Is Field gearing up for a Budget-time rebellion?
Peter Hoskin 11:51am
Saying the things that practically no other Labour MP will say, Frank Field writes an incisive article in today's Independent. Number 10 will not be amused by his claim that there's a "very serious possibility of a sterling crisis'", but I figure it's this passage that should worry them most:
"...tax increases are unavoidable even in the short run, and the Government should seize that necessity to help make our tax system more progressive. In times of economic decline it is more, not less important, to protect the poorest by developing initiatives that shift any increase in the tax burden onto those with the widest shoulders...Given the rumblings that Field's not happy with the 10p tax compensation package, it's hard not to read his call for a "more progressive" tax system to be "implemented through the next Budget" as an ultimatum. So will we be seeing another Field-marshalled rebellion in the not-too-distant? I certainly wouldn't bet against it....increasing taxes on some, and cash limiting public expenditure, will mark a step change to a political culture built on debt. This programme must be implemented through the next Budget and requires the Prime Minister to open genuine discussion with the leaders of the other two major parties to get an agreement that matches the hour."
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Paul B
February 17th, 2009 12:23pm Report this commentThe grass is greener this side of the field Frankie boy. Beautiful blue green grass.You would be most welcome.
maas101
February 17th, 2009 12:27pm Report this commentIt's good to see that there is at least one labour MP who is prepared to admit that the emperor has no clothes. It's just a shame that the rest of them have their snouts so deep in the trough that they can't (or won't) see the mess that Gordon & Darling are making of Britain's finances.
Robert Williams
February 17th, 2009 1:36pm Report this commentField is not happy with the "10p tax compensation package" because there has been no full compensation, despite the media & other politicians losing interest in the subject. Field wrote in his blog after the PBR ""The package therefore raised some fundamental questions about the Government’s competence in running a crisis economy. Its lack of action on the 10p raises the most fundamental questions about its moral purpose.... Yesterday’s budget merely extended relief to all taxpayers. In no way did it restore the relative tax burden of low paid workers to the vast majority of workers paying at the standard rate. The Government therefore faces the charge that it either doesn’t understand what it has done to the 10p group of taxpayers. Or that it doesn’t care. Either way it is a pretty bloody outlook.
David Bouvier
February 17th, 2009 1:52pm Report this commentPaul B - I admire Frank from afar. He is honest, a man of integrity but is also a old-school socialist to his toe-nails. But I can't see him fitting inside the Conservative Party just because he is not an idiot on welfare.
Jim
February 17th, 2009 2:21pm Report this commentHe's wrong of course. The taxpayer it not something there for the pleasure of the banking oligarchy. Let the banks go bust, cut the quangos, cut local government salaries. No tax increases are necessary, nor should we allow them.
Dave English
February 17th, 2009 3:12pm Report this commentI can see Brown asking for cross party support or an agreement but I would expect it to be general rather than specifically about taxation - something which might possibly give him leverage should there be a hung parliament, however doubtful that may seem right now. I agree, Frank has some neat ideas (also, he supports an English Parliament...) and the fact that he and New Labour split up so early during the project shows how vacuous that project was from the start.
Tim Carpenter LPUK
February 17th, 2009 3:23pm Report this commentJim is right except for the fact that we need tax cuts so the people best able to decide how money is spent - those that earn it - will be able to decide, individually, for themselves, subject to their own particular circumstances where indeed it should be spent.
strapworld
February 17th, 2009 4:53pm Report this commentNo party, now, will allow Brown the comfort of cross party support- they know the country would never forgive them!
Brown will be out of office by June.
Trumpeter Lanfried
February 17th, 2009 6:33pm Report this commentSeeking cross-party support lays the ground for saying, 'We could have done this, but the do-nothing Tories would not co-operate.'
Quite a good argument if you happen to live in La-La land.
Andrew
February 17th, 2009 7:01pm Report this commentHigh taxes that are designed to retroactively pay for bilouts of banks that foolishly lent to anyone - ie good money to replace squandered money, will drive entrepreneurs and higher rate payers abroad. The rich, even when fully supporting the welfare state, do not like handing money to crooks instead of the needy.
There is nothing else to do except print a lot more money. Which at least would cause a shift of wealth from the old to the working young.
Stephen Gash
February 17th, 2009 8:49pm Report this comment@Paul B
February 17th, 2009 12:23pm
The Tory grass is a nasty shade of MacAnglophobia tartan, not disimilar to New Labour's.
Nick Kaplan
February 17th, 2009 9:55pm Report this commentThe abolition of the 10p tax rate was a travesty. The levels of taxes on the poor is also a moral outrage. But we must remember that the rich are not a cash cow for those worse off. Let us not get over-zealous in calls for 'more progressive taxes' lest we kill the goose that lays the golden egg. We wont get out of a recession by driving away or the job-creators in this most crass example of socialist gesture politics.
Herbert Thornton
February 17th, 2009 10:47pm Report this commentAndrew's right.
A lot more money is going to be printed.
But the frightening question is - how much?
I'm beginning to sound like a worn-out gramophone record, but I think we're going to need a new currency managed by a man with the skills of Hjalmaar Schacht.
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