The Tories musn't let Labour define them on tax

Publius

"The Tories musn't let Labour define them on tax"

... Or on "progress", or on "social justice" or on "equality". But what hope is there of that, when so many even of the Speccie journos seem locked in this mental prison?

Nicholas

Frankly Labour defines the Tories on everything, not just tax, and the media generally go along with it. The two great myths in modern politics are centred on two propositions.

1. Labour get away with the most outrageous incompetence, scandal and hypocrisy because at the end of the day they are supported and excused by the left-leaning media for their supposed idealism and progressiveness; and

2. The Tories cannot lose their left-leaning media imposed image of being upper class twits interested only in supporting a class system based on privilege and wealth.

Neither proposition stands up to much scrutiny but in a society which has become increasingly puerile and mean-minded these cartoons seem to be firmly established.

Holly ......

What we have to be mindful of here is the past, present and future intentions of the three main parties.
Not just on the finances of the country but the direction they have taken us,and intent.
Is it plausable to expect any party make the country 'perfect'?
All we should expect is sound judgment and policies.
No political party can legislate that everyone must have the same amount of wealth and those with more are the devil.
What political parties should do is feed aspirations.
Put in place policies that allow the individual to grow,a bit like BGT/X Factor.
If these shows did not exist Susan Boyle would not be living her aspiration today.
True talent.
If not for Maggie I would not own my own home.
But now we have a social housing shortage because of this policy. Boo.
Then the government should have built more social homes for rent and regulated immigration.
Labour seem to be saying one thing yet have done the polar opposite.Be it on wealth,
immigration,terror threats,crime,health,
education and the economy.
We also have to be mindful of where tax rises and spending cuts will be aimed.
Do we trust Labour or the Conservatives to get the country back on it's feet in a sensible, responsible way?
Who put us where we are now?
Tough call.

Publius

"a tax that would make banks pay insurance for the possibility of the state having to bail them out again"

-- Ah yes. And guess who'll end up paying the premiums.

Nick

It's so infuriating hearing the cack-handed response of Tories when pressed on matters such as IHT. Can't someone at CCHQ write a primer on how to handle awkward questions.

- It's not a tax change designed to benefit the uber-wealthy. Million pound plus estates will be the only estates who WILL be paying IHT. The tax is aimed at those with 500k estates. Which accounts for hundreds of thousands of people purely on account of property price rises.

- There is NO INTENTION of changing the current IHT regime until the nation's budget is back in better order. Hence this is an aspiration for teh end of the first term of any Tory government.

- Our MAIN TAX PLAN is to reduce corporation tax to support British business and maintain employment and boost job creation.

There, that should be simple enough to deal with the Paxos, Humphrys and Marrs of this world.

Ben

Even when Labour has conned us with the Lisbon Treaty, the Tories get the blame because they are not now offering a referendum.

The Tories seem too nice. You only have to see the way Cameron gets bashed around by Brown at Question Time. They need a few more bruisers like Ken Clarke

Short the UK

Mr Osborne should kill the IHT attack by agreeing that it must be frozen due the huge deficit and our balance sheet being shot to pieces by New Labour. He can say we will look at it when the Tories win a second term. The first term must be focused on getting business growing and not losing control of interest rates brought about by a collapse in the Pound.

This is a simple narrative.

Mr Osborne must hammer the message of getting business growing so we can repair our ruined public finances. Attack, attack, attack.

TrevorsDen

Coffee house bloggers should not obsess with counting angels on the heads of pins.

When asked, Osborne quite naturally refused to rule out a windfall tax - how else to respond? Its a harmless line. Every day as I go through life I refuse to rule out millions of things; from throwing myself under a bus, winning trhe lottery. And I am still here poor and impoverished.

Indeed immediately after he made that point he pointed out, and this was clearly the point the wanted to emphasise, he pointed out that Darling was clearly briefing different things to different newspapers.

So he is not being defined - he is in fact pointing out the games labour are playing.
I think you have missed the point Mr Forsyth.

Luke

But the council tax cut policy was just for a limited time and has now expired

And the corporation tax policy isnt even announced or paid for

luke

Nick, good effort but I suggest you would face three further questions.

1) How can you claim that the tax isnt aimed at the wealthiest when 80% of the money from the changes goes to estates over 1m? If Osborne was not trying to help millionaires did he just get his sums wrong?

2)So its just an aspiration now is it.. Will this tax cut for the wealthy come before or after you cut income tax for the poor? Will it come before or after you stop cutting the schools budget?

3) What coorporation tax cut? How will it be paid for?

TomTom

The Tories should offer to discuss Frank Field's plans to stop the working poor being taxed into poverty and replace benefits with higher net pay with fewer deductions. It is what the Joseph Rowntree Foundation flagged up so propose to simply tax/benefits so people can earn their own living

Nick

1) How can you claim that the tax isnt aimed at the wealthiest when 80% of the money from the changes goes to estates over 1m? If Osborne was not trying to help millionaires did he just get his sums wrong?

Osborne should just reply: "100% of all inheritance tax is paid by millionaires."

Almost begins to sound like an old school socialist measure. A tax ONLY paid for by millionaires.

And as hasn't beenpointed out the funding for IHT changes comes from taxing "uber wealthy" non doms. A group that Gordon Brown has singularly failed to get to pay their fair share of tax over the last 12 years.

Gary Williams

Brown's tactic is to try to buy votes by using the nation's terrible indebtedness as an excuse to redistribute wealth. Taking from the few to benefit the many is an old trick, and not easy to counter. The fact that, as James alludes, so far the Tories have been deer caught in the headlight of Brown's runaway train has hardly helped them.

The people who vote are yearning for straight talk, not point-scoring bullshit. The Tories should ignore Brown's meretriciousness and focus on the fact that the entire nation is going to have to consume less than it produces in order to pay for the debts incurred by having consumed more than it produced.
Everyone is willing to make a sacrifice to that end, provided that the programme seems reasonable and transparent, and there is no special treatment.
The Tory programme should require the well-off to make greater sacrifices than the needy, but must require all of us to make sacrifices of some kind. If it did, Cameron would gain much credibility, which is the one thing that he and his party lack today.

Chris

I thought George's IHT cuts would be fully funded by non-doms, why hide behind claims it can't be done yet because of the economy - either it is fully funded by the non-doms and the promise remains a fully funded priority, or it is only funded by non-doms in the good times, in which case who foots the bill at the next recession after its been implemented.