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The general election tax debate has been irrelevant. The few £bn being discussed is dwarfed by the actual tax UK tax increases over the last few years, and the further tax increases we’ll almost certainly see in the future.
Here’s what happens if we add on the Conservative Party’s extremely debateable claim that Labour will increase household taxes by £2,000 over four years – that’s about £10bn in total:2
£10bn is just an irrelevance in the context of almost a trillion pounds of total tax receipts. And it vanishes into statistical noise when we remember that OBR tax receipt forecasts are lucky to get within £30bn of the true figure.3
So my plea to everyone is: stop discussing irrelevant amounts of tax as if it matters.
Here are three honest positions politicians could take:
Accept the status quo, and that the UK will, by 2028/29, pay about £100bn more tax than it did in 2010/11 (in 2023/24 money). Make changes at the margins but acknowledge that’s all they are. The question then is: where will this burden fall? And what will the consequences of that be?
Advocate for significantly lower taxes, and (assuming you don’t want to crash the markets) explain which public services you’ll cut to fund the tax cuts, and the consequences of this for households and the wider economy.
Advocate for a significantly higher level of state spending, comparable with the European or even French figures. Again assuming you don’t want to crash the markets, explain what taxes you’d increase, and the consequences of for households and the wider economy. And expect everyone to be sceptical if you claim only the rich would pay, because that’s not what happens in any of the countries that actually do have significantly higher spending than the UK.
And let’s please try to be careful not to fall for simple stories about political parties and levels of tax. If we take tax as a % of GDP over the last eighty years, and shade in periods of Labour government (red) and Conservative10 government (blue), it’s reasonably clear that the economic cycle has been much more important than the political cycle:
Away from all the news regarding this tax row, Richard Holden, who previously was MP in the disbanded North West Durham seat, appears to be being parachuted into the seat of Basildon and Billericay, causing uproar among the local Tories:
In a similar move. Kieran Mullan has been selected as the Conservative candidate in Bexhill and Battle. He was previously the MP for Crewe and Nantwich where he obviously didn't rate his chances. This is after the previous Bexhill MP, Hugh Merriman decided not to stand. Where I live, in Hastings, the Conservative who is hoping to be re-elected has been emphasising her local connections compared with the Labour candidate who is from Merton.
In a similar move. Kieran Mullan has been selected as the Conservative candidate in Bexhill and Battle. He was previously the MP for Crewe and Nantwich where he obviously didn't rate his chances. This is after the previous Bexhill MP, Hugh Merriman decided not to stand. Where I live, in Hastings, the Conservative who is hoping to be re-elected has been emphasising her local connections compared with the Labour candidate who is from Merton.
Never heard of this Kieran Mullan character but what isn't a good look is doing the chicken run rather than standing to fight his original constituency. Will Bexhill and Battlers be happy with a non-local candidate running away from a more challenging seat?
People who doubt the importance of GDP growth, or lack of it, should look at the tax receipts chart.
Three of the 4 biggest taxes are Income Tax, National Insurance and Corporation Tax. They are all taxes on the major income components of GDP: employment income, self-employment income and company profits.
The other of the 4 biggest is VAT, which is effectively a tax on consumers' expenditure, the biggest expenditure component of GDP.
Together these 4 taxes raise £753bn, about three quarters of the total.
People who doubt the importance of GDP growth, or lack of it, should look at the tax receipts chart.
Three of the 4 biggest taxes are Income Tax, National Insurance and Corporation Tax. They are all taxes on the major income components of GDP: employment income, self-employment income and company profits.
The source I've seen (below - page 6 refers) suggests £277bln came from income tax in 2023/24, £180bln from NICs, £170bln from VAT and £103bln from corporation tax. Total £730bln out of total revenues of £1,095bln.
But certainly big figures, whichever way you look at them.
Well there’s still plenty of time for Labour to shoot themselves in both feet and convince voters that they won’t be any better than the Tories. It’s theirs to loose.
