Dear David Cameron,
I doubt I’m as fed up as you are about grassroots Conservatives calling for tax cuts every week. Yet again I find some very sensible comments from you being warped into some kind of internal party struggle about future tax cuts, even though you are absolutely right.
I’m quite surprised that any Conservative anywhere in the country thinks that this country is going to be able to afford tax cuts after the next election. I am in complete agreement with you that the financial situation we will be in for 2009/2010 looks disastrous. We have no budget surplus to play with, the government is borrowing more and more just to stay afloat, the economy is slowing down - all of these factors (and many more) are crippling our national finances so I don’t understand how anyone can expect tax cuts as soon as the Conservatives walk into Number 10. I, like everyone else, would love to see some extra money in my pocket but cutting tax receipts for the government is hardly likely to improve the situation for the government and this country in the short-term.
The Conservatives will need all the money they can find to get this country back on its feet after the next election. Stability will be crucial and I believe that UK voters would much rather see you and the Conservative Party concentrate on crime, immigration, the NHS and other major policy debates instead of jumping on the tax-cut bandwagon. I strongly suggest that you ignore the grassroot calls.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
13 responses so far ↓
Mike Baldwin // March 17, 2008 at 9:11 am
Not even corporation tax?
Letters From A Tory // March 17, 2008 at 10:25 am
Corporation tax in this country is already lower than the rest of the G8 and corporation tax receipts were down £900 million over the past year.
Tax cuts for families and business are a good thing but not now - it would be financial suicide to promise anything major this side of the election.
asquith // March 17, 2008 at 10:41 am
That is my exact point. The Tory “grassroots” are holding a gun to Cameron’s head. He’d be dancing to the tune of ConHome and others if he ever won an election. That’s why I couldn’t support him.
Letters From A Tory // March 17, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Surely his comments over the last few weeks have shown that he won’t be dancing to anyone’s tune on tax cuts?!?!
Candid // March 17, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I agree. Tax cuts would be excellent.
But by using a simple accounting sum:
In the red - income = further into the red
(generally translated as ‘a disaster’!) we can see that tax cuts would not work until the economy is a little more…. - well, a little less negative!
Alix // March 17, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Don’t usually come trolling, but I’m getting a little fed up with all this tedious moralising from armchair Tory economists. If you dub a policy “sensible” you can make it as nasty and unfair as you like, apparently.
You CAN offer tax cuts to the lowest earners and maintain the same overall tax take provided you are prepared to make up the slack from elsewhere, e.g. capital gains, inheritance tax, green taxes, higher rate relief on pensions etc. The Lib Dems are the only party to have a costed policy to do this (actually the Lib Dems are the only party to have a costed tax policy of any sort, but that’s for another day
).
And those tax increases will hit the wealthy - of course Cameron isn’t going to hurt his core vote like that. Fine, each to his own, but I could wish that in that case he’d stop all the insincere bleating about hardworking families. They could offer a tax cut to low earners tomorrow if they really gave a toss - but they don’t.
I rather feel for Tory grassroots activists wondering what the hell is happening to the leadership’s priorities when the votes are there for the taking.
Letters From A Tory // March 17, 2008 at 6:35 pm
From someone has dubs me and other bloggers “armchair Tory economists” you have made some alarmingly weak points.
Of course you can make tax cuts if you increase taxes elsewhere, but what exactly does that achieve? Green taxes are a con and people are beginning to see through them plus they can hit poor people very hard, the Conservatives are going to raise the inheritance tax threshold (which was fully costed, by the way), and higher rate relief on a completely bankrupt pension system is a shocking suggestion.
To then describe Cameron’s latest policy emphasis as “insincere bleating about hardworking families” is an extremely insulting remark about a man who has made it perfectly clear for months, if not years, that he is determined to help families if he becomes Prime Minister. I can only assume that you know him personally in order to make such a personal attack on him.
And to suggest that the Conservatives should be concerned about their leadership is pretty damn rich coming from a Lib Dem, whose leader has already lost control of his party within a couple of months.
asquith // March 17, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I take a more positive view than Alix of what Cameron is trying to achieve. I agree with him (and you) on the pressing need for stability and the achievement of a balanced budget. A sustainable lowering of taxes can be achieved in time, but only if people are weaned off the state. There’s no future in listening to the zealots who want tax cuts at all costs.
