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Stephen Tall

The VAT rise: a refresher course for Labour

By Stephen Tall | Tue 4th January 2011 - 1:58 pm

Today’s increase in VAT from 17.5% to 20% — announced in the Coalition’s emergency budget last year — has triggered a fresh burst of opportunism criticism from Labour. The “wrong tax at the wrong time” claims their leader Ed Miliband.

How Labour’s last Chancellor backed a VAT rise

I suspect there’s a Labour MP we won’t be hearing from today, though: Alistair Darling*, Chancellor until the party’s defeat in May. As Mark Pack noted here last July, Mr Darling was a strong advocate of increasing the rate of VAT in order to tackle the UK’s massive deficit, with The …

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Recent Comments

  • Peter Martin
    @ Daniel, You could have a point. Do you mean the government of the Federal Republic Of Germany? They certainly adopted the position of speaking for the ...
  • Steve Comer
    I agree with your sentiments Jack, but does the Party in Wales and it's MS? What little coverage of the Lib Dem campaign in Wales that I heard on news media ...
  • Daniel Walker
    @Peter Martin "Incidentally, the above point about the duty of a national government to adopt policies to ensure a measure of fiscal equalisation in a single...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    Where I grew up in Poland, school lessons finished at 3, but there was optional supervised care until 5 or 6, often just run in the library, for the parents who...
  • Peter Martin
    @ Chloe, "Who picks up the tab for the net fiscal deficit of the Scottish & Welsh governments " You're absolutely right that it should be t...