Sister site, TaxZone’s Election Focus brings you news and comment from the news pages of the main parties’ websites.
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10 Apr – Labour
Tony Blair said: “If people don’t come out and vote for us on May 5th, then shortly after, Oliver Letwin produces his first Tory Budget.
“And we know what’s in it. Because he’s told us. He and his colleagues have been busy promising. Tax cuts on the one hand. Spending increases on the other. All at the same time as also promising to reduce Labour’s investment programme by £35 billion by the end of the next Parliament.
“He and Mr Howard are promising £4 billion of tax cuts. Yet they have authorised spending increases in defence, pensions, prisons, police, overseas aid, agriculture and many more …”
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9 Apr – Liberal Democrats
Edward Davey MP, Liberal Democrat Local Government Spokesman, will be campaigning to scrap the Council Tax … Mr Davey will warn that Conservative spending plans would add an extra £100 to every family’s Council Tax bill. He will say:
“The Tories pretend they’re going to solve the Council Tax crisis, but the truth is they’re going to make it worse. Michael Howard brought in Council Tax, and now his Party wants to increase it. It’s time to scrap the unfair Council Tax and replace it with a fair system based on ability to pay.”
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7 Apr – Conservatives
Government spending on administration has jumped by more than £1 billion in a single year, despite Labour’s promise to cut civil service posts, new figures reveal today. The Treasury figures show that spending on administration increased from £15.1 billion to £16.2 billion – a rise of 7 per cent, or over six times the rate of inflation last year.
Shadow Chancellor Oliver Letwin said: “So much for Mr Blair’s claim to be cutting back on wasteful and needless bureaucracy. Here is the starkest possible evidence that the Government’s Civil Service overhead has been rising rather than falling. These figures highlight the choice at the election: more waste and higher taxes under Mr Blair, or value for money and lower taxes with Conservatives.”
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7 Apr – Labour
Quotes from Nick Herbert, the new Tory candidate for Arundel & South Downs … “But the Left’s stubborn refusal to recognise that progressive taxation has failed to help the poor, and that cutting higher rates results in the rich paying more, is facing a new challenge. This is flat tax, an idea that is beginning to sweep around the world …”
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7 Apr – Conservatives
Tony Blair’s secret agenda to push up taxes has been exposed by hundreds of his own Labour MPs.
The Conservative Party has identified 200 Labour MPs who are associated with trade unions, the Fabian Society, and other pressure groups actively calling for tax rises. And the list, which includes almost half the Parliamentary party, includes the Prime Minister himself, Chancellor Gordon Brown, Election supreme Alan Milburn, plus another 24 other Labour ministers.
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7 Apr – Labour
Chancellor Gordon Brown said: “… Last night the Conservatives selected Nick Herbert, a Michael Howard vetted and endorsed candidate, who admitted “there is a top secret, extremely clever strategy afoot” to “go along with spending rises now, but return to a tax-cutting agenda if the party is re-elected.”
“He has said ‘the repositioning of the Tories is to be based on a lie; a fact that is unlikely to escape the public.’
“His policy is to abolish the New Deal and in the last few months he has confirmed his policy is to abolish tax credits in favour of a flat tax – akin to another poll tax.”
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7 Apr – Conservatives
Pressure is mounting on Tony Blair to come clean with the electorate and spell out which taxes would go up if Labour were to win a third term.
Shadow Treasury Chief Secretary George Osborne has called on the Premier to explain where workers would be hit next after Mr Blair refused to rule out tax rises if his party succeeded in securing a Parliamentary majority on May 5.
Quizzed by journalists, he would not make a commitment to peg tax rates, and according to reports, his party’s election manifesto – to be published next week – will be vague on the issue, repeating the specific but limited pledge given in both 1997 and 2001 not to raise the basic or top rates of income tax or extend VAT to food, children’s clothes, books, newspaper and public transport fares.
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6 Apr – Liberal Democrats
Responding to Labour’s press conference on the economy, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Dr Vince Cable MP, said:
“Labour may boast about its record on the economy but they have failed to address the fundamental unfairness in the tax system.
“Labour’s tinkering with tax has done nothing to make the system fairer. The poorest 20% still pay a higher proportion of their income in tax than the richest 20%.
“As a first step towards cutting tax on lower earners, Liberal Democrats will axe the unfair Council Tax and replace it with a local income tax based on the ability to pay. This would cut the typical family’s bill by around £450 a year.
“The complexities that Gordon Brown has created have also resulted in a situation where vast numbers of pensioners and those on low-incomes do not claim benefits that they are entitled to. Those that do claim face marginal tax rates far higher than 50 per cent, leading to disincentives to both save and earn.
“I believe we can have both a liberal and a fair economy; better public services and tax cuts for the average family, strong growth, with tough financial discipline. Liberal Democrat policies are fully costed and will promote economic freedom and social justice.”
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6 Apr – Labour
Tony Blair MP, Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party, at Labour’s first campaign press conference today, said: ” … It was extraordinary that yesterday, the Conservatives made barely a mention of the economy. Their strategy is to avoid debate and discussion on it, avoid the difficult questions that expose the incoherence of their policies. They are committed to tax cuts, spending cuts and massive spending increases – all at the same time, often with the same money.”
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6 Apr – Conservatives
Denouncing the way Labour has frittered away huge tax incomes with little improvement in public services, Mr Howard offered a “better way” which would help those who “do the right thing and play by the rules”.
He said the Conservative timetable for action would build a brighter, better future for the country, with more value for money and lower taxes …”
Andrew Goodall
Editor, TaxZone
