If there's anyone stupid enough to still believe the Labour party is the party of the working class, Darling's Pre-Budget Report should have disabused them of this moronic illusion.
He's announced a £1bn a year cut in inheritance tax. In a glorious example of newspeak, this was described in a chapter (pdf) of the report called "fairness and opportunity for all." Contrast this with three things:
1. Taxes on ordinary workers. In a couple of years' time, workers without children earning less than £300 a week will pay more tax than someone inheriting up to £700,000. 1.9 million workers face a marginal withdrawal rate of 60% or more.
2. Cuts in some parts of adult education funding. Darling is helping those who drop out of the right womb and wait for their parents to die, at the expense of those who want to pursue self-improvement through education. How much of a betrayal of Labour's traditions is that?
3. The weaselly way in which asylum is being denied to many Iraqis who have worked for the British army, in effect condeming them to death. The message here is that of the cruellest 19th century factory-owner - that workers are to be cast aside to die horribly the moment they have ceased to be useful.
How can anyone who considers themselves on the Left remain in such a party?
Well, what did you expect from a Brown government? Every day we see why the PLP in 1994 preferred Blair.
Posted by: tolkein | October 09, 2007 at 08:13 PM
Ha! This is hilarious! It's fun to watch the left squirm!
Posted by: mat | October 09, 2007 at 08:36 PM
Of course, in the Britain of 2007 are we not all members of the middle classes and above or an underclass that doesn't vote and is therefore politically irrelevant, except when it steals too much from decent, upstanding, etc. etc. citizens?
Posted by: In Actual Fact | October 09, 2007 at 09:00 PM
The IHT thing is surely a con in that all it'll do for many people is save themlawyers' fees in setting up a discretionary trust (which might well cost money later when Social Services then pillages their funds or when ill-judged in-laws to loot the children or grandchildren). Anyway, it's probably been so rushed that it might well have to be abandoned e.g. becuase they haven't thought through what to do when the survivor of a married couple remarries: just a guess, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Posted by: dearieme | October 09, 2007 at 09:11 PM
It's the contradictions implicit in the system of state-driven socialism that doom it. Any state sufficiently powerful to impose anything so anti-human-instinct as an estate tax will also be sufficiently powerful to impose heavy taxes on the poor. It will soon find taxing the poor a more cost effective way of balancing the budget. Ideological concerns may temporarily prevent this decay, but in the long run you have created a predator far worse to the poor than the existence of people with money.
Posted by: Rob Spear | October 09, 2007 at 09:36 PM
What I'd like to know is whether Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, counts as working class because he works for a living?
Posted by: Bob B | October 09, 2007 at 09:42 PM
I consider myself on the Left, and having taken a good long look at the Big Three and the Greens, I have decided that UKIP is far and away the best (or at least, the least-worst) party.
Posted by: Mark Wadsworth | October 09, 2007 at 09:54 PM
Pandering to the press and the wealthy in this way is depressing, but Labour are the only party that is going to bring us PR and real democracy and they have at least applied the brakes to inequality since being elected.
There is no other party for us left wingers. Can't trust the Lib Dems - they swing both ways (no pun intended), the Greens are barmy and as for UKIP being left wing - you are having a laugh! Nigel Farage is a rabid Thatcherite relic and ex Tory MP - no way is he on the left and neither are most of the rest of the EU hating, anti-immigrant, regressive tax supporting members of UKIP.
Posted by: Neil Harding | October 10, 2007 at 04:27 AM
Chris I have to say that this is one of the most depressing budgets ever. The problem is that every party seems committed to oligarchy- Labour are better than the alternative the Stupid Party in this respect but the movement is towards stupidity and I'm not sure what we do to stop it.
Posted by: Gracchi | October 10, 2007 at 07:18 AM
But this post ignores political realities. Everyone knows that inheritance tax only affects a tiny proportion of people, yet 71% believe it should be (esentially) abolished. So unfortunately Labour have to go down that route. There's no gain in being right and being out of office.
And given policy suggestions of yours include a lower marginal rate of income tax the richer you are, I'm not sure your view is any better.
Posted by: Matthew | October 10, 2007 at 09:31 AM
At a push, I suppose you could defend the IHT move as outmaneuvering the Tories to stay in power and implement more important pro-poor policies ... but then again probably not.
Posted by: Luis Enrique | October 10, 2007 at 09:52 AM
Neil H, how does doubling the tax-free personal allowance amount to a regressive tax? I am puzzled!
I am reliably informed that UKIP will go for a kind of modified Citizen's Income type welfare scheme that will reduce marginal withdrawal rate on lower earners, is that regressive?
VAT is (allegedly) a regressive tax; but the EU imposes it on us. Which is the only party that intends to be able to do something about it?
BTW, Nigel Farage was in the Tory party for a couple of years in the early 1990s (when in his 20s) he was never a Tory MP AFAIAA.
Posted by: Mark Wadsworth | October 10, 2007 at 10:03 AM
Who are "the working class" though ? My plumber earns more than my lawyer.
Posted by: Matt Munro | October 10, 2007 at 06:07 PM
But this post ignores political realities.
Posted by: ManBearPig | November 24, 2007 at 04:38 PM