£600 on Tax Allowance: 10p tax sorted
The Chancellor, in a statement to Parliament, has just revealed that the government plans to increase the personal Income Tax allowance by £600 pounds - and backdated to the beginning of the financial year.
This is a brilliant and welcome resolution to the 10p tax fiasco and the government rightly deserves great praise for listening and for creating a wide-ranging solution. It makes people happy when they have more money in their pocket (without complicated bureaucracy) and we have a very effective message to give to voters on the door step when we are asked about what the party is doing for them.
Caroline Flint's Cabinet housing notes
Caroline Flint went into Cabinet today clutching her State of Housing market speaking notes, and the snappers got a pic of them. Nothing really shocking there, but I bet Caroline would have wished for a more controlled press release! (I hope this does not distract too much from Alistair Darling's wonderful announcement that personal tax allowances will go up by £600 to compensate for the 10p rate change.) Amongst other things they predict "Given present trends ... sizeable falls in [house] prices later this year - at best down 5%-10% year-on-year." She intends to announce extra help for first-time buyers tomorrow, mainly by extending shared equity schemes.
If Labour hold Crewe, the economy holds up and Gordon 'softens up'...
Some of my fellow Labour bloggers, party activists and members have short memories. Less than 12 months ago the Tories were disintegrating over academic selection and Labour was 14% ahead in the polls. The next election is not due for another 24 months, the economy is probably over the worst and Gordon Brown - though he admits that he has made mistakes - is not stupid.
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