Is Brown's last roll of the dice an income tax cut for everyone?

Colin

Too little too late and not enough to take our minds off the fact that this god awful government has run its course.

Anne

Early election anyone? Will people (voters) really be that short-sighted?

RMH

Cancel the vat rubbish and it is "paid for".

Voters are thicker than stale custard.

Cameron should aggressively target the start point for income tax and say it starts at the minimum wage level for a 40 hour week.

That way you aid part time workers, the old, the 2nd wagers, and indirectly everyone.

Ie those that vote.

Chuck Unsworth

So, McFall being the mouthpiece, running it up the flagpost again. What these people do no understand it that it is now moving beyond simple tax cuts and other paltry handouts. The public are actually tired of NuLab posturing and want shot of them.

It's clear that they are sick of the constant showboating and now want to see real integrity and honesty. For a decade they have been constantly lied to and deceived. Now the truth is dawning on the electorate. What chance is there of this Government being believed?

"There is nothing which you can say....." etc etc.

Sally Chatterjee

It's good. But it would need to be accompanied by significant savings in spending, to ensure that borrowing doesn't get even more out of control.

Brown can easily make a tax cut, the real question is whether he can back it up with spending cuts.

Alex

I would almost accept the higher borrowing for the longer term irreversible benefit/social justice of taking those people earning less than £10,000 out of the income tax system.

Hawkeye

He won't do it. I have it on very, very good authority that "The greatest inconsistencies are in fiscal policy, where Cameron is promising lower taxes, more spending"

At least, that's what Yvette Cooper about Cameron's proposed tax cut. Maybe it only applies to Tory cuts and not to Gordon promising more spending and tax cuts.. errr....

More of Yvette's burblings are at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/18/davidcameron.conservatives

Rhoda Klapp

Is this the kind of labour policy that is only for announcing, not actually for implementation. It is disgusting to tell us it's in the PM's mind. Either do it, or don't. It won't work anyway. In fact it is the reverse of a sensible policy. Recession do not affect all equally. If you lose your job, if the savings you relied on are gone, or you don't get good interest rates, a cut in income tax is no good. If you are in work, you are OK. Maybe your mortgage has gone down. My monthly disposable is up by hundreds of pounds (although my equity in the house and my investments have lost tons, that's paper losses). If anything I ought to pay more in income tax to help the actual victims (until I am one..). I'm using the extra money in my hand to pay down debt and retrench, not to reflate the economy. I do not believe the economy can be stimulated at this point, or indeed that anything can be done without restoring liquidity, which is dependent on the banks lending again, and I have yet to see the conditions they need for that to happen.

So, Rhoda's contrarian prescription, more income tax for those who are in work, higher interest rates to enable the banks to pay back the govt and to lend at a profit, and removal of regulations on cash (so-called money-laundering) to relase hitherto hidden money into the economy.

NorthernJohn

If it isn't, it bloody well should be. And while he's at it, he can reverse that expensive and totally ineffectual VAT cut.

cityboozer

Why would they necessarily increase the 40% threshold? They could just as easily lower it without anyone losing out.

Slim Jim

But how will this proposal go down with Polly and Jackie? They want us to pay MORE taxes! Will the Left buy into this? I suspect that this is all about remaining in power - damn the cost.

Of course, if we didn't have to pay income tax on our savings, and coupled with an income tax cut, we might just have enough deposits in the banks to get the economy moving again...whoa - I just saw a pig fly past my window!

Verity

David Cameron is not aggressive enough. He doesn't just have to present ideas - which can't be too complicated because people live by political soundbites. Instead of giving Scummy Blair a rousing hip-hip-hooray, he needs to be negative with a vengeance. He needs a steady, drip, drip, drip programme of trashing Gordon Brown in every aspect. He (or others on his behalf) should make personal comments. He should point to all Brown's mistakes. He should mock the size of the Stalinesque public sector - frequently. The British are fed up with so many people having a remit to tell them how to live their lives and what not to do and this would resonate. And gay outreach coordinators are not going to vote Tory anyway, so who cares if they and their ilk are offended.

