The Tories should ignore Byrne’s tax fantasy

Michael Booth

what really, really pisses me off is that we are currently paying £895 per week to keep my mother-in-law in a home specialising in dementia care and Brown talks about compulsory 'death tax' of 10 per cent levied on everybody (aka the middle classes) to pay for care for the elderly. Bloody bloody thieving socialist bastards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paul Lockwood

I predict a give-away budget.

In the words of George Osborne, "Labour have done it again.."

Paul

Moriarty

Anybody who comes on here to post anything other than that this "government" is a national disgrace whose constituent members are thieves, liars and fantasists is a tool.

It used to be the case that "the left" styled themselves as the default option of free thinking. They are now idiots, simple as that.

geoff

I literally dont know what you are talking about. Are you arguing that the tories should increase taxes even further than labour have already committed?

The Tories should say of course there should be no additional tax rises and in fact we will work damn hard to make sure that the ones already in the pipeline, like NICs, wont happen either.

toco

Now the communist brothers control the Labour Party anything goes in terms of stupidity and Liam Byrne has just confirmed it with his statement.Fortunately by taking over the Labour Party the Unions involvement make their party unelectable.

donpatrico

It would be nice to see a robust response along the lines of 'These people can't add up: they don't get to demand a response. Furthermore we [and the country] need to have an honest evaluation of the government's books.'

PuppetMaster

What makes you so sure that the public will pay the banksters debts? I sure as hell won't, I'm off with my cash to greener pastures. There must be quite a large group who have decided something similar.

Fees Office Clerk

Byrne never said that Labour weren't going to raise taxes but rather Labour didn't see the need to raise taxes...a big difference!

Zeb

Re “The Tories should ignore Byrne’s tax fantasy

But that puts them on the back foot on tax (which is course the idea), it gets Labour off the hook and puts Tories on it

How about turning “no more tax’s” into a bad thing.

Take all of the debt figures, factor in realistic growth and the goal
Of cutting the deficit in four years with no tax rises.. and produce a set of posters
Telling everyone how Labour will cut services by 20% (or whatever the number is ) to reach that Target

Gary Williams

David Blackburn,

"What does it contain if there are no further tax rises?"

Surely you appreciate that government "fees" are not "taxes"?
Likewise, a duty on a luxury, such as petrol, well, that's a "duty", not a "tax".

sinosimon

the budget question is interesting.....assuming darling has the bottle to write his own, his best course may well be to frighten the horses with his own brand of austerity.....

1) because he can at least walk away from the wreckage with some shred of personal dignity

2) if he produces shock waves of fear in the newspapers it might just be that he then turns round to the masses and says 'i know this is terrible.....so just imagine the horror if you let those nasty tories in.......we are being prudent....they will slash and burn......'

it is just possible in a counter intuitive kind of way that this might mobilise the lost labour voters.....spinning that your only hope of keeping your job in the client state lies with labour......

of course this imagines the prime mentalist isn't just going to half nelson him into the usual 'everyone(who votes labour) gets a prize' bribefest that brown prefers.

Richard

So there you have it!
What will Georgie boy do now. He will need to come up with a response that will demonstrate he knows what he is doing.

All the talk about this being reliant on 3% growth is wrong.....but you believe it if you want.

So what's the tory response? Tax rises pay cuts job losses, projects cancelled Trident and the carriers perhaps.
Early withdrawl from Afganistan, refuse to contribute to NATO?
Over to you Georgie boy.

chris as usual

This Liam Byrne is a particularly devious shit who consistently has great difficulty with the facts. But he is also ruthless, and like Balls and their master remind one more and more of 1933-45.

TrevorsDen

You have my sympathy Mr Booth - we are going through the same thing.

"They bank on economic growth eradicating the remaining £25bn." --- but when we had growth last time Brown still ran up deficits.
We need the growth to support the cyclical deficit not the structural deficit.
Quoting growth as a means to reduce the structural deficit is totally disingenuous. The structural deficit exist because we have been spending beyond our means - to start to live within our means (err... ) means to cut our unsustainable spending.
More taxes will simply undermine our ability to sustain our cyclical deficit.

Byrne is as befits a socialist a dissembling liar.

Oh, and as long as there is a deficit, the national debt will continue to rise and so will the payments on the interest - thus taking money away from actual spending departments

Gary Williams

Richard,

"He (GO) will need to come up with a response that will demonstrate he knows what he is doing."

Yes, by demonstrating merely that he knew what he was doing, Osborne would starkly differentiate himself from the Labour Chancellorship.

JONNY

'He will need to come up with a response that will demonstrate he knows what he is doing.'

Got to laugh at that one Richard.
Incidentally shouldn't you be back at school by now?

