This

I understand why they did it but I wish Labour had not straitjacketed themselves by saying they wouldn't raise the easiest taxes to raise. Whether it would be a good idea to actually raise them or not is a whole nother question of course.

But I remember the LibDems a few elections ago saying "we'd raise taxes, 1% on income tax and this is where we'd spend it" and it showed up as their most popular policy in lots of polling.

Labour are now predicating everything on a level of growth which will require a lot of luck to actually happen.


It would have been good to have had an option at the last election which was a) broadly competent, b) not extremist, c) offering the choice of a more Nordic model of higher taxes but better services, contrasting with the model where services are squeezed to death, those who can afford to go private, etcetera.

I also think the tax system needs a major overhaul - if I work past my state retirement age I might earn the same as someone sat next to me doing the same job but she would pay NICs and I wouldn't, which makes no sense to me. Merging NICs with income tax is just one change which would ease intergenerational unfairness, be progressive, and make things simpler. Our overall tax system is ludicrously complex, but any attempt to address that is stifled at birth by intense lobbying from some special interest group or other. Someone needs to take a proper, hard, radical look at the whole thing.

Posted By: Old Man, Nov 19, 14:32:01