Coming up with one or two positive good ideas is fine, but it's not enough to dislodge this government. Gordon Brown is a very insecure, touchy individual, as we know, with a well-deserved sub-cutaneous inferiority complex . There should be a sustained avalanche of personal mocking. Everything he does should be mocked. They have to tear him down as the Labourites tore down William Hague. (Who yet may become PM, IMHO.)

cuffleyburgers

Verity - couldn't agree more, I want to see the Tory attack dogs foaming at the maw, and I want blood on the carpet, and I have been posting ineffectually to that effect for months and months.

In contrast to you, I rate Cameron highly, but the time is, now more than ever, to go in "horse foot and guns" to quote the estimable lord Flashman

Susan Hill

Verity, If I really thought you could be right about William Hague becoming PM I might even vote.

Rhoda Klapp

Notwithstanding what I wrote before, the basic allowance for tax should be set at 2000 hours at the minimum wage. I really do not see why people working part-time for a pittance have to pay tax. Maybe the tories could get this out first as a promise.

This would have the added effect of putting a price on a minimum wage hike, up to now the employers have paid the extra and the govt got the money in tax and reduction of benefits, the poor worker got nothing. Hence a rise in NMW is an income-raising measure.

Rhoda Klapp

Oh, and another thing, does anyone know how much the VAT cut really cost? It seems to me that in a downturn if spending by punter was reduced the VAT cut might not have made all that much difference to govt income.

SW11

Amazing. I had blogged about this idea in various places, and was sure the Tories would announce it in the run up to an election.

I suppose Cameron was damned either way. If he announced it, we'd hear nothing but the 'cuts' chorus and if he sits on it, Labour puts its hand up first.

Still, it shows you that Tories are too nice. Are they shouting 'cuts, cuts, cuts'? No.

Anyway, wouldn't scrapping tax credits and the admin around them help to pay for this idea?

PS Verity - I not sure 'IMHO' is applicable to you, best stick with 'IMO'.

Verity

Cuffleyburgers - I, too, want to see blood on the carpet (and the walls) but we are not going to get it from this leadership. I want to see Brown beaten up and humiliated every time he steps into the chamber. I want to see impersonators shredding him - not that this will happen on the BBC, but YouTube might work. Brown is a wobbly plate of insecurity and could be demoralised very easily by derisory hoots.

Susan Hill. Stranger things have happened. We have a sitting Prime Minister governing Britain without a single English vote. Obama, without a single qualification and without presenting his birth certificate to show he was even eligible to run, won the Presidency of the United States.

I believe that William Hague will eventually become Prime Minister of Britain. I'd like it to be sooner rather than later, but I can't catch an intuition about that. Perhaps after the Labourites win the next election, David Cameron will lose his position, the iniquitous A list will be dropped along with swooning over "social justice" and "fairness", we will return to true Conservative policies under William Hague. There is absolutely no one on the other side who can match him, never mind better him. (And while I'm on a roll, John Redwood for Chancellor.)

jennywren

An increase in personal allowances could easily be funded by removing the overcomplex system of Working Tax Credits for low earners (which could well be rendered pointless by this measure) and then firing all the jobsworths that administer it....
(Dream on)

Lance Grundy

Nah, it won’t happen. Higher personal allowances that would take millions of people out of taxation altogether would also free them from dependency on Gordon Brown’s welfare state and have the unfortunate consequence, for Labour, of severing the master and servant relationship on which their ideology is based.

Labour prefer the ‘client state’ approach, where those taxpayers Labour deems to be deserving apply to a big benevolent Labour government for a tiny amount of their money back via a complicated tax credits scheme and, in the process, become welfare junkies. On receiving the said payment in their pay-packets, the grateful recipient is then expected to think “money for me from the Labour Party” and vote Labour forever.

A simple idea but, frighteningly, it seems to work.

Polly and Alice's mum

Verity, I second the motion that John Redwood should be chancellor of the exchequer.

Polly and Alice's mum

PS Now then, have we all voted on the no.10 petition to force Brown to resign for his financial incompetence?

molesworth 1

You ladies want to be careful giving Lord Mandy & the unutterable Derek Draper too many of your details, direct, via the No.10 website. There's every chance that things could get a lot more 'Old Holborn' round here before there's any 'Sunshine, Dave' & I want to make it as hard as possible for the buggers to know what I read, view etc.
"We know where you live..."