There is still plenty of time for Keir Starmer to fumble his campaign and bring his share of the vote down to a level where he only secures a slight majority or minority government as the largest party. That said it would take something really bad to turn the tide at this stage. Starmer might not be the most inspiring candidate or even the most trustworthy, but he's not by any means an idiot. I'm sure the memory of Theresa May's campaign disaster is still fresh on the minds of some people.
It ends with:
Here are three honest positions politicians could take:
Accept the status quo, and that the UK will, by 2028/29, pay about £100bn more tax than it did in 2010/11 (in 2023/24 money). Make changes at the margins but acknowledge that’s all they are. The question then is: where will this burden fall? And what will the consequences of that be?
Advocate for significantly lower taxes, and (assuming you don’t want to crash the markets) explain which public services you’ll cut to fund the tax cuts, and the consequences of this for households and the wider economy.
Advocate for a significantly higher level of state spending, comparable with the European or even French figures. Again assuming you don’t want to crash the markets, explain what taxes you’d increase, and the consequences of for households and the wider economy. And expect everyone to be sceptical if you claim only the rich would pay, because that’s not what happens in any of the countries that actually do have significantly higher spending than the UK.
I'd add to that by seeking to clarify what we want to spend money on, requiring (probably) higher taxes. The debate mistakenly focusses on taxation - lower or higher - and fails to explain what lower taxes would mean for services most people want, or what better services would mean for the level of tax.
Never heard of this Kieran Mullan character but what isn't a good look is doing the chicken run rather than standing to fight his original constituency. Will Bexhill and Battlers be happy with a non-local candidate running away from a more challenging seat?
Well, YOU want to express the situation in terms of "chicken run" and "running away", and I expect other candidates in the constituency will also use such terms to try to discredit the "Kieran Mullan character", but I suspect that only a small number of actual voters there will really care about the matter, until somebody else tries to make something of it. There are of course several non-local Labour candidates being "parachuted" into constituencies. There are actually more important issues to think about.
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Reform may take many votes from Conservatives, contributing to a loss of seats for them. But if there was tactical voting in a constituency between Conservatives and Reform one of them might win and Labour or Lib Dems fail to make a gain. Such tactical voting seems unlikely at the moment but there are still four weeks to go.
SNP appear much weaker than in recent general elections, and Labour may make gains in Scotland.
There are constituencies in the southern half of England where Conservatives are more likely to lose to Lib Dems than to Labour.
The current large margin of Labour over Conservatives in national opinion polls does make a big Labour majority seem probable, but some of the factors above bring uncertainty and much can change in four weeks.
Some polls are projecting that the Lib Dems could become the official Opposition which would be funny considering that the Tories would then get less seats than the Lib Dems.
Some polls are projecting that the Lib Dems could become the official Opposition which would be funny considering that the Tories would then get less seats than the Lib Dems.
I did have a dream a couple of days ago where we were all waiting for the final result which would decide who out of the SNP and Tories would be third...
I am not hard left myself, but I don't know why left wing Labour MPs and supporters don't from thier own party. A "Reform of the left" would do quite well, especially if Corbyn was leading it.
I am not hard left myself, but I don't know why left wing Labour MPs and supporters don't from thier own party. A "Reform of the left" would do quite well, especially if Corbyn was leading it.
Because political parties are expensive to set up and maintain a reasonable presence, and you also need someone with real charisma backing your cause. Nigel Farage may not be to everybody's taste, but nobody can deny that his political influence has been profound - he is a genuine leader and excellent orator. Reform are obviously also backed by some pretty substantial wealthy people.
The far left wing would/does struggle to raise finance, especially as most prospective members are typically students and younger with little disposable income.
Other than Jeremy Corbyn, I also can't think of any notable person that could cut through and result in any real gains. Politically, he's toxic - whereas Nigel Farage does appeal to a sizeable demographic.
