Starmer is putting together Downing Street’s policy unit this week. Two recent hires caught Guido’s eye: the executive and associate directors of the left-wing IPPR think tank. Executive Director Carys Roberts’ personal mission is to increase taxes on employees and on wealth. She co-wrote a report which advocated for a radical proposal to combine employee NICs and income tax, apply them to all incomes on an annual basis, and apply a gradually rising marginal tax rate as income rises. A massive radical increase on “working people”…
Roberts’ passion is taxation of savers through the abolition of capital gains and dividend taxes in order to tax them as highly as income. Her report also called for the replacement of inheritance tax with a whole-life gift tax – effectively a gargantuan enlargement of confiscation of family inheritance. She personally supported John McDonnell’s plans to hike wealth taxes as well as to mandatorily reduce working hours. Savers won’t be happy, they’re also “working people” according to Reeves…
Associate Director Rachel Statham, meanwhile, has consistently advocated for large increases in benefits, wage controls, and higher taxes. A redistributionist who thinks that benefits “fall far short of what’s needed to meet an acceptable basic standard of living“, she said exactly a month ago that “to keep the 2-child limit is to plan for substantial increases in child poverty over the next parliament.” Labour is actively filling the heart of government policy with high-tax high-benefit fanatics. Good luck to people who expect “fiscal responsibility” to last…
Sarah Pochin at Reform Scotland’s manifesto launch event: “I really wanted to come on in a Reform tartan burka, but apparently I wasn’t allowed… One day let’s do one of these events not live-streamed. We’ll do all the naughty stuff…”