How Labour and the Lib Dems are attacking the Tories' marriage tax break

Peter From Maidstone

The Labour comments are easy to deal with. Do we say that unemployment benefit is not fair because if you get a job you lose it? Or sickness benefit is not fair because if you get well you lose it? Or child benefit is not fair because when you grow up you lose it? All benefits are focused on a particular group - and this is not a benefit in any case, it is a reduction in already oppressive and wasteful levels of taxation. I do want to see marriage supported and promoted as normal and the best practice. I couldn't care less if someone else has a different opinion. The history of humanity shows that marriage has always been necessary for the security of society. The abolition of tax breaks for married couples was always ideological, and this reintroduction is also ideological. But I agree with and will vote for this ideology while I reject the socialist assualts on marriage and family life as being truly evil.

If people don't agree then they can vote socialist and see even more of their income taken from them - unless they are among the millions who don't pay tax.

toco

The LibDems have no policies whatsoever and the left wing socialist that is Vince Cable has achieved absolutely original original in his 66 years.He and Clegg only appear able to crudely reject others' policies and they should be placed under the microscope like the main parties in this election.

Holly ......

Ed Balls is suggesting more leave for fathers which is DOUBLE the cost of the tax break...who will pay for this?
Employers..more additional costs for employing people and workers through the tax system.
Good shout Bozo.
Byrne is also out spinning like a top about what Alistair Darling said yesterday about the NI rise costing jobs.
Both Darling AND Timms said yesterday that the NI rise will result in 'managable'job loses and Timms saying there would absolutely be job loses as a result of this.
Byrne however is spinning it as Darling saying the NI rise was managable.
Even after Mr Dixon on Sky news quoted what Darling & Timms said.Byrne grinning like the cheshire cat.
Alice in wonderland cabinet ministers to go with the Alice in wonderland Labour policies.
Does Vince Cable understand how much £3.00 a week is to a family?
It may be nothing to him,but to some it's better than a tax rise to pay for paternaty leave!Or even worse a job cut to save emloyer costs!

Dan

The myth of Vince 'the invincible' is slowly being exposed, and not before time. He is vastly overrated.

Labour are becoming increasingly hysterical and panic-stricken,which is good to see. Why do they think wheeling out Balls and his dreadful wife will help them? Labour strategists must be either drunk or on mind-altering drugs.

Labour are heading for a catastrophic defeat, which I think is slowly beginning to dawn on them. We can expect Brown and his thugs to become ever-more desperate.

Ben Wright

Do people need an incentive to enter into a marriage or civil partnership?

Yes, it may be valuable to make a commitment. But this does not take into account the economic problems which the country faces. Why a random windfall tax on banks to fund this too?

Alex

Having lived in a Liberal Democrat Council which raised Council Tax and got nothing done, there was no surprise when the Liberal Democrat MP and the Liberal Democrat Council got turfed out and the Council became 75% Tory - Council Tax got lowered and the MP is now Tory.

The reason that so few Councils are controlled by Liberal Democrats is that they are useless.

Vince should get real and join the Greens 9who are even more left wing than Labour).

Diane C - London

Labour and the Lib Dems are looking increasingly rattled. They are totally united in their attacks on the Tories, yet neither of them with anything substantial of their own to say.

Cameron is resonating with the great ignored of this country. Opposition attacks are mean spirited in the extreme and wrong. Married families have long been ignored over single parents - it is their turn now for a bit of help.

Yosemite Sam

St Vince got a bit of a going over on Today this morning, over this issue and on his 'nauseating' remarks about business leaders. I think the interviewer was Justin Webb (I was only half awake at the time). Perhaps it indicates a more critical approach to the Sage of Twickenham.

Gawain

I suspect the Liberals are beginning to get a little bit rattled. Their campaigning is becoming extremely shrill and intolerant. They have two responses to everything. An opponent is either "saying something the Liberals have been always said so they have no right to say it" or "announcing the most evil policy since the dawn of civilisation". The Liberal approach in this campaign has convinced me that a hung Parliament will be very, very tiresome. A daily diet of Captain Goody Two Shoes Clegg and Saint Vince lecturing, insulting and hectoring everyone will be difficult to bear and quite unpleasant.