AAE

So the Government are now spending £720 billion instead of the £330 billion or so they were spending about 6 or 7 years ago, and the best hope is that they'll reduce the deficit by 38 billion over 4 years! They need to get a better accountant. If the Government (and the Opposition) lived in the real world, they and their "dedicated" public servants would realise what "ordinary, hard-working people" in the private sector know from their first day at work - Last in, First out.

Victor Southern

Richard

Nobody is talking about 3% growth - even the Prime Fantasist stopped that two years ago.

Cuts will come even if the nation's wreckers manage to cling onto power.

Tax rises come upon us every few days in some stealthy way - look at fuel[duty plus VAT] and small matters like toll increases.

As to contributions to NATO you might know that amongst our European partners many contribute not a single Euro whilst only a few countries actually send fighting troops to Afghanistan - Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Austria for example send none or else observers and "trainers" only. The war in Afghanistan may be dear to hearts of Labour since only one or two Labour MPs have ever served in the armed forces. Rational beings who love our country and respect our services would much rather we got the hell out of there ASAP. If we cannot afford to equip our troops properly we have no business sending them into danger. Only Brown believes we do equip them properly.

You may not have realised that when Darling talks of halving the deficit he does not mean halving the nation's debt. He means to halve the rate at which we are plunging further into debt. The deficit, in these terms, is the amount by which state income falls short of state expenditure.

As to the carriers you may not have noticed that the number was been cut from 3 to 2 by Blair and that delays in starting have already added £2-billion to the bill. They will now cost almost as much as the failed NHS computer system or Labour's abortive ID card scheme.

Georgie Boy, as you so originally call George Osborne, most certainly displays a degree of intelligence to which you cannot aspire so your eighth-hand slurs and criticisms are ill-founded. It is Gordy Boy who has destroyed our economy by profligate spending and overtaxing.

Marcher Baron

If there are no "tax rises" in the budget look out for a reduction of any tax relief that might be left after Brown's plundering - removing an exemption is not, in Labour's eyes, a tax rise. There will, no doubt, also be fiscal drag policies to bring more people into the existing tax net. All that will be balanced with sweeteners to the client state. This will, after all, be a political budget, not one designed to drag the country out of the hole that Brown has dug.

Thomas Cussans

In the interests of simple sanity, can you stop 'Richard' from posting here?

I don't know whether he is an active Labour/Whelan mole or merely a lone lunatic.

But his demented witterings are becoming more and more tiresome.

Do us all a favour, will you, and despatch him back into whatever nether region he seems, semi-formed, to have emerged from.

skynine

The only thing this government has known is to tax more every year.

Where's Byrne been these last years?

General Zod

skynine, Byrne said it without believing it for a moment. Mendacity is the stock in trade of this government.

Hugo van Randwyck

Easiest way to get 4% growth is learn from the recovery from the last housing bubble, early 90s.
Switch from EU to EFTA, would be like getting out of the ERM, a reduction in regulations from 1000 a year to 300, would be like a tax cut to business, help with productivity growth, expansion and job creation.
Secondly, any mortgage cannot be more than 3 times earnings of one person, i.e. no more 2 incomes used for mortgages, the second income is used for paying the mortgage off quicker.
House prices and monthly mortgage payments fell last time, and new home buyers had greater disposable income, spread around the country, instead of a few bankers getting big bonuses in London. Purchasing power increased everywhere. It worked.
Also by switching from EU to EFTA, the UK would be around £3 bn better off, with less contributions to EU.
Seems like none of the Lib/Lab/Con/EU parties have learnt from the last housing bubble, and recovery.
How about EFTA by Christmas?

Dorothy Wilson

skynine: He worked for Rothschilds at one time didn't he? Another of those peculiar socialists like Myners.

As far as his statement on taxes is concerned, wasn't there a commitment from Labour that income tax wouldn't increase? Of course, they forgot to mention that personal allowances might be held down, Council Tax would increase by 100%, car tax would go up and all the rest of it.

2trueblue

Thomas Cussans, the best thing to do with idiots is to ignore them. If you reply to them you give them oxygen, just deprive them of that and bingo, gone. Thought the Telegraph did a good job giving Liebore the headline and hiding the pensions details on page 2. Not worth what it used to be the old 'Tele'.

Gawain

Labour don't tax, they levy National Insurance, they raise licence fees, they institute HIPs, they impose charges on the rich. Tax is sooo last century. Simples, as the Meerkat would say.

Major Plonquer

Has anyone else noted that the troll writing under the name 'Richard' is not the same troll as wrote last week? His English is completely different and he occasionally remembers to breath out.

