Gordon Brown doesn’t get it. Even his U-turn over the 10p tax rate (announced just time for PMQs in the form of a letter to John McFall) is devilishly complicated. There will be compensation for 60-64 year olds and low-paid workers without children. This will come in the form of winter fuel payments or new tax credits. I am sure that in a spreadsheet somewhere in the Treasury, this makes it all okay. But it won’t work outside Westminster and I’ll tell you why.
I spent yesterday on the campaign trail in Greater Manchester and saw for myself the anger. Pensioners were spitting blood, shopkeepers fuming – even people who I suspected were not hit by the abolition of the 10p starting rate think they have been. It seems to crystalise what they don’t like about Brown, and the Tories are exploiting this mercilessly in the local government elections.
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