Of Mice and Brown

Well the Big Cheese of a Tim'rous Beastie is still over and the US of A and tried to defend the abolition of the 10p tax rate in a press conference last night thus:

"I am satisfied that once people understand the scale of the good things that we have been able to do in reforming the tax system, that we are tackling poverty by increasing tax credits for the poorest, then whatever questions people have about these changes can be answered."

He's ignored the fact that the level at which the abolition of the 10p rate affects people actually comes above that at which tax credits can be applied for. Some of us that is affects do not have children and therefore cannot claim that tax credit either.

At a time when we are facing longer time throwing money away on rent, because we now need to save more before we can buy. When our fuel costs increase by far higher levels than seems reasonable, I found a receipt from about a year ago for petrol and almost cried. When even our weekly food shop is taking more out of pocket.

It very much is like the ordinary people in Sherwood Forest. We are struggling to make ends meet with our non-inflationary pay increases while at the same time we are getting taxed more heavily. Of course there are those who are better off than us, who do actually benefit more from the 2p cut to 20p for the standard rate of income tax. But many of us fall into a black hole, between poverty and benefiting from any good thing from this tax reform.

Tax under Labour is less based on ability to pay that tax than at any point under the last Conservative government. The proportionate tax burden on the poorest, when Income Tax, National Insurance, Fuel Excise, VAT, Council Tax et al is taken into account in far closer to the proportion paid by the most wealthy. If only more Labour MPs were prepared to continue to stand up for the principles and the people they must have joined the party for in the first instance. If only they'd done it a year ago when as Chancellor Brown proposed it in the first place rather than now a week after it's implementation.

As it is the mischief of mice on the government benches will continue to make the fat cats wealthier they'd just better watch out for the masses are getting hungry for revenge.