Tag Archives: nick hollinmghurst

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 …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 89 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Alex Macfie
    Not sure how "economic liberalism" is supposed to work with a natural monopoly such as water provision. You just get private monopolies. Also you can't necessa...
  • expats
    Tristan Ward 16th Aug '26 - 3:14pm... 'Treated water", i.e. water that comes from your tap, throughout Europe and the UK is, almost always, safe to drink.. ...
  • Jana
    “ Trump’s approval rating has never topped 50 percent.” Sorry but most opinion polls in January and February 2025 had Trump over 50% approval with a Yo...
  • Judy Abel
    @Tristan I am sorry but while privatisation may not automatically lead to poor water quality it certainly has in the UK. I’ve been to Italy and Denmark recent...
  • Tristan Ward
    @Judy Abel The suggestion that privatisation automatically leads to poor water quality is not supported by the facts. Most of continental Europe has poor ...