Boo

"if your husband beats you up and leaves you you get no support."
Hmm it is true you won't get any support from a marriage incentive, but is Mr Balls seriously sugesting that there is no support for those wife under the current scheme. If so that is really Labour's problem.

Same goes for the war widow example given by Vince, is he really sugesting that widows are not given a sum far exeeding £150 a year, by the current government? If this is not the case, then we really should be screaming at the Government and not this modest proposal

Greg

@Ben W: Completely agree. Does nobody else think it's a bit outdated that we should be encouraging people to get married or even enter a civil partnership. People should be in a relationship because they want to be - not because they are rewarded for it.

And you're right tax has dominated this election just like it does each time. Our politicians want us to be fooled by their false promises on tax and efficiency.

I came across the Jury Team who actually have a policy to deal with debt reduction in the long term. You should have a look and see what you think: http://www.juryteam.org/p02-govt-borrowing.php

Percy

Got to be honest this policy isn't one of Dave's best.

Simon Stephenson

Where's Richard?

This sunny Saturday morning, Labour's menials have obviously been rather tardy in getting out the daily slur sheet to their signed up blog-irritants. I don't see this going down too well with the Sons of Stalin who are leading the election campaign from 39 Victoria Street.

Watch out for fireworks!

Luke

I do think it's a problem that at the same time as they are saying they will cut child tax credits for middle class families with kids they are putting cash into married couples with no kids. There will surely be some high profile losers - what about war widows who lost their child tax credit and don't benefit from this?

Robert Williams

Yosemite Sam "St Vince got a bit of a going over on Today this morning"

As ever he was allowed to push his policies without challenge or examination. When will the economic effects/arithmetic of raising £17bn to finance the personal allowance hike to £10K be examined?

Paul B

Balls is an idiot, plain and simple. If the tax is discriminatory, what is the 50pc tax on high earners then? QED. The marriage allowance is in Balls terms discriminatory in favour or the low paid. Even though the sum is small, it will help. Balls forgets, that although 150quid to him is the price of his lunch (billed to the taxpayer) to the low paid it can make all the difference.

Cable is, in the words Stuart Maclennan, a disingenuous coffin dodger.

Neil Turner

Labour and the LibDems hate families, and hate traditional marriage

In their opinion, the State should provide everything we need, and should control our thoughts and actions

Mark

Gordon's married, Ed's Married, Vince is married, what's the problem?

Any Colour but Brown

I haven't decided whether the LabDems are taking Meow Meow or just need a saucer of milk.

Chuck Unsworth

Why 'beats you up'? What's the point of that pejorative? But maybe that's what goes on in the Balls household.

Come to that has anyone seen Yvette lately? Seems to have disappeared entirely. Maybe the arnica hasn't done the trick.

Ben Wright

@Greg - Yeah, I noticed Jury Team's policy. I have to say it looks like the best solution to the problem.

Michael Booth

Paul B - have to disagree with you on Balls: he's not an idiot, he's a very naughty boy... and a dangerous one at that

Simon Stephenson

Paul B

With respect, I think the problem this country faces from Ed Balls is not that he's an idiot, but that he's a zealot. Like most of the Brown faction, he's not an unintelligent person, but he's narrow-minded in the extreme, because he's afflicted by the very human weakness of believing in his own infallibility.

What is idiotic, however, is the general public's perception that open-mindedness, irresolution and weak leadership are all basically the same thing. This is why we have so many terrible leaders - the people we favour are not actually the ones likely to do us much good.

boulay

it's very simple. All the Tories have to say is " those nasty lib dens and labour people do not want famillies to have an extra £150 per year. It might not seem a lot to the champagne socialists on mps' salaries but we understand that £150 covers the childrens' Christmas presents or a great familly day out. They would rather. The state keep that money and waste it."

