Should I vote Labour

Daphne, apologies. I don't really understand why the Times articles can't be accessed but other people have said the same to me. Certainly they say subscribers can share them with others.
Nor do I get the corporation tax v income tax point. CT is payable on a company's profits, but in order to get any of that profit surely the shareholders/proprietors have to take it out in dividends or pay, and won't that be subject to additional tax? And if not, surely the fix is to make that happen rather than just increase CT?

WW - education should be free? Why? There is an overwhelming case for most education to be free, but all tertiary education? Whether or not there is a clear benefit to us all? There has been an eye watering increase in university education, and I for one don't think paying for it all without any proof of public benefit is a sensible use of money. I would guess that a huge portion of the earmarked money would be better spent on vocational education, genuine apprenticeships or similar. I don't know for sure of course, but I see no logic in just pouring it into universities without question.
Brexit - I don't see any real difference between Labour and Conservative policy here, other than a bit of spin. The biggest spin is changing the name of the GRB!
Nationalisation - I've seen no convincing case for spending the money. The only particular efficiency I can really recall about nationalised industries is a remarkable union capacity for calling persistent strike action.
I see they also want to ban driver only trains, whether or not they are safe. This isn't a major policy point but it seems to me indicative of the power the unions will have if Labour are in power. It is Luddite pandering to the unions, pure and simple.

Well, the one thing I am now aware of is that I will never mention training providers again on here after today as, according to both gillybob and whitewave they deserve only to be pilloried on this forum as each and everyone of them is bad, run by bad people for bad reasons.

Gillybob, I don't think you will necessarily be unpopular for your suggestion. It is time we treated low earning young (by comparison to the great earnings of some) companies in a way that allows them to grow (There may be a better way of defining them other than low earning and young). Whether your suggestion would be the way forward I don't know but I do think the ideas should come from the small businesses as well as all the others who have skin in the game.

National Investment Bank

Establish a new bank that will devote itself to lending 250bn over 10 years for large scale investment projects that the private sector cannot fund and make a profit.
Regional development banks created.

Backing for research and Development will also be one of its aims with a target of reaching 3%of GDP

Analysis

Many have supported an investment bank. With the Treasury cutting back, it is the perfect time for an investment fund backed by the state to boost infrastructure spending.

Business

Labour wants to discourage ticketing executive pay, short-terminism and unscrupulous behaviour, mentioning BHS.
There will be rewards for firms who pay fair wages and respect the environment.

Analysis

More onerous regime for large companies , but more support for small companies and exporters, by a state backed insurance that guarantees payment even when foreign customers go bust.
Big companies considered important to the UK will be shielded from foreign takeovers.and protected from foreign firms dumping cheap goods in the U.K. But the directors will owe a duty to employees, suppliers and the environment, not just the shareholders.
In order to qualify to be able to tender for government contracts, they must show that they are respecting their workers rights, environment and paying their suppliers on time.
Controversially they must show that their best paid employee has earnings of not more than 20 times that if their lowest earner.
That will prevent Serco, Capita, G4S and other big outsourcing firms from running prisons, and IT systems without a drastic reduction in top pay.

gillybob I thought the Conservatives were planning to put up the minimum wage anyway. It saves the government money, because it doesn't have to pay so much in working tax credit.

Universal Credit and a higher minimum wage completely messes up very small businesses like me, because it's assumed that people earn 30(?) x minimum wage per week, which I don't, so I can't claim working tax credit for the money I don't earn IYSWIM.

Immigration

Recognises that the economy needs immigration..

Wants to see fair and managed immigration. Scrap the £18500 income threshold that has lead to the separation of thousands of families.
Migrant impact fund to be established. This has been a long standing Labour commitment (Brown) The Tories say they will match it.

Tuition Fees

Education should be free. Labour will re-introduce maintenance grants for university students and abolish tuition fees

Brexit

Accepts the referendum result.
Will make the single market and customs union priorities. Guarantee the rights of EU nationals. It will reject any "no deal" position, and drop the repeal bill , replacing it with a EU rights and protections bill to ensure no dimishment of existing rights to workers, environment, equality and consumers.

