The Fabian’s Tim Horton and IPPR’s Howard Reed have jointly authored a paper for Left Foot Forward designed to undermine the case for raising tax thresholds for low income earners.  Clearly they are trying to undermine Clegg’s claim to support a fairer tax system, which by all accounts is playing very well on the doorsteps.

Horton and Reed make a number of charges that need rebutting:

• Three million of the poorest households gain nothing from the change

That is only because they simply just don’t pay tax. No tax cut will ever help that group, only an increase in welfare transfer payments can benefit them. That however would further increase dependency and disincentivise them from coming off welfare support.

• Households in the second richest decile gain, on average, four times the amount of those in the poorest decile.

Once again, this is because the lowest decile don’t pay much if any tax – we are really talking about part-time workers and those on welfare. Nevertheless everybody, including the lowest decile, will be better off whatever their income.

• Only around £1 billion of the £17 billion cost actually goes toward the stated aim of lifting low-income households out of tax, the policy would increase socially damaging inequalities between the bottom and middle.

Here we get to the real reason they object, it cuts taxes for the middle classes. According to their numbers, those on low incomes will only benefit by £5 a week and those on middle incomes will benefit by £20 a week. Low income households also qualify for welfare transfers from middle income earners, from free school meals to welfare credits.  Is it really unfair against a background of progressively higher marginal tax rates on middle income earners?  Middle earners pay disproportionately more tax after all.

Horton and Reed don’t really dispute that the lowest earners will be better off, they just don’t like the distribution of benefits from the policy. They do conclude with a bit of hyperbole: “It could actually harm the welfare of low-income households by increasing inequality and relative poverty.” Nobody is harmed by a “relative increase in inequality”. That is a left-wing myth. If your neighbour wins the lottery you are relatively poorer in comparison but not objectively, similarly those on lower incomes are not made poorer by those on middle incomes paying a little less tax. Nice try, but the moral case for taking those on the minimum wage out of tax is still stronger than the case for taxing them to pay them welfare.

Most Tories will be glad to see the back of the pompous europhile Edward McMillan-Scott. He is whinging that “People are controlled within the Conservative party, as I was.” He’ll be happier with the free and easy Libdems, who have a party culture which is definitely less controlling. His euro-fanaticism will be more in tune with the LibDems as well. In truth he was for a long time an obstacle to a more robust Tory approach to Brussels. So happy news for both sides…

If you were not one of the 59,667 visitors viewing 387,114 pages over the last seven days, here are the seven most popular stories (in order of popularity) that you missed:

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You’re either in front of Guido, or you are behind…

Earlier in the week it was the Staggers that were highlighting their intern-hypocrisy, and now as the Lib Dems head to Birmingham for Clegg’s “return to your constituencies and prepare for government” moment, they too have fallen foul of practising what they preach.

The sandalistas are debating “Proposals for Youth Employment” including:

“c) Introducing a new ‘Paid Internship’ scheme for the twelve months after the 2010 general election, paying anyone undertaking such an internship a ‘training allowance’ of £55 a week (£5 more than Jobseeker’s Allowance); and providing minimum standards for all internships, including reasonable expenses and maximum lengths.”

All very noble, the Lib Dems have long been advocates of paid internships. As ever the reality is much different. In the run up to the election Cowley Street, candidates and MPs are all looking for new staff.  You work for free, which isn’t fair and shows you can’t trust them to live up to their own policies…

This isn’t a surprise.  The Clerk of the Parliaments, Michael Pownall, gave the Lords almost free reign to continue troughing by ruling that there is no definition of main residence for the purposes of expenses.  A ruling almost designed to make a prosecution impossible. Uncharged is not the same as innocent…

See Carry On Claiming M’Lords

This week we bring footage of the release from prison of the landlord who lets you smoke, the travails of magazine street sellers and MPs on trial. Here’s a preview excerpt from this week’s Guy News; a mash-up of Gordon Brown and Johnny Cash with a touch of Neil Hepburn.

If you haven’t subscribed to the Guidogram, you’ll have to wait until next week to see it…

In a campaign worthy of Jo Swinson it seems Nadine has declared war on London buses displaying 14ft ads of half-naked women trying to flog underwear. “It is becoming more hardcore and shocking. Since when did it become acceptable to have larger-than-life posters of scantily clad women moving up and down every street?” And the giant shirtless Ronaldo/Armani ad is fine though?

Those oinking noises sound remarkably like Mark Wallace, official spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Alliance.  That sound will reverberate in their ears loudly for a long time…

Paul Waugh is enjoying Le Monde’s profile of George Osborne which gives him quite a kicking.  Is it really that remarkable when a left-wing, French journalist gives a eurosceptic, British conservative politician a rough time?

She does have form, in a recent profile Virginie Malingre characterised another eurosceptic right-winger as a “Conservateur Barbare“. Charming…