Oh and the reason Richard seems to have vanished is that he is not paid by the state to work for it on a Saturday and is pro ably dirtying up a park bench somewhere at the moment downing the cider that he has got cheaper thanks to the Tories. Locki g the duty increase!

Paul B

Michael Booth- fair enough. I think we can both agree thats he a vile, Brown nosing, piece of lickspittle, who the country will be well rid of.

Anthony Sewell

At the moment my wife is looking for a part time job while at the same time looking after our children. I work full time. It would help a lot if we could transfer my wife's allowance. Our family unit would then get the same allowance as the next door family unit who both work. I think the Tory plan is brilliant,its just a shame it doesn't extend to the full allowance rather than just £700 of it.
As regards only benefitting by £150 a year when a family unit is struggling on one wage it can make a difference.

Neil Turner

Interesting post from Christine Odone today at http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100033720/new-labour-hates-marriage-for-proof-read-its-ghastly-guru-giddens/

She states " If you have a baby and get rid of the father you can get a tax credits and benefit payments that are five times larger than if you are a couple. Better still, as Jill Kirby of the Centre for Policy Studies has calculated, if you are part of a couple you pay £5,000 more a year in tax than you receive in benefits, but if you break up, you can get £7,000 more in benefits than you pay in tax"

Read the whole piece

Richard of York

Is this another bank levey or the same one announced 2 weeks ago?
Nice to think RBS will support me after all of us supporting them. Now if I open a Halifax account I can get £5 a month on top...wow now let me see how long before I can retire on the interest?

JONNY

One of the most comic aspects of this present farrago
is the cult of Vince Cable Infallibilty.

What precisely has this mouldy-looking potato-faced maestro of the deadpan done to generate such almost universal cross-party awe?

Athesius the Facilitator

Am I alone in thinking that a month off work for new dads is discriminating against fella's that will not be dads.

The marriage tax allowance is no more and no less discriminatory so why are the LibLabs and the BBC going on about it all the time. I am p.... off with this lot for sure.

Liberty

There is no need for any welfare whatsoever for healthy employed people. Just raise the personal allowance to £10,000 or more and it will be obvious that two can live more cheaply together than alone. If they have children then there is child benefit. This also has the advantage of eliminating means tested benefits which are very expensive to administer, intrusive, entails complex criteria, unfair at the edges, discourages self provision, encourages poverty, creates a poverty trap and always excludes some deserving people.

Welfare as a principle was fine when we were poor but now the state takes half our wealth and uses half that again on administration leaving very little for the supposed beneficiaries. If government took just 25% of national wealth we would be enormously richer because the money would be left in productive industry producing more than enough wealth to eliminate all poverty and need.

YA

If I have two wifes, then for all three of us there will be tax break? Wow. Good reward for those who really loves marriage and keep robust, strong family traditions.
Way to go Cam.

Holly ......

Ya,
This is not available in countries where more than one wife at a time is allowed.
It is for this country.
Unless Labour steal it and make it a world
wide benefit,like they have with every other benefit.
Something similar was posted elsewhere and was just as stupid & pointless there as it is here.
Like the ones who say,'this will not make people rush out to get married,or keep couples together',rubbish...that is NOT what it is aimed at.and these people know that.

Woody

This is one small step for mending the broken society agenda.
What sort of message does it send out when politicians 'attack' for cheap political gain, one of the most important things that underpins a civilised society. They should be ashamed of themselves.
David Cameron should stop being so bloody reasonable and start rubbing their grubby, patronising little noses in it.

YA

Dear Holly ...

I am so happy for You, that You have this optimism and belief in common sense and rationality of politicians. Unfortunately, there is not much justification for Your optimism.

They are all inherently insincere. They prefer to talk about that secondary issue of marriage tax, whereas huge elephants like oil-terrorism blackmail, Islamic colonization of Britain, and concommittant issues, - erosion of law and order, desecration of national symbols and loss of national heritage - miraculously remain out of election debate and parties' agendas.