3 Comments

• Richard Huzzey 21st Mar '07 - 5:06pm

  Forget Stalin. This is a George Bush budget, with tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the poor. After slavishly following Bush’s lead on Iraq, Gordon Brown is now copying his tax plans.

  After Bush and Brown’s war on Iraq, it’s Bush and Brown’s war on the poor now.

  How can any Labour party member defend this mean-spirited fiddling round the edges, rather than taking poorer people out of income tax altogether, as Lib Dems propose?

• Hywel 21st Mar '07 - 5:33pm

  The cynical will suggest that there are few people who pay the 10p income tax band but won’t benefit from the 2p cut in the standard rate who are likely to vote Tory.

  Personally – if you start taking people for granted to that degree then they have a nasty habit of reminding you not to do it again.

  The “grab the headlines by cutting income tax and make it up elsewhere” approach to budgets was a favourite of Ken Clarke’s. Look at how electorally successful he was.

• Matt Wardman 22nd Mar '07 - 1:58pm

  I find myself surprised to write about the Budget – I had resolved not to do so.

  However, I am directly affected by measures that no one seems to have noticed yet: dealing with “Tax Avoidance by means of Managed Service companies” (FT Article here).

  The consequences are dire, both for Freelancers and their Public Sector customers.