Is 40% the “basic rate” of income tax?

MPs are pretty out of touch, of course, clueless about the way “ordinary people” live. That’s what we’re supposed to think of course. We’re not supposed to remember that MPs probably regularly encounter a much broader range of public opinion and circumstance than highly paid columnists and political editors. Here, for instance, is Ben Brogan committing the sin of assuming (I presume) that everyone is just like the people he meets:

If the higher rate threshold stays the same, and yet more thousands of the ’squeezed middle’ are brought into higher rate tax, at what point do we review terms, and rename the 20p rate the lower rate, the 40p rate the basic rate, and the 50p rate the higher rate? Certainly, the idea that the 40p rate is exceptional and reserved for a well-heeled minority is no longer credible: 40p is the basic rate.

I agree it’s important to raise tax thresholds so that fewer people are hauled into the upper rates. A good many of those who are hit by the 40p rate on the upper few thousand pounds of their income are not super-wealthy and should be given some assistance by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But it is just a nonsense to claim that “40p is the basic rate” when patently, blindingly obviously it’s a club millions and millions of people can only dream of joining.