Detail of the leaked Labour Manifesto.

Railways.

Repeal the Railways Act 1993.

"As franchises expire" avoids the problem of buying out existing contracts. There are currently 15 rail franchises in place. These will all eventually run out over between 7-22 years.

60% of public back the idea.

Energy

Energy companies will be taken back into public ownership with central government control of transmission and distribution grids. There will be at least one public ally owned energy company in every region of the U.K. That is locally run.

Promises that bills will remain below £1000 pa
Current variable tariff is £1086 - so a cap is not a big stretch for the providers

Royal Mail

Tories sold it for 3.3bn when its market value was 10bn.
Labour will take it back into public ownership.

67% of voters back the re-nationalisation of RMail

I know I am biased (and this won't be popular)but I would like to see zero corporation tax on the first (not sure how much yet) profit in small businesses. We could easily employ another person (we are busy at the minute) but it is a huge risk as our work depends very much on how much the big manufacturers are investing. I would like to be able to re-invest in our company which will assure the future jobs of our small workforce. I know at least two of our customers are feeling very touchy at the thought of a labour government and their anti business policies, not to mention the steep rise of the minimum wage, which will result in them having to put prices up and possibly redundancies too.

Sorry, Fitzy, I can't access articles in The Times.

The point is that even the Office for Budget Responsibility (set up by the Conservatives) is claiming that money is being lost to the Treasury. Corporation Tax is currently lower than income tax, so some small businesses are paying corporation tax rather than income tax. At the same time, they are avoiding paying National Insurance Contributions, which are an additional 23% (?).

I'm no accountant either, so I don't know how it works, but I do know that this is one ruse my ex-husband used to avoid paying me any maintenance for our children and to avoid paying back his student loan.

Richard Murphy, who wrote the article dj quoted, also admits in a reply to the blog, that low investment is a real problem in the UK and more needs to be done to encourage it.

I'm slightly ambivalent about higher education fees, because they do generally benefit only one sector of the population, but they are now at ridiculous levels. I believe they're amongst the highest in the world and I'm not convinced that the return is worth it for the individual. However, there is a need for graduates (probably not so many as we now have) at a national level. The UK is a country with few natural resources and without a manufacturing base, "intellectual" services are our highest earner.

I'm particularly annoyed that the means-tested non-repayable grant was stopped this year. OK, I'm biased, because my DS started uni this year and missed out on the grant, which his sister received. On top of the increase in fees, DS will owe over three times as much as DD - and there's only five years between them.

giily and it ticks the Tory box of "providing training for apprentices" whilst lining the pockets of the training providers.

The "training providers" (how dare they even call themselves that?) I have come across are worse than useless. They do nothing whatsoever for their generous fees. I know a young lad who was attending a "training provider" in the hope of getting him into work. He spent entire day's building little castles from marshmallows....... And the government are paying them . You couldn't make it up.
They are nothing more than brokers paid by the government (and in the case of our of apprentice the employer too) to tick a few boxes and shuffle a few papers.

From Ed Conway, who thinks the offerings from all the parties are just too 20th Century:
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a8e27624-3683-11e7-a950-1fd679d420f6

I'm no economist but I was far from convinced that higher allowances will do any more for investment than lower taxes in the first place. I was also a bit confused by his description of current allowances. It didn't seem to reflect what appears on the government website, but I guess he's the expert.
I'm not necessarily against some form of relaxation in the cost of higher education to students but his comment on that issue is nothing more than pure speculation. The one thing I do agree with what he says there is that he is indeed, biased.
www.gov.uk/capital-allowances/first-year-allowances

And what could we do with that extra four billion!

I readthat too, dj.

The most important part of it is that the Office of Budget Responsibility itself estimates that £4 billion is lost to the Treasury because small businesses use Corporation Tax, which is currently lower than income tax, as a form of tax avoidance.

