50p tax
What tax rate is too high?
I was on Iain Dale’s LBC radio programme on Sunday, talking about Labour’s tax policy. I said I was in favour of a mansion tax in principle. Jonathan Portes, of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, was also on and explained why a land tax (of which a mansion tax would be a progressive form) was economically efficient, so I agreed with him.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 20 February 2013 at 3:14 pm
10p tax rate: the politics of tiny differences
I read Ed Miliband’s speech this morning before I realised that there was a fuss over his plan to reintroduce a 10p income tax band, paid for by a mansion tax on homes worth more than £2m.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 14 February 2013 at 4:04 pm
The broadest shoulders, the greatest burden?
The Treasury has finally supplied an answer to my question about the basis on which the Prime Minister and the Chancellor claimed in their party conference speeches that the rich are paying a greater share of tax than under the previous government. I have written about it in The Independent on Sunday today.
George Osborne, in [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 28 October 2012 at 9:55 am
“Broadest shoulders bearing the greatest burden”?
Perhaps it is just because I am a grumpy curmudgeon, but I didn’t like George Osborne’s speech either.
A lot of second-rate sloganising, a couple of feeble jokes, no attempt whatever to engage with the difficult macro-economic debates about policy, and mindless partisanship, such as that Blair “didn’t achieve anything” in his 10 years.
The only bit [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 8 October 2012 at 3:26 pm
Cameron seems to want to lose the next election
David Cameron is an instinctive politician. He didn’t mean to call Ed Balls a “muttering idiot” at Prime Minister’s Questions – David Wooding reports that he said to George Osborne immediately, “I can’t help it”, and Norman Lamont, his former boss, told BBC Radio 4 World At One: “He can be quite volatile. It makes him [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 23 May 2012 at 3:19 pm
Blairite and Brownite coalition re-forged
In my column for The Independent on Sunday today I wonder at the genius of David Cameron in allowing the Blairites to rally behind Ed Miliband. There is a chunk of voters that is crucial to the Conservatives’ chances at the next election that I call the AB liberals. They identified with New Labour but [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 20 May 2012 at 3:39 pm
Opening the Fault Line
A bit of clever politics from Ed Miliband in his interview with The Guardian today. On the cut in the 50p tax rate, he says:
I think Cameron now knows it was a mistake. As I was giving my Budget reply I could almost see Cameron thinking to himself, “This is not what I claimed the [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 21 April 2012 at 6:51 pm
News release on behalf of the Rt Hon Ed Balls MP
Daniel Finkelstein comments on the Times blog, which is still, self-defeatingly, behind the pay wall, on Ed Balls’s interview on BBC Radio 5 Live this morning. The Shadow Chancellor said that cutting the top rate of income tax from 50p in the pound to 45p would cost the Exchequer £3bn a year.
Finkelstein points out that this [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 5 April 2012 at 12:45 pm
Labour fails to vote against 50p tax cut
The Scottish National Party sprang a parliamentary surprise last night by forcing a division on a Budget motion that would usually have been voted on in a group. This one provided for the top rate of income tax to be cut from 50p to 45p next year.
When Stewart Hosie, the deputy leader of the SNP [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 27 March 2012 at 5:05 pm
Osborne’s Triumph: a 10-pt Labour lead
Told you so. ComRes has a poll in The Independent tomorrow putting Labour 10 points ahead on 43 per cent to the Conservatives on 33 per cent. Labour is up three since last month’s Independent telephone poll (The Independent on Sunday series is a parallel online survey), and the Tories are down four. The Liberal Democrats [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 26 March 2012 at 10:00 pm
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