They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, in which case the Conservatives’ partial imitation of Labour proposals for increasing Government revenue must at least be party flattering for the Labour Party.
As I said earlier, much of the Budget had already been leaked, so it came as little surprise when the Chancellor used ending Non-Dom status and an extension of the windfall tax on energy companies to buy himself some fiscal headroom. For the Government, given how hard they’ve previously argued against both of these proposals, it is a fairly embarrassing about-face requiring that the other parts of the Budget are sufficiently good news as to buy themselves some cover.
Labour had planned to use this money to invest in public services, something polling has shown the public overwhelmingly considered to be the priority over tax cuts. For all the announcements around public sector spending, the commitment on NHS funding isn’t an increase it’s the minimum required to maintain current funding levels and the 1% increase in public sector spending will mean in real terms a cut of £20bn per year for the next four years.
So, instead of listening to the public that after 14 years of cuts to services which have seen our roads reduced to rubble, record hospital waiting lists, and children going to schools in dangerous buildings, they opted for tax cuts. The 2p NIC cut in the pound last Autumn did nothing for economic growth (or the Tories’ poll rating for what it’s worth) a further 2p isn’t going to make any difference compared to inflation and stagnating wages.
The UK needs growth. The last Labour Government delivered the longest period of sustained economic growth in UK history, we are currently experiencing the longest sustained reduction in per capita economic growth since 1955. Today the Conservatives have again shown that they are incapable of delivering growth. It’s time for a General Election, so we can give Britain it’s future back.
More here: https://labour.org.uk/missions/economic-growth/
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Peter Lamb for Crawley 