Will Brown try and beat the downturn?
2:01pmIrwin Stelzer has a typically sharp piece in today’s Telegraph in which he makes a crucial point about a rather overlooked political consequence of the recent market turbulence. As Stelzer writes,
The rest of the column, especially his argument about why Brown feels confident about ignoring calls for an EU referendum, is well worth reading too.
“The former chancellor surely knows that tax receipts have been sustained largely by payments from high-earners in the City. He knows, too, that it is those very people who are taking a hit from the turmoil in financial markets, and are expecting their incomes to drop this year by at least 25 per cent. Fewer pounds taxed at top rates, lower Treasury receipts, bigger deficits. That forces the Bank to raise interest rates. End of economic growth. Brown must find it tempting to want to beat the downturn.”
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Comments
Mike
August 29th, 2007 2:57pmI'm sure Stelzer is right (as as Murdoch's representative on Earth is very well informed) that Brown thinks he can defend not having a EU referendum by the simple expedient of putting parliamentary approval of the treaty (sorry, constitution) into the NuLab manifesto. I'm however not convinced that this will defuse the ticking timebomb, as it will give the Conservatives a field day to attack Labour as cheating the public out of a referendum. It also makes Brown look very slippery and much like, ahem, Blair. Didn't Brown want to campaign on honesty and moving on from the rapidly-becoming-discredited Blair era
Perry
August 29th, 2007 3:46pm‘Profligacy’, ‘contradictions’, ‘means testing’, ‘fine line’ : just some of the many things that would inspire a control freak to greater efforts. Anything, - except something obvious like plugging the ghastly waste of money and resources – for instance in the NHS and the associated leach-like consultancy (sic) scams?
Praguetory
August 29th, 2007 6:39pmThe headline should be Try to beat... Yours pedantically.
MTK
August 29th, 2007 10:42pmThis whole business of the unpleasant Stelzer being "Murdoch's representative on Earth" really is rather self-fulfilling when he is given all the space he can fill in the Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph and The Spectator. His pieces follow two themes. They amount to either "oh dear, Cameron is making a mess of things" or "isn't Gordon doing his best at a tough job?" As comment, it is vacant. As revelation of the mind of God, sorry Rupert, it reveals little, except perhaps that Tories might get on better if they tried to speak over, rather than through, News Corp. Could we not just try ignoring him for a change instead?