Over on Next Left, Sunder Katwala reports that at a Fabian society fringe meeting today Jon Cruddas said:
“There is a big case for a middle-class tax cut too – to remove some of the people who have tripped over into the higher rate tax bands, such as teachers who can now be paying the same rate of tax as the big bankers, We could deal with that, and that would work across our electoral coalition too.”
As I blogged the other day, until the Tories start offering tax relief to the middle class they are going to be vulnerable to being outflanked by any new Labour leader on the issue. While the conference pool boost that the Lib Dems have received—they are within four points of Labour in the latest YouGov poll—suggests that the public are now receptive to politicians talking about a smaller state.
The politics of this issue has changed. If the Lib Dems and the man expected to be the candidate of the left in any Labour leadership contest can see the need, and the electoral appeal, of a tax cut for the middle class, then the Tories should be able to too.
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