Where the burden of Brown falls most heavily
James Forsyth 8:58am
In the Telegraph, John Kampfner makes the case that Gordon Brown is as ‘uncritically’ adoring of the super rich as Tony Blair ever was. He argues that this attitude stems from Brown’s fear of being seen as anti-business, his acceptance that the wealthiest just won’t pay their fair share of tax and his conversion to ‘trickle-down’ theory.
The most interesting part of Kampfner’s piece, though, is his contention that this approach combined with Brown’s desire to redistribute wealth has left to the tax burden being raised ever higher on the middle classes. Certainly, one of the hall marks of Brown’s tenure as Chancellor was how fiscal drag saw more and more people being pushed into the top tax band. For the Tories, who are now once more behind Labour on the economic question, coming up with an agenda to appeal to these people should be their top domestic priority.
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David
February 22nd, 2008 9:56am Report this comment"For the Tories, who are now once more behind Labour on the economic question" On a survey of only 500 people, without any vote weighting, taken by a pollster who admit themselves they tend to get more Labour voters as respondents and thus have to weight to compensate. As Mike Smithson says, this isn't a poll you can actually draw much from.
Anan
February 22nd, 2008 3:03pm Report this comment"The tax burden being raised higher on the middle class" because of redistribution the scale of which comes close to that of Communist Russia you say? Hmmm... and due to lack of taxation of the rich you say? WELL DUH! What do you expect would happen?!
And you say this is only "interesting"? More like criminal!
TGF UKIP
February 22nd, 2008 7:56pm Report this commentDavid, unfortunately the niceties of poll analysis don't count it's just the headlines wot matter as the Labour-loving Times would know when they commissioned this type of poll. Sure enough they got the poll and headline they wanted. The more important point, though, is in all polls the lead one way or t'other is extremely close when it should really be massively in favour of the Tories given all the Government cock-ups. The voters quite realistically, though, appear to take the view that when there's so little difference they may as well have Real Labour as Blue Labour. Sensibly pragmatic I would say when the Tories have so little economic credibility.
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