News from Labour Matters

Tax cuts for the wealthiest, public service cuts for the rest of us

That’s the dividing line between the Tories and Labour. That’s what the Tories are promising and what Labour refuses to entertain. If you’re looking for the statistics behind the story, you might want to read what Dave Osler has to say in Liberal Conspiracy on the subject. If you’re really keen on busting a spleen, you’ll probably want to read what David Cameron has to say – most eloquently we might add:

“DC: Well I think the point is that we are setting out and we will set out exactly how we’re going to get to grips with this debt crisis and as I say, you know, we have a track record of it having opposed the government’s VAT cut and we will be setting that out but I don’t believe that means there are no things that you can do, you know there’s still opportunity to put some taxes up in order to take some taxes down, and all of the pledges that you mentioned, things like inheritance tax, were fully funded at the time. I don’t believe that those things now become impossible, of course everything that goes into our manifesto will have to be tightly and completely audited, I think that’s very important.”
(David Cameron, interviewed by Jon Sopel on The Politics Show, 26 April 2009.)

Whilst if all you’re looking for is a bit of common sense, Alan Johnson MP, Labour’s Health Secretary, responding to David Cameron’s speech yesterday, has summarised all the above as follows:

“Today David Cameron once again showed that natural Tory instinct to make the many suffer to pay for tax cuts for the very wealthiest.

“Behind all the marketing speak designed to disguise their true plans, David Cameron let slip today that he is considering cuts of £20 billion to public services and help for families.

“He also revealed today that he is so determined to cut taxes for the 3,000 wealthiest estates in the country that if he had to then he would ‘put some taxes up’ to pay for it.”