Droitwich & Evesham CLP Member, Dr Peter Daw, calls for some honesty over the budget
It is surely time for some honesty rather than spin about the recent budget.
While the Chancellor and his hapless Government Treasury team (among them our own local MP) seek to present the two percent cut in National Insurance contributions as a spur to growth and evidence of ‘turning a corner’, the truth is very different. For every pound most working people get back, they will lose double that due to the freezing of tax thresholds which will draw more people into paying income tax at all and more into paying at the ‘higher rate’.
The truth is after 14 years in power the Conservatives have given us an economy in recession, taxes at their highest level in decades, mortgages and rents that are sky-high and public services on their knees.
In 2010 they dishonestly blamed Labour’s spending for a financial crisis caused in fact by bankers’ greed and unfettered and under-regulated model of international capitalism.
They then embarked on a disastrous regime of austerity that has hit the poorest in society hardest, increased inequality and division and led to the dilapidation of the NHS, school buildings and most local authority provision.
But instead of presenting taxation as an evil that must be endlessly reduced or even eliminated, let’s change the script and say taxes are an essential contribution to what creates a civilised and caring society.
Tax rates here are lower already than in most comparable European countries and far lower than at many times in the past in the UK, especially for the better off (not to mention the obscenely wealthy!).
We badly need to radically rethink the basics of our society – but a start would be to rid ourselves of what many of us would agree is the worst Government in living memory.
Dr Peter Daw
Droitwich & Evesham Constituency Labour Party Member
Letter first published on the 21st March 2024 in the Cotswold Journal and Evesham Journal.