Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Brown's big tax cut drowns Cameron...

Gordon the Iron Chancellor Brown saved the best 'til last...

Basic income tax down from 22 pence to 20 pence from next April.

The lowest for 75 years.

Follow that Dave...

He couldn't.

Andrew Pierce of the Daily Telegraph, speaking on FiveLive:

"It's the most radical tax cut since the early 1980s and David Cameron did a good impression of a drowning man when it was announced by Gordon Brown.

"David Cameron has been completely outmanouvred by Gordon Brown."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cameron's response was weak, in fact, I think we've just witnessed him morph into William Hague before our eyes...all toe-curling pre-prepared jokes and no ability to rise to the substance in hand.

Man in a Shed said...

David Cameron's response wasn't as good as last year. But the BBC cut in part way through - just in case. It was still a sound performance and the analysis of the fundamental dishonesty of Brown budget speeches and his trick of trying to grab headlines before anyone has worked out what he has really done was spot on.

The income tax stunt was a sign of the desperation in the Brown camp ( the BBC faithfully reports the cut - but hides away the removal of the 10p rate which makes this change much closer to neutral than you have been lead to believe ).

The people of Britain will pay and pay dearly for Gordon Brown's ambition - but its a good budget for the Conservative Party as Brown will now get elected leader of Labour. And if they make that mistake then they are finished.

It also shows that the people want less taxation and waste - if only they had a government that could deliver it.

fairdealphil said...

so reducing basic rate of income tax to its lowest for 75 years is a stunt!

no, man, it's sound financial management, not being afraid to take the tough decisions to make Britain strong again:

the best performing economy of the G7 after a generation of Tory fiscal failure and the two worst recessions in the history of our country - delivered by Tory incompetence.

i know. i almost went bust after the Tories raised interest rates by three times in one day - and by three per cent in one go, hiking my mortgage to 18 per cent which led to the misery of negative equity.

the 10p rate was brought in by Gordon after he inherited boom and bust and a generation on the dole.

now the economy is sorted, we can move on.

the tories never would have introduced the 10 p rate in the first place and never would have achieved a strong economy that could deliver the lowest basic rate of tax for 75 years.

DC's face told the story.

Substance v Spin.
Strong v Shallow.
Strength v the Toff.

Sorted.

I, like millions of ordinary working people, have so much to thank Gordon Brown for...

Anonymous said...

With the abolition of the 10p band, the 2p cut has a net effect of, er, zero. In fact, lower income taxpayers are worse off unless they have access to tax credits. So that's part time workers screwed then.

Cheers Gordon.

fairdealphil said...

anonymous:

there were numerous measures in the Budget which will help people into jobs and make work pay.

The working tax credit for example, already worth on average £48 a week to one and a half million low paid workers is to be boosted by over £1 billion a year.

People on low incomes already receive more benefit from the working tax credit than either the minimum wage or the 10p rate.

Personally, having raised children, I'm happy for the extra billion to be targetted to working families.