10p tax - defining moment for Gordon Brown

Peter Kenyon Sat Apr 19, 2008 at 09:02:45 AM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

Oh to be a fly on the wall in Downing Street/Chequers this weekend, or a feather pillow in the Balls/Cooper household.

I've just posted a speculative story on my own blog entitled: Gordon Brown - 'delighted by 10p tax revolt'

(You can still vote on the issue of compensation here.)




As if? I was laying out the next edition of Chartist last night so missed BBC Radio 4 Any Questions and those widely reported remarks of Treasury minister Angela Eagle about the 10p tax: "Watch this space!" Waking up to the BBC Today programme was a real pleasure. Sifting through the words and scouring the web, there is puzzling reporting about Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown's reaction to the groundswell of opinion about 5.3 million working and retired people losing out. Gordon is said to be "furious". Has any journalist spoken to him personally about this? It is possible but unlikely. To that extent Gordon has a point about the issue being blown up by the media. This weekend he faces a life defining moment - be 'delighted' with the revolt and enjoy the admiration of his Party, and the country for being Labour. Or risk all by being Gordon.

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10p tax - defining moment for Gordon Brown | 7 comments (7 topical)

Re: 10p tax - defining moment for Gordon Brown (#1)

by madasafish on Sat Apr 19, 2008 at 12:13:42 PM GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/19/gordonbrown.labour1?gusrc=rss&feed=politics


Re: 10p tax - defining moment for Gordon Brown (#2)

by lastword on Sat Apr 19, 2008 at 12:52:50 PM GMT

V interesting article by Tom Clark there.  Well worth a read.


[ Parent ]

Re: 10p tax - defining moment for Gordon Brown (#3)

by treborc on Sat Apr 19, 2008 at 02:43:38 PM GMT

Well OK what type of compensation will it be one off payment, a payment for the future, or some sort of extra benefits on tax credits, compensation is a very open word.

What happens to the kids who leave school this year and next year who earn shitty money will they be compensated, no of course not, this about saving Labour arse at the local elections


Re: 10p tax - defining moment for Gordon Brown (#4)

by Free Radical on Sat Apr 19, 2008 at 06:11:17 PM GMT

I am not generally in favour of supporting the party right or wrong and I am deeply critical of various aspects of government policy. But the comments on the 10p tax rate abolition come in the middle of an election campaign across much of the country - and these are elections that it is important to win. After all it was announced a year ago so why has everybody woken up to it now?
I would simply like to know just who will lose out from the budget and by how much.
 Everything in this debate becomes conflated with criticism of Brown's leadership. I have never much liked Brown, though it is fair to say I dislike him less than Blair. I also believe that we should have had a leadership election. But we did not. However the levels of internal party criticism aired in the media (including Labour blogs) and especially during an election campaign seem reckless to me. What we do not want to do is reduce the party to the situation of the Tories under John Major. Sure we have a neoliberal party leadership but at the moment Brown is the leader and will be for the forseeable future. By all means let us work within the party and lobby our Labour MPs to vote down the 42 days' legislation for example. But the public twittering and carping about Brown, especially during an election, is, in my view, helping to feed a hostile media frenzy and risks very serious damage to the party as a whole... I think we need to consider carefully what we say within the party and how much we say outside.


Re: 10p tax - defining moment for Gordon Brown (#5)

by madasafish on Sat Apr 19, 2008 at 09:21:48 PM GMT

I think in today's internet driven world, any attempt to " consider carefully what we say within the party and how much we say outside."  is doomed to failure.

Once the genie is out of the bottle...

Anyway, the policy is not going to change. Gordon has said so. 

So "taxing the poor" is going to be Gordon's epitaph.


[ Parent ]

Re: 10p tax - defining moment for Gordon Brown (#6)

by Free Radical on Sat Apr 19, 2008 at 11:16:15 PM GMT

Yes, fair comment - and it certainly is out of the bottle.

Actually I suspect the policy may be redressed in some way. But what we most need to do is lobby our MPs and work through CLPs and unions to pressure parliament.

I think there is much disappointing in Labour's fiscal policy, and reform has been very modest - nevertheless some groups, especially pensioners, are significantly better off than under the Tories and we should also give credit where it is due.

I have never been a fan of Brown's neoliberal economic policy, nor of the neo-imperialist foreign policy we are still pursuing, nor of the attacks on civil liberties. But he is the leader that we have and I think it would be politically suicidal to be chatting about any changes in that department this side of a general election. We need to be "political" in the widest sense of that word in the way that we push for changes of policy in the party.


[ Parent ]

Re: 10p tax - defining moment for Gordon Brown (#7)

by madasafish on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 08:24:11 PM GMT

Gordon is not going to change.

So he's going to tax the poor to pay the rich.

If the Conservatives did it , you (and I ) would rightly raise hell.

All I can say is it's utter and complete madness. He's a stubborn man who is so arrogant he can never admit he is wrong - ever..

Even the Conservatives ditch losers. 


[ Parent ]

10p tax - defining moment for Gordon Brown | 7 comments (7 topical)