has ended without one cut being reversed, and without any extra tax income being identified and collected. Is there any reason to assume that 2012 will be any different?

But what would I do? (Thank you both for asking).

Occupy: as you were. Seriously, don't change a thing.

Uncut: first, pray for warm weather and hope that Occupy will take advantage and continue the trend for trustafarian urban camping, with all the leaderlessness and nebulousness and general irritatingness that comes with it. That'll give you something to define yourself against from the other side and position yourself as a practical alternative, dealing with the effect of fiscal policy on real people's lives. 

That's the easy bit. To take advantage of that, you'll also have to better reflect the current debate. Maybe start by admitting your own mistakes (e.g. the attack on Barclays in February, which was an unfortunate misunderstanding of how business works, and was very off-putting). Then recognise that alongside the benefits of taxation and public spending, there are also costs (embodied in concepts such as tax incidence) and opportunity costs. You could even start discussing what sort of (whisper it) public sector reform could and should be taking place in our post-Credit Crunch world. This will all establish a context for negotiating in from your current unsustainable positions of rejecting each and every cut and wringing every last penny of possible tax from business. 

That's my (before tax) two shekels' worth, anyway. 

In short, the issues are coming of age. It's time UK Uncut were, too.