I am not hard left myself, but I don't know why left wing Labour MPs and supporters don't from thier own party. A "Reform of the left" would do quite well, especially if Corbyn was leading it.
Corbyn at this point is probably too old to even be the US president, and isn't really a born leader for all that he's the only person on the left with any real presence or popular appeal.
Ultimately though they lack the numbers, the finance, or any huge common cause apart from being angry at the rest of the Labour party. Reform by contrast have access to money, friendly media and a slightly younger egomaniac leader
I am not hard left myself, but I don't know why left wing Labour MPs and supporters don't from thier own party. A "Reform of the left" would do quite well, especially if Corbyn was leading it.
This is just the line the charlatan George Galloway was peddling after he won the Rochdale by-election. He envisaged getting together with Corbyn as the puppet 'leader', a bit like Farage and Tice's previous arrangement, but even Corbyn seemed to have enough 'common' not to fall for that one. I suspect John McDonnell, who's never seen around Galloway, had the sense to warn his old friend, probably Len McCluskey too.
The big election gaffe committed by Sunak now seems to be that he left the D-Day 80th anniversary commemoration early, in order to do an ITV interview. Various sources are saying something on the lines of it looking really stupid:
The big election gaffe committed by Sunak now seems to be that he left the D-Day 80th anniversary commemoration early, in order to do an ITV interview. Various sources are saying something on the lines of it looking really stupid:
It'll take a while to edit if they want to make him look at least somewhat human and in tune with the population, plus they probably want to run it past their legal team so they can't get in trouble by Ofcom for what he says in the interview!
Seems Starmer is again proving who is actually a leader, there are events you can leave early, an 80th D-Day commemoration is not one of them.
Anyone that watched the BBC question time yesterday would seriously question if Labour winning big is good idea.
For those that haven't seen it, the audience questions were all the topics Starmer and Sunak have been avoiding (social care, fiscal drag in tax, downsides of Brexit etc). Labour ended up looking like a clone following similar unpopular policies to the Conservatives (who had Transport Minister, Mark Harper)
The two smaller parties (Green and Plaid Cmryu), completely nailed it, and I would think majority seeing it would get impression both Labour and Conservatives are as bad as each other, and what we really need is decent number of smaller parties holding them to account and working together to fix the country.
Unlike the dreadful to watch Starmer v Sunak debate, this one is definitely worth seeing on I-player.
Imagine, for a moment, a Labour Prime Minister leaving the d day commemorations early to film a TV interview.
Then imagine the frothing of the Tory press. It would be front page in the Mail, Express, Telegraph, Times and Sun for weeks with increasingly bonkers headlines and would be used to bash said person for the rest of time. Imagine then the whipped up noise from the hard of thinking about such an action
Look this morning at the response on the press to Sunak actually doing that.
Nothing wrong with the press in totally normal island apparently.
Because it's part of a series of interviews with party leaders that are going out to a particular schedule. The interview happened yesterday because that is the time that was offered to ITV and they had to take it
I’m more and more inclined to think that the S in SPAD stands for stupid rather than special. They just don’t understand politics
Rule one making any decision that’s in the public eye - how might an opponent make it look? How they can either not know this, or know it and think “leaving a D-day commemoration day early whilst my main rival is still there? Looks fine to me” beggars belief
(Or of course they know they’re going to lose and don’t really care)
Imagine, for a moment, a Labour Prime Minister leaving the d day commemorations early to film a TV interview.
Then imagine the frothing of the Tory press. It would be front page in the Mail, Express, Telegraph, Times and Sun for weeks with increasingly bonkers headlines and would be used to bash said person for the rest of time.
Imagine then the whipped up noise from the hard of thinking about such an action
Look this morning at the response on the press to Sunak actually doing that.
Nothing wrong with the press in totally normal island apparently.
Exactly - I am no fan of Corbyn but he would have been pilloried for it. Michael Foot is still attacked for wearing, checks notes, an apparently unacceptable coat, at the cenotaph!
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