A quick plug for the third episode of The Pod Delusion, the podcast what I’ve been doing stuff for.

This episode asks whether atheism is just for the middle classes, what’s available on Freeview and whether quack iPhone apps are worth the money (clue: no). My contribution is about Gordon Brown’s keynote speech to the Labour conference – mostly on the content but with a bit about the rapidity of online reaction.

You can listen on The Pod Delusion website or use the player in the sidebar on the left (people from the future: if I’ve redesigned and it’s no longer on the left, sorry). You can also subscribe via iTunes. Win.

Gordon Brown isn’t going to call a general election, Nick Robinson is reporting.

Scaredy cat, scaredy cat, sitting on the doormat. Of Number 10. For a few more months at least.

So he’s messed around with Labour’s activists, led electoral officers around the country to make unnecessary preparations, and caused the news agenda to be dominated by election speculation – rather than, say, actual news – for weeks. Well done, Gordon. And all the time you were “getting on with running the country” and not at all strategising with your advisers. Not at all.

And now what have you decided? That you can’t be sure of doing better than the unpopular Tony Blair if you went to the country now. Bit of a damning indictment of your first 100 days in office really.

So the Saatchi and Saatchi agency has been recruited to look after Labour’s advertising for the general election. Whenever that might be. <cough>

Here’s their pitch:

What the BBC story doesn’t tell you*, is that they were previously turned down by the Liberal Democrats after this proposal:

For some reason, the Tories – despite the success of Labour Isn’t Working in 1979 – also turned them down. Can’t imagine why:

*because (let’s be clear for legal purposes) I’ve made it up

From the budget report, I’ve attempted to knock up a simple tax graph showing you who will be worse off and who better off under Gordon Brown’s new plans. He’s announced a cut of 2p in the basic rate of tax effective next April, but he’s also abolishing the starting 10% rate of tax, with no concomitant increase in personal thresholds announced. Here’s the basic effect – the blue line is the new tax regime as if applied today, the purple line is the current regime:


There are some caveats: Brown is making working tax credits more generous, so they will continue to a higher level, helping people on the lowest incomes (that’s my attempted interpretation anyway); and the top NI threshold will be raised, increasing slightly the NI paid by the richest.

The upshot, though, as far as I can see, is that if you earn in the £7k-£18k band, you’ll pay more tax despite this headline tax cut. The biggest beneficiaries appear, from the graph, to be those earning around £36k a year.

This is all rather back of the envelope so corrections welcome…

Update: Ryan’s worked out that £18,605 is the salary figure when you switch from loss to gain.