Tories step around the elephant trap Brown had set for them

The 45p gambit is all about politics not raising revenue. Brown knows jolly well that even on a static calculation it only raises two and a bit billion and in reality will bring in far less. However, Brown is hoping that the move will either lure the Tories into vocal opposition, allowing him to paint them as defenders of the privileged rich, or cause division in their ranks.  (The move, though, does only increase one’s annoyance that the Tories didn’t move to counter-act this by offering their own middle class tax cut over the summer.)

Its shameless pre-leaking was also designed to distract attention from the far more significant tax rises, for instance the expected increase in national insurance contributions—which is equivalent to a rise in income tax, and creates yet another false narrative: all this massive borrowing and the attendant tax cuts can be paid for with a tax on the super-rich.