Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me every five years - that's democracy!

What's in a manifesto? Politicians make their careers more promising by promising more. Most of all during a closely fought general election where no party expects a majority. In these tight contests a goon with a gatling couldn't fire off promises faster nor more recklessly.  Party manifesto writers confidently disregard truth because win or lose politicians will get away scot-free with failure to deliver their pledges:Lose and they don't even need an excuse. With no power to fulfil the promises, nobody would know if they were fibbing.Win...

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Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 9th April)

Drug firm Novartis tried to 'scupper' trials of a cheaper version of eye medicineAvastin, which costs just $50 (£34) a dose, could save the NHS £102m if used instead of the standard treatment, ranibizumab, or Lucentis, which costs $1098. The drugs giant Roche holds the intellectual property rights for both, but Novartis has the rights to market Lucentis in Europe. In one of several examples given in a report by the British Medical Journal (BMJ), a senior researcher from Bristol University, who took part in a UK trial of Avastin said that Novartis...

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Do top income earners pay the top tax rate? Withdrawal of Tax Credits leaves people on low wages paying 73% marginal tax rate, and on moderate wages paying 83% marginal tax rate.

The LibDems and Tories squabbled over who should get credit for the increases in the personal tax free allowance (Personal Allowance), which rose from £6,475 in 2010/11 up to £10,000 in 2014/15. Whoever did it, did it mean low paid people got to keep all their income to spend as they will? Of course not!For people receiving Working Tax Credits, who may or may not be getting Child Tax Credits too, their tax credits are clawed back at the rate of 41 pence for every pound (i.e. a 41% withdrawal rate) above an income threshold of £6,420. Note this...

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The way out of a recession is to borrow and invest. It’s text book

Fee, KJ and Chris get confused by Tory and Labour economic policy...OUR RELATED STORIES:Spending our property wealth faked 30yrs of growth. Next up, Osborne’s pension cash-inGraphs at a glance: Budget 2014 document shows we’re growing through borrowing. Again. That's why Britain needs a pay riseIs your Cost of Living crisis over?! Average wages are still back where they were 10 years agoWorkers driven from full to part time work is the only reason employment is holding upThe incomes of the bottom 90% have hardly risen in 20 years, whilst the top...

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Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 2nd April)

London’s poorest tenants hit by £50m rent rise as social housing converted to 'affordable' homesHousing associations quietly switch thousands of tenancies to higher rates to make up a shortfall in government funding. In 2010 the government made a 63% cut in capital investment budgets for housing associations, in effect a £3bn reduction in available funding. The government has also demanded that any taxpayer investment in new housing should be in affordable rather than cheaper social rented homes. Social rents are typically half market rate, while...

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Graphs at a glance: Public spending cuts hit the many harder than the few, because the few can buy privately what is cut. But elections are decided by the many!

Defining who is very rich is not straightforward. Some with vast wealth have little income and live in poverty (for example, low income pensioners living in million pound London houses bought for a song decades ago). For this post we consider households with more income than 90% of households in the UK. Perhaps not all "rich", but certainly "richer than most". We use the Household Disposable Income data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). These ONS figures for 2013 show the top decile (top 10%) of households had 13.4 times...

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