James is right to say that the Lib Dems’ commitment to increase the tax-free personal allowance to £10,000 trumps any obvious campaigning soundbite the Tories can offer. Isn’t that a problem? Or, to put it another way, what if the Liberal Democrats are right?
On balance, I think they are. Whatever one thinks of the inheritance tax brouhaha or the 50p rate for the super-wealthy and no matter how counter-productive one thinks those notions may be, the fact remains that Tory policy, in the case of the former, and Tory preferences, in the case of the latter, impact a tiny number of people. Important people, in some cases, given their wealth-generating potential, but not many people no matter how you slice it.
Sure, paying for this Lib Dem policy is a matter of some importance (though I note that frequent commenter Thomas Bynre has outlined the way he would do it here)
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