It would have been very easy for the Lib Dem’s to have joined the attack on Labours National Insurance tax rise (which it is, its not a conservative tax cut) but they haven’t, and it doesn’t seam to have annoyed that many of the Liberal Democrat grass roots, or Labour or the conservatives which poses the question…why are we all so happy? Surely the conservatives would prefer all the political parties to be united in their criticism of Labour to back up the business leaders they have. In addition it was not long ago when David Cameron was emphasising his similarities with the Lib Dems (admittedly he seams to now be looking more at the nationalist parties for a possible coalition).
Meanwhile the grassroots of Labour have been very happy to point out the differences with the Lib Dems and to ridicule their “lack of influence/Hoping for a hung parliament/ similarities with the tories” in recent weeks and yet are very happy to have the Lib Dem’s share their criticism of the Tories plans not least because it backs up their criticism of the Tories and with the Lib Dem poster campaign it helps raise their criticism too.
The Lib De’s critique has focused around the fact that the current economic predictions on paying of the deficit have been included into Labours plans to pay of the deficit (which have been accepted to take longer than any other parties plans (with the possible exception of the greens)) and so to say that you won’t have to introduce these increases is a big claim which you would need certainty to be able to back up. There are three elements that the conservatives are proposing to pay for this with.
1) “Efficency savings”
2) Extra revenue generated by the larger amount of jobs
3) The reduction in the budget to the government from not having to pay it themselves.
Point three has however been suggested for paying for cancer drugs but I will include it anyway as it is another way that not having the NI increase will have. Point 2 and 3 are also interesting as it isn’t a tax cut it is not a tax increase so therefore the change should at best, stay at growth rate rather than slightly less than growth like an increase would lead to. (I have yet to see any reports which suggest the impact this change will actually have)
The first part are the efficiency savings, the same that the conservatives recently rubbished, the same ones that they then set aside for addressing the deficit. This is an important detail, if these are suppose to be for tackling the deficit which the conservatives have been saying is the most important factor and yet they have decided that actually they were wrong.
Add to that the fact that efficiency savings are notoriously hard to actually estimate, that this will definitely in the most part job cuts, as will the effect of not having a tax rise on extra jobs and on the amount of tax raised. The fact that it is hard to say for certain how much these measure will raise and the fact that they haven’t ruled out a VAT tax rise (nor have labour mind) suggest that they may feel that they may have to have the option of a VAT rise just in case.
So why are the Conservatives happy to have the Lib Dems disagree with them? well it helps them in the marginal constituencies to say that the Lib Dems and Labour are the same and that by voting Lib Dem you are going to help Labour stay in power. So yet again we have conservatives dismissing people exercising their democratic voice and voting for the party they want but instead voting against someone.
Posted on April 8, 2010
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