MANCHESTER is `perhaps the most starkly evident' example of a new divide between rich and poor, claims George Osborne.
The shadow chancellor and Tatton MP claimed too few people were sharing in the city's `thriving' economy.
Mr Osborne, who is also the shadow minister for Manchester, said that the unemployment rate was twice the national average, one in five Mancunians had no formal qualifications, and `growing poverty' existed side-by-side with prosperity.
Over the past 10 years, `Britain has increasingly been divided into two nations - one nation that is getting more affluent and another that is finding it harder than ever to get on the housing ladder and make ends meet.
"But while this pattern is repeating itself across Britain, it is perhaps most starkly evident in Manchester.
"Greater Manchester is the UK's largest sub-regional economy outside of London, with three-quarters of Britain's top 100 companies based in the region. The city has the largest concentration of creative industry employment in the UK.
"But alongside this prosperity exists growing poverty. One in five people living in the city have no formal qualifications whatsoever."
Town hall chiefs have long admitted their biggest economic challenge is making sure everyone shares in the city centre boom. In June, the M.E.N. revealed that the council planned to put Jobcentre staff in doctors' surgeries across Manchester in a bid to get people off benefits and into work.
A council spokesman said: "We are pleased that Mr Osborne recognises the achievement of Manchester in transforming its economy into one of the most successful in the UK.
"We have seen more than 45,000 jobs created in the last 10 years as the city has positioned itself in the forefront of the knowledge economy.
"We know there is still work to do to ensure that all of our residents can benefit from these growing opportunities.
"The unemployment rate has almost halved in Manchester in the last 10 years, compared to a national drop of just 1.5 per cent.
"While we recognise that there is still room for improvement, we do not recognise the bleak picture painted by Mr Osborne."
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City's 'growing poverty gap'
August 22, 2007
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne speaking at the Institute of Directors in Manchester
Showing comments 1 to 22 and replies | View All
ace, manchester (22/08/2007 at 10:58)
Black Flag (22/08/2007 at 12:17)
The only way to ensure that everybody benefits from these increases is a land value tax, where each landholder pays the total rental value of the land they hold. This could then be paid back out to the electorate, with everybody getting an equal share.
Wilbur Norris, Manchester (22/08/2007 at 13:03)
The Catcher, In the Rye (22/08/2007 at 13:12)
Your post reads like marxist claptrap.
alix, manchester (22/08/2007 at 13:28)
Charlestown Blue (ex Blackley Blue), Manchester (22/08/2007 at 14:22)
Power to The People, Blackley (22/08/2007 at 15:15)
Your a muppett why should I pay for all them tax dodgers who havent done a days work in their lives.
I work hard to line my pockets, Im not the most educated person around but I make use of what I have.
Why dont people go make there own money? Get 2 jobs if you cant earn enough from 1 and get that chip off your shoulders as no one owes you a living.
rammylad, ramsbottom (23/08/2007 at 13:09)
Wake up MCC, you have been found out as a shower of idiots. Don't make things worse by fudging even more figures.
'We have halfed our unemployment rate compared to only a 1.5% drop nationally'. That maybe the case but when you start at 10% unemployed you are still in a much poorer position than the rest of the country.
Muppet's the lot of them.
Wait till they take 2k a year of all the poor people to get to work. Then we will see the gap widen.
Get them out, get them on the dole.
ace, manchester (23/08/2007 at 16:31)
I see a house near openshaw full of migrants that just sit on the doorstep all day shouting and smoking,but doing nothing but sponging off "our state" that we have paid for over the years. no wonder we dont have enough in the pot for our elders and poor. who will help us when the pot runs dry.nobody we will have to hold the begging bowl out and do you think these people will dip their hands in their pockets to help "ANSWER NO THEY WONT"
Happyblue, Failsworth (23/08/2007 at 18:46)
Black Flag (27/08/2007 at 12:36)
If people are uncomfortable with the idea of the revenue from a land value tax being paid back out in equal shares, I'd be happy to see it used to reduce income tax. That we, those who earn their money through work would be better off, but those who obtain it by speculating in land would be worse off.
Landholders have been getting a free ride for too long. It's time for people to start paying a fair rent for the land they hold.
Colin W, Abroad (28/08/2007 at 06:53)
Black Flag (28/08/2007 at 08:48)
It's time to shift the burden of tax away from income from work and on to land.
The Catcher, In the Rye (28/08/2007 at 11:32)
Black Flag (28/08/2007 at 12:14)
I am actually in the process of selling a house for twice what I paid for it four years ago. I did nothing to earn that money, but will pay no tax on it. At the same time, I have been paying tax on income I have earned by working. To me, that seems to be the wrong way round.
To answer your direct question, I do not own any land, because no individual owns land in the UK; under British law, all land is owned by the sovereign.
I've no idea where you get the idea that I've got socialist or left wing tendencies from. I’d describe myself as a geolibertarian. I believe everybody has a moral right to enjoy the fruits of their own labour (i.e. reduce income tax), but should pay a fair price for using natural resources (i.e. introduce a land value tax).
newmoston (28/08/2007 at 12:32)
Black Flag (28/08/2007 at 13:51)
You claim to support the idea of backing those who work and making freeloaders pay their way, yet when I suggested a system which would do precisely that, you objected to it because it wouldn't benefit you.
The Catcher, In the Rye (28/08/2007 at 14:24)
I don't follow the intellectual argument you have used to link my desire to rid the Britain of freeloaders and my objection to any kind of land tax.
You, correctly, state that all land is in the theoretical possession of the sovereign, yet you support a land tax. Wouldn't that mean that only the sovereing will pay it. Doesn't sound very egalitarian. Sounds more like a convoluted way of being anti-monarchy, which of course you are bound to be.
Sorry Black Flag, you are just another sciolistic neo-marxist. When you have a logical argument for land tax please post it.
Black Flag (28/08/2007 at 15:16)
No, the fact that all land belongs to the sovereign clearly does not mean that they would be the only one to pay a land value tax. If the sovereign owns the land, then the person occupying it is a tenant and as such, it is legitimate for them to pay a market rent for its use.
Your argument reads like that of someone who likes to think of himself as pro-worker, pro-free market, but baulks at the idea of having to pay his fair share.
If believing that everybody has the right to enjoy the benefit of his own work and his own property makes me Marxist, so be it. If being of the same opinion as free market economists such as Adam Smith and Milton Friedman makes me Marxist, so be it. I don't think it does though.
The Catcher, In the Rye (28/08/2007 at 16:30)
1. using the expression 'so be it' does not convert claptrap to logical argument.
2. I am not pro worker. I am a rabib right wing conservative.
Black Flag (28/08/2007 at 16:50)
1. The sections where I said "so be it" weren't intended as logical argument, they expressed my lack of concern at the terminology used. The logical argument was in the second paragraph.
2. I think the term "sponger" might be more appropriate.
3. If you are going to describe somebody else as being in danger of sounding like a pseud, you'd well advised to avoid phrases like "sciolistic neo-marxist."
Black Flag (29/08/2007 at 12:07)
As we have established already, land is public wealth, which is owned by the sovereign and to which we all have an equal claim. If somebody takes a plot of land for their own private use, it is legitimate that they should pay a market rent for that land to the owner, i.e. into the public purse.
Income earned from work, on the other hand, is legitimately private wealth. The person who worked for it earned it by their own effort, so nobody else has a legitimate claim over it.
Therefore, to suggest that we have income tax without having a land value tax first is to suggest that some people should have their private wealth taken from them in order to subsidise the private use of public resources by others. That sounds like freeloading to me.