The Lib Dems step up their push for £10,000
Jonathan Jones 5:27pmSet your TiVos. At 6.55 tomorrow evening, BBC1 will air the Liberal Democrats’ latest party political broadcast. For those of you who can’t wait, here’s a sneak preview:
In the video, Nick Clegg describes his proposed increase in the income tax personal allowance as ‘a £700 tax cut for ordinary working people — that’s an extra £60 in your wages every month’. I’ve remarked before on the similarities in both rhetoric and policies between the Lib Dems and Barack Obama, but Clegg’s ‘£60 a month’ pitch is as close as you get to the way Obama sells his payroll tax cut extension as ‘about $40 in every paycheck’. We can now surely look forward to the Lib Dem version of this video, in which ‘ordinary folk’ tell us what the extra cash would mean to them.
And this video’s not the only way the Lib Dems are turning up the heat on George Osborne. Both Tim Farron and Simon Hughes have emailed members urging them to sign an e-petition backing their policy. And then we have David Laws framing it as a policy to ‘end the austerity in household budgets’.
In an interview with Allegra Stratton on yesterday’s Newsnight, Laws said:
It’s a relatively sunny outlook — especially after all the talk of the ‘squeezed middle’ facing years of stagnation — and echoes Laws’ ‘reasons to be cheerful’ article in the Daily Mail last month. This seems to be one way the Lib Dems are trying to set themselves apart from the Conservatives. Osborne’s emphasis, for now at least, is on continued austerity — ‘staying the course’. Clegg and Laws, meanwhile, are offering to ease your pain and telling you that things will soon be better. But only if they get their tax cut.‘Household budgets have been falling in real terms since 2008, what we’re saying is that now that we’ve completed most of the tax increases, now that we’re seeing inflation this year on a firm downward track, that gives us the opportunity, if we can make these other reductions in taxation by increasing the income tax threshold, as Nick Clegg has suggested, that gives us the opportunity of ending the austerity in household budgets, allowing the household budgets of most people to start expanding again from later on this year and into next year.’
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telemachus'
February 21st, 2012 5:44pm Report this commentThe economic wisdom that comes from the titans of integrity Laws, Huhne et al has to be respected
I think not
Clegg has sold his soul and cannot get it back by plaing to the low paid while conspiring to screw the disabled and sick
telemachus'
February 21st, 2012 5:52pm Report this commentBetter to look back at the PwC budget predictions
"Relief is expected to be limited to relief for fiscal drag in the form of increased rebates and adjustment of the tables, particularly for lower income earners. An increase in the maximum marginal rate is not expected this year"
ie The credit for any change cannot be laid at the door of Criminal Laws & co
Dimoto
February 21st, 2012 5:54pm Report this commentCalm down Jonathan.
So the LibDems are in full electioneering mode ? It's all they know. How many do you think will watch ?
Rhoda Klapp
February 21st, 2012 6:02pm Report this commentTry as I might, I can't really see the evil in a 10k tax threshold. Funded, unfunded? It's all just printed anyway, now.
Hexhamgeezer
February 21st, 2012 6:21pm Report this commentMore 'Yes We' cant from the wee ....
Heartless C.
February 21st, 2012 6:30pm Report this commentSo regrettable that a Limp Dim should suggest this, - and even more that it should be necessary.
The H2B, that limpid PR muffin, to his shame, has missed yet another trick.
Dani
February 21st, 2012 6:44pm Report this commentGreat policy, first I've heard in a while that would make a tangible difference to people.
Fergus Pickering
February 21st, 2012 7:01pm Report this commentHeartless Curmudgeon, you are a most boring person and also, on this occasion, wrong. You do not seem to understand how politics works at all. Cameron is a very nimble politician. Watch and ponder. You might learn something.
xenophon
February 21st, 2012 8:08pm Report this commentThis seems to be the only good idea the Lib Dems have been able to come up with, and it is a very good one.
Just a shame they have to cloud the picture with all the other nonsense they keep spouting.
Davey L.S
February 21st, 2012 8:42pm Report this commentI will not be setting my Tivo or watching the broadcast at all for that matter, but can't help thinking that this is a clever bit of politics at this time by the Lib Dems, I for one would not turn down the extra £60 a month after the year I have had.
tarka the rotter
February 21st, 2012 9:05pm Report this commenthere's radical - how about we tell government how much we are prepared to pay into the tax pot - is government for the people, or something done to people?
Baron
February 21st, 2012 10:16pm Report this commentis £10,000 enough to buy some votes? would not £20,000 be more helpful?
Noa.
February 22nd, 2012 1:39am Report this commentBaron
The electorate, that is, that part of it which still works, will take the £10k tax break, and 89% of them, being of sound mind, will continue to to vote for anything other than the Liberal Democrats.
Baron
February 22nd, 2012 12:46pm Report this commentNoa, point taken, and this:
It may seem hard to believe it, but in the past it was not only ‘no taxation without representation, but also ‘no taxation without a purpose’, the latter canon of governance has totally disappeared from the political lexicon, rather a pity for it can be done easily, we should be told by every political party how much they’d spend for administration, road building, the police, whatever else we, the voters, want the central government to do, then vote on it.
Noa.
February 22nd, 2012 6:31pm Report this commentAh Baron, oh for the return of the days when politicians actually looked to run a moderate, balanced budget to support their elected objectives!
But even then I've never found record of a government, any government, refunding surplus unused funds to their milch cows.
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