Looks like Richard I has been handed his P45 from The Bunker and now we have Richard II. Possibly, when this Richard has been deemed ineffective by his Labour paymasters, we can look forward to Damian McBride reprising his dramatic role as Richard III?

Either way they are all a bunch of Dicks.

DavidDP

Hang on, wasn't Fraser acclaiming the LibDems getting rid of the deficit without raising taxes?

Holly ......

Thomas Cussans,
I love Richard.
His comments help keep us sane.
His comments are a measure of mind set of the present bods in power.
Without the Richards of this world we would not get a taste of Labour's strategy.
We need you Richard...please stay.
DC & Co will continue to ignore them as they
are no longer credible & while Brown,Mandy &
Harman crack on with Ashcroft DC & Co can get on with their planning.
The best thing about Richard is,he thinks he is doing down the Tories.Ironic.

Michael Booth

Richard II eh Major?

If only it was Edward II we would know how to deal with him... ouch!

Sir Everard Digby

Holly - totally agree. Richard epitomises what New Labour believe to be 'clever' but which is actually quite the opposite.

Richard

Blimey! can't win with you lot.

Spelling better ... thanks!
Improved comments... thanks!

I am the same, do not worry just trying harder....as I have said before dylexia is not an easy condition but it has not held me back. English is not my first language either. Maybe you could try and respond in your second language. (try Hebrew and I will help with corrections) You might need to adjust your keyboard first see MS help on language configuration.
Ok back to the topic.
Georgie boy is in a bind, I know he does't have the full picture (no access to the books) but he must be able to give more idea on just where he intends to apply his magic. I would however suggest he puts some figures out or he will be seen as having no ideas at all.
Some tips, remove car tax and put it on the fuel...would be a saving on process and be collected on a fair basis, those who use he roads more pay more, foriegners and even benfit scoungers will pay as they go. Introduce a standard third party only insurance disc that can be purchased from your local supermarket at say 30 quid instead.
Put capital gains tax up to 40% for high earners.
Remove completely the non dom status for all, actually collect outstanding tax from offshore accounts.
Introduce the Tobin tax for bank transactions.
Remove the tax credits and put up the minimum wage to say £10 phr. Child benefit to be paid direct to only those who really need it.
Remove parking charges and restrictions in towns by 70% to regenerate the town centers.
Make it compulsory for employers to give written reasons why a candidate was not accepted for a job. Enforce policies on equality and anti ageism.
Employers who make workers redundant to pay the cost of benefits claimed until they are back in work...(no redundancy pay)

djw2009

yet another blog outlining the reasons NOT to vote Tory. Yes, the deficit could be closed without tax rises, as Clegg said. CLOSE DOWN ALL THE QUANGOES. ABOLISH PUBLIC SECTOR PENSIONS. CLOSE DOWN THE RACE HUSTLER LOBBY.

It would simply be cheaper to pay the quangocrats the jobseekers' allowance. Yes, true, it would be deflationary for all those salaries no longer to be paid, but this would be balanced by TAX CUTS.

I could easily cut £100bn from the annual spend - in fact I could easily cut £200bn - I would privatise the health service for starters AND STOP PAYING BENEFIT TO PEOPLE OF NON-BRITISH ORIGIN.

JONNY

Exactly 2trueblue
he doesn't exist.

EB

The present government promises to halve the deficit in four years. A question for Richard who appears to see Brown as an economic guru. Why should anyone re-elect a government that promises, nay has legislated, to continue increasing the national debt? Surely, a moral and honest goverment would promise to reduce the national debt in order not to place the ever increasing debt burden on the next generation. It I were say 16 years old, I would be horrified to learn that in four years time when I am 20, the national debt will have risen by another 500 billion. Gordon Brown has remortgaged the futures of every peron under 18 in this country who regrettably do not have the power to throw him out at the upcoming election. Some moral compass he has!

David Ossitt

Richard

“So there you have it!

What will Georgie boy do now. He will need to come up with a response that will demonstrate he knows what he is doing.”

Georgie boy, Shameron, Vague, here we go again, with your childish name calling.

What shall we call you?

You repulsive piece of socialist ordure.

So will that be Richard the turd, or possibly flaccid Dick, or as you keep on hinting, a circumcised Dick, or could it be Dicky Nudnek or Shlimel or even Schnook.

Make fair comment if you must but please leave the name calling to the little children at school.

Richard

@David Ossitt.
Oh dear you do seem to be a little upset... am I getting through I wonder?

Take a break and come back with your chuckle muscle in full health.

Name calling does seem to your speciality though. Truely "I am not boverd"
May I use the wonderful Barbara Woodhouse and tell you..."oh sit"
there's a good boy choc drop in the post.