When NIC avoidance is added to the equation, the figure is probably much higher. It was the Conservatives who wanted to raise NICs, so Corbyn can't be blamed for that one!

"Right now, and I summarise, with a corporation tax rate of 19% and a 20% allowance on capital spending a year a large company in the year that spends £100 on capital equipment gets a cash rebate of £100 x 19% x 20% = £3.80 in the year it spends the money. Tory plans to reduce the corporation tax rate to 17% reduce this to £3.40. That, to be candid, provides no incentive for investing at all. This is a tax system for rentiers and bankers. It does nothing at all to encourage any activity in the real economy where people work and value is created.

Now change the tax rate to 26% and offer 100% first year allowances and the allowance is worth £26, or near enough seven times more.

This will encourage investment.

That will create growth.

The investment will increase productivity.

That increases wages.

And growth, again.

And so future tax revenues as a result.

In other words, increasing the corporation tax rate kickstarts the economy in a way that a corporation tax cut can’t. And it pays for itself.

So Corbyn has a plan that firstly beats avoidance, second raises revenue, thirdly can encourage investment and fourthly delivers growth. None of those come from the Tory plan.

On this occasion he is onto a winner.

And he’s the one talking economic sense.

Give it two years and it will be a Tory plan. But right now they’ll just ridicule it. Which will be a loss to us all.

Finally, let’s talk education. I may be biased, but UK universities provide us with a real competitive advantage and a massive rate of return in terms of relative skills. Redirecting money to this sector whilst leaving those departing it debt free (or with reduced debt) would create a big economic stimulus.

Corbyn has a policy that is coherent in that case from beginning to end. And it is appropriate I say so."

It's a long time since Murphy has praised Corbyn this much.

"Jeremy Corbyn has said he will increase corporation tax from its current 19% for all companies to 21% for small companies and 26% for larger companies if Labour wins the election. Let’s leave probabilities aside and discuss the merits of this idea.

The logic of both proposals is sound. For small companies the case is that it makes no sense at all to have a corporation tax rate below the basic rate of income tax: all that becomes is a blatant invitation to avoid tax. This abuse is already costing up to £4 billion a year according to the Office for Budget Responsibility: I suspect it may be more when the full national insurance impact is taken into account. In that case the 21% rate is almost certainly too low: I would have gone higher to beat abuse and win back more of the lost billions, which is exactly what is required.

Dealing with larger companies (of which there are vastly fewer) the situation is more complex. First, 26% is not high: it is close to the EU and OECD averages when adjusted for our current low rate.

Second, it’s not that long ago we had these rates.

Third, there is no evidence at all that cutting the rate has brought jobs, growth or new corporation tax revenues to the UK (the rise in revenues is very largely because of the rise in the number of small companies and broad based recovery in profits from banking and elsewhere and not because of new inward investment driven by tax).

Fourth, we know that business itself did not lobby for the low corporation tax rates now on offer.

Fifth, we know business says tax is low in its considerations when real business is being relocated as opposed to profits being relocated – which is the type of abusive activity Ireland attracts and which has rendered its national accounting meaningless because so much of its GDP is profits simply flowing through the place leaving almost not a trace bar some fees for bankers, lawyers and accountants on the way. "

Taxresearch.

So what? So nothing, just thinking how dependant Corbhn is on those with private education experience .

In case anybody missed Labour's "Fiscal Credibility Rule" from the Labour manifesto.

So what? Attlee was privately educated. People can't help the decisions their parents make or the family they were born into.

James Schneider , Corbyns advisor and momentum activist was privately educated and his family had two homes, one in Promrose Hill, the second near to Balmoral , a man of the few not the many ?

Which is why there needs to more accountability. I'm sure there are some good ones, but I've only ever come across appalling ones and cowboys, who are just in it for the money.

From what I've seen, vocational training and adult education in the UK is a mess and has been for years. It's about time the government got together with trade associations, FE providers and sorted it.

I imagine that like most things there are good trainers and bad trainers just as there will be good employers and bad employers.