Starmer was asked to be honest to the public on Times Radio and state unequivocally if Labour would introduce new taxes in power. He said, when prompted with: “There are going to be no tax rises and no spending cuts under a Labour government?”
“Where there are tax rises, we have set out what they will be and what the money will be spent on.“
No additional tax rises under a Labour government – “where there are to be tax rises, we’ve set that out.” Starmer delivers his “Read my lips: no new taxes” moment before the manifesto launches next week. This is one to come back to…
If Starmer keeps to his pledge the public can be sure his government will be able to do almost nothing, and less than that in the long term. Charging VAT on private school fees will be cost-negative for the Treasury after one parliament. Hiking the Energy Profits Levy will destroy the oil and gas sector and lose revenue by the decade’s end. Hunt has gobbled the counter-productive non-dom policy. Pension pots are being drained in anticipation of a Labour lifetime allowance raid. The Tories’ one goal is to prove Starmer’s telling a fib…
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has taken to the stage to defend the Tories’ record and bash “Labour’s tax rises“. In a negative campaign, Hunt warned that Labour were playing “playground politics” and are taking the public for fools over the cost of the pandemic – before drawing a line in the sand over numbers. If Guido were in the room, he would remind the Chancellor that it was the Tories who decided to shut down the economy whilst handing out the cash for two years…
Hunt hit out at Labour’s unfunded policies which, according to “independent official costings“, will cost a total of £59 billion over the next four years, with the gap between what they will spend and what they will raise from their announced tax rises standing at £38 billion, or £2,100 per working household. Guido asked Labour to send the costings over for Starmer’s “fully costed and funded” six pledges, announced yesterday, and received no comment. Tax-raising Hunt is on the attack – the pot and kettle will now argue over which is blacker…
Read Hunt’s “scorecard” below:
New research today reveals private schools have hiked their fees in preparation for Labour’s bruising VAT. The Independent Schools Council census shows average day-school fees have reached £18,060 and boarding fees have risen by 9% to an average of almost £42,500. The Times calculates that fee increases plus Labour’s VAT will push the average fee up by over a third since 2021…
The practical result of Labour’s policy is that private schools will educate foreign pupils instead of British ones – the highest and rising number of which are Chinese. By its 6th year the new tax is projected to be cost-negative for the Treasury – Labour still insists they’ll raise £1.6 billion. Are they sure they haven’t “misspoken“?
European countries do the opposite of what Labour is proposing. Danish private schools get a grant per student. Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain and Belgium subsidize private education. German parents can offset the cost of private school fees against tax. Meanwhile, 26% of British parents with children in private school now plan to remove them if Labour carries its policy through. Just what the state sector needs…
The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) has predicted that the UK will be the slowest-growing economy in the G7 next year. All thanks to our so-called Conservative government’s high taxes and borrowing…
The OECD has forecast that the UK’s GDP will rise by just 0.4% this year and 1% in 2025, nearly half that of the US. The OECD said “tax receipts keep rising towards historic highs of about 37% of GDP” and Hunt’s NI cuts “only partially offsets the ongoing fiscal drag from frozen personal income tax thresholds”. They also blast the increased corporate tax rate (from 19% in 2021 to 25% now). Higher taxes and borrowing does not promote growth, Chancellor…
Meanwhile, the ongoing decline of the London Stock Exchange’s is a matter of huge concern for those in the City. British success stories like chip-maker ARM and entertainment group Flutter have listed outside the UK thanks to regulations and high taxes. Hopefully Labour can learn a few things from the Tories’ mistakes…
As much as Labour’s spin doctors wanted to dismiss the story yesterday’s local election campaign launch was overshadowed by Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner’s failure to satisfactorily explain herself. This morning’s newspapers are (finally) all over the issue Guido has been drumming on about for weeks;
- “How Angela Rayner could go from Labour’s trump card to their millstone“ opines the Telegraph.
- “Pressure builds on Angela Rayner over council house claims” – Times
- “Rayner denies wrongdoing over council house sale amid police review“ – Guardian
- “Angela Rayner refuses to publish tax records as police probe house sale“ – FT
- “Why won’t Rayner come clean on tax?” – Daily Mail
- “UK cannot install Angela Rayner as Deputy PM with unanswered tax-dodging allegations hanging over her” – Sun
- “Rayner on the ropes: Labour’s deputy leader flounders over housing row” – Mail
- “Angela Rayner insists she did nothing wrong over house sale“ – BBC
- “Angela Rayner will not publish ‘personal tax advice’ over council house sale“ – Sky News
The truth will out and this will not go away until she answers the questions which she obfuscates over. Why do the neighbours say she is lying about where she really lived? Wasn’t her brother really renting the house she pretends she lived at and where she kept herself on the electoral roll? Why doesn’t she publish the recent tax advice? As much as Labour keep trying to make out this is a non-story, it clearly isn’t. The press is only seeking the same kind of transparency she demanded of others…
One year ago Starmer committed to publishing the tax returns of the Labour Party’s top three. That includes his shadow Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner.
At the time he said:
“I think it’s pretty simple: those in charge of taxation can’t also be seeking to avoid it.“
Today, Starmer says his deputy shouldn’t even have to publish a single piece of her recently-acquired tax advice. He refused to say if she should resign if she is found to have broken the rules. He claims despite having not seen the evidence that the tax advice “has satisfied me” – why can’t it be released to satisfy the public? Starmer’s spokesman subsequently confirmed that he hasn’t seen it, though “some of his officials” have…
What are they hiding?
