Monday, 1 October 2007

UK Politics: Tory economic policies


Quick take on this today due to work interfering somewhat with blogging. Sadly I am no Dizzy, Croydonian or Iain able to swan off to the conference for a few days...

Five main ideas stick out:



Inheritance tax threshold to £1 million
; a good idea and despite what the Labour party say, it is clear that many more people in the future will be hit by this. Particularly in the South East. I don't see how this helps win the midlands and Northern marginals, but than I am no political strategist.

Moving the Stamp duty threshold to £250,000 for first time buyers; This is also a good idea, a few months ago I would have been critical as it would over-heat the housing market further, whereas this idea may now stop a real property price crash in the current challenging circumstances.

Non-Domicile's to pay £25,000; Where do I sign up to only pay £25k a year in tax? It is a good one-off idea but this is one where no one can be sure of the real amount of money this will raise. It won't put the Non-Doms off living here (cough, tested this idea on one already today so I have clearly tested this as fully as the Tories or Labour have...).

Green tax on aircraft; This idea is just a pure revenue grab like Gordon Brown's APD tax rise. People might swallow this but I hate the concept of stealth taxes and it is disappointing to see it from the Conservatives.

Finally, George Osborne announced that Tory spending plans overall would remain the same as Labour plans for the first 3 years. Oh, yeah? The economy will slow down int he next three years and the Government will receive a lot less tax receipts - so on current spending we are heading for massive borrowing or service cuts. This announcement is a hostage to fortune. One radical way to combat the sow down would be huge tax cuts across the board in the manner of George Bush.

That would be a better and braver plan.

What do you think and what one policy would you have suggested

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Round up all the socialists and cut their goollies off.

Old BE said...

The Tories are in a bit of a fix over tax because any reduction in anything will raise the Labour shriek of "CUTS!" even if that reduction is offset with an increase elsewhere. The party is best to keep fairly schtum over taxes and spending and tell us how they will spend our money BETTER.

Nick Drew said...

To me the surprising thing is that McBroon didn't do the IHT thing himself (I have long predicted it would be one of his 'first 100 days' jobbers).

With this in mind it is very interesting to see the rather fevered NuLab response (from Darling himself, gibbering for the cameras) - all the emphasis is on how "the sums don't add up"

i.e. no criticism of the substance

This has been exactly their response all along to more than a year's worth of IHT kite-flying: limited to "we wil never make unfunded tax cuts" - keeping open the possibility they will cut IHT themselves, which they know will be disproportionately (indeed, irrationally) popular

except they've missed the boat ! Perhaps they didn't think the Tories would dare ... I'd love to know whether it was up McBroon's own sleeve for the next GE

lilith said...

I am sure it was Nick. Tax cuts would be a winner. And no taxation to fund political parties neither nor.

Anonymous said...

Personally I don't give a monkey's about IHT. By the time my elderly relatives kick the bucket I will be too old myself to enjoy it. In any case the government will probably taken most of the cash to pay for their care home.

And a million quid seems way too high. How many middle England voters would exect to inherit that kind of wealth? It just demonstrates that the Eton cowboys are out of touch with ordinary people.

A tax of air travel will just mean that richer people will be able to fly more often than poorer people - it will have no impact on CO2 emissions. If they wanted to do something on CO2 emissions then they should put a limit on the number of UK flight slots and let the market price their value. But they won't do that because they know that would put a limit of industrial growth as the UK ceases to be a business centre of choice for inward investment. Thus somewhat transparently the Tories have put business ahead of the environment, so their green policies are clearly just window dressing.

Stamp duty should be abolished in my opinion. It diminishes people's ability to move and enourages people to make long commutes when they change jobs. I can see no moral reason for having such a tax, let alone the immoral manner in which it is structured which states "you've done well for yourself haven't you? Why not take a £1000+ smack in the gob from the state for no good reason. That'll teach you for being so successful". Taxes that are aimed at penalising people that work hard are immoral and divisive and should be abolished.

Oh, and me for president (obviously).

Mark Wadsworth said...

I've done tax to death.

What they (or indeed UKIP or Lib Dems or anybody) should say, over and over again, is that
a) the number of people employed in "Public admin, health and education" has increased by 2 million over past ten years to 8 million. We know that there are a couple of hundred thousand more nurses and coppers, but no more teachers than then. What the fuck are they all up to?
b) The Gummint intends to spend £10,000 per year per man woman and child = £600 billion. Who thinks they are getting valeu for money? I fucking well don't.

The Sage of Muswell Hill said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
James Higham said...

Garbo had an interesting theory today that Brown may not call it after all - that he wanted to force the Tory policy into the open and then prepare an answer in his own time.

Croydonian said...

There's much to be said for being self-employed.....

Anonymous said...

Nothing to help the low paid - it is a disgrace that people on the minimum wage pay tax at all!! Lift the income tax threshold to the minimum wage on the average working week. Till some one does something to help low paid people - who are the chavs, scum etc etc who are trying not to be - i.e they are aspirational - other than useless training schemes then a plague on them all.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to take home the equivalent of the min wage week in week out.

Congratulations to the Tories for saying and doing what they've been getting told to do and say for so long.

CityUnslicker said...

some good comments all thanks one an dall, only just back to see them all.

I agree with Mut that there is a huge case for raising the lowest tax threshold for all to over £10,000.

Pay for this by reducing waste, scrapping ID cards and taxing non-doms.

What a vote winner that would be!.

JH - The idea that this is all a gamer has some legs to it. In a way I hope it is because that is gauranteed to backfire on Brown now. he will be known as a coward and as we both know the eoconomy is in for tought times. he ill only be PM for 3 years max. This is why he may go now even if it looks dodgy.

Lilith - i am flattered that you are a reader of this place. Croydonian too no less!

Sackerson said...

Mark: the extra bodies in education are, I think, the army of classroom assistants.

There was an official survey done some years ago, which discovered that out of 100 teachers, 60 intended to leave or retire shortly, and of the remaining 40, 36 did not intend to work in the profession until retirement.

Teachers' conditions of work have been altered by adding these extra bods, but the real plan is to train up cheap replacements for what was supposed to be an all-graduate profession.

Assistants used to be on one pay grade, but now there are 3 levels, and conversion courses for them to become teachers.

The courses are popular, because the assistants can see what teachers are paid and it's a good deal for someone of their own educational attainments; but in the course of time, market forces will operate and teaching pay will decline against that of white-collar workers in other sectors.

Of course, had the profession not been infiltrated by destructive Marxists and messed about by ambitious innovators and eye-catching-initiative-driven politicians, all this would have been unnecessary, and we might have had better order and learning in schools.

CityUnslicker said...

sackerson - good points which I whole heartedly agree with, we desperately need to change the marxist education system that is so betraying the majority of our kids.

Pogo said...

If they'd abandon all the green ecowibble even I might be tempted to vote Tory again.

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