News from Labour Matters

The Telegraph damns Cameron’s savings tax cut ’strategy’

The Telegraph savages Cameron’s savings tax cut (in the nicest possible way the Conservative broadsheet can muster):

“Faced with a mountain of debt and the prospect of deflation, government policies should be aimed at either encouraging people to go out and spend or to pay back debt – and preferably both. The Tories’ policies would possibly – although not certainly – help with the former but would be unlikely to do the latter. That said, with interest rates at 2pc and expected by most economists to go even lower, they would at least make saving money, rather than borrowing it, that little bit more attractive.

But, as the Tories were at pains to point out yesterday, these tax cuts would not be unfunded. They claim they would pay for them by cutting Government spending, starting this year. While the commitment to reduce the size of the state makes sense in the long-term, it seems foolhardy to slash employment (for this is surely the only way to effect such vicious cuts on state spending) in the depth of the recession.”

Read the full article.

Other news from Labour Matters

• Southampton Labour release alternative 'Budget for Fairness' - 6 February 2012
• "Bleak unemployment figures are bad news" says John Denham - 12 October 2011
• Westminster Council to cut Taxicard budget by £500,000 a year - 11 August 2011