Alix // March 17, 2008 at 7:35 pm
“Of course you can make tax cuts if you increase taxes elsewhere, but what exactly does that achieve?”
Er, lower taxes for families on low incomes who are finding it hard to cope? That’s who your leader keeps on claiming to have such incredible quantities of sympathy for, after all.
“Conservatives are going to raise the inheritance tax threshold”
I can but laugh at your description of my points as “weak” because you’ve totally and utterly misunderstood this. The IHT threshold should be DEcreased, not INcreased, or at the very least held steady, and the money saved should cost an income tax cut at the lower end of the scale. IHT hits the wealthy. It’s a complete and utter Daily Mail-propagated fallacy that the bulk of the population needs to be getting its collective knickers in a twist about inheritance tax.
Incidentally, that isn’t part of Lib Dem policy, unhappily in my opinion, but the changes to capital gains and to tax relief on higher rate pensions (er, shocking why?) are. On green taxes, I do partly take your point, however. The aim of any green tax ought to be to influence behaviour and make itself obsolete, not raise revenue.
“To then describe Cameron’s latest policy emphasis as “insincere bleating about hardworking families” is an extremely insulting remark about a man who has made it perfectly clear for months, if not years, that he is determined to help families if he becomes Prime Minister. I can only assume that you know him personally in order to make such a personal attack on him.”
Oh please, that is precious in the extreme! As insults go, “insincere bleating” is about as mild as you can get. I’m sure he can take it. There’s absolutely no reason why I or anyone else should bow and scrape to Cameron and if he’s a proper liberal he would agree with me. It simply isn’t good enough for me that he keeps “promising to help” hardworking families - you seem to be implying that he deserves points just for making the right noises, rather than actually coming up with a constructive suggestion.
Letters From A Tory // March 17, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Ha, it really is funny to read someone from a supposedly liberal party being completely illiberal with their policies.
Yes, let’s all tax the rich and give to the poor - how wonderfully liberal that is. If the Lib Dems had any spine or identity they would set policies based on liberal traditions such as lowering tax and freeing people from state interference - which you clearly object to. If the Lib Dems had any spine or identity your liberal policies would include taxing EVERYONE less instead of chasing after those who have more money.
And if you think that Cameron hasn’t come up with any constructive suggestions on the family, maybe you weren’t paying attention to his policies on tax credits, changing tax allowances, increasing maternity and paternity leave and allowing parents to be flexible with leave arrangements, more home visitors….
Alix // March 17, 2008 at 11:32 pm
But an income tax cut at the lower end *does* benefit everyone, however rich they are, whether they have earnings, savings or dividends. It simply benefits lower earners more proportionately because they’re not as far up the taxation bands to begin with.
This is emphatically not about shifting tax from poor to rich. It’s about shifting the burden from income (everybody’s income) to wealth, so that you are proportionately well rewarded for doing more work, and less well rewarded for simply sitting on capital which does nothing but accumulate without either (a) benefiting anyone or (b) being put to economic use. This is a fundamentally liberal principle with a long history, and is designed to keep economic activity turning over as fast as possible with the end result that living standards are driven up more quickly. But in the immediate term, a Tory perception would be that wealth taxes hit the rich, so they won’t countenance it. And thus an efficient economic mechanism of the kind you guys are supposed to revere is lost.
As for reducing the overall tax take, Nick Clegg was hinting at it at conference. I think we agree essentially that tax should be reduced if it can be. The difference is that under a liberal economic system it CAN be, whereas under a conservative economic system which protects vested interests, it can’t. Another reason why the Tories can’t reduce it – you’re not really convinced anti-statists, are you. You’d still want to run schools and hospitals from the centre, micro-managing the literacy teaching and so on. Not all of you – I’ve seen some good people on ConHome recognising the mistake – but the bulk of the membership and probably (insofar as they are accountable and responsive to them) the leadership as well. So you’d almost certainly spend more than a liberal democrat government would think necessary.
The rest: raising the personal allowance, we’ve got that one too (is the Tory version only on families?), ditto maternity/paternity flexibility, Nick was talking about that back in December. Tax credits though. Come on! They’re a Labour disaster, after several revamps, reviews, reprimands etc etc they still don’t work. Ditch ‘em and cut income tax instead.
Candid // March 18, 2008 at 12:10 am
I may be missing the point but we already have a slightly ridiculous Robin Hood style tax system in this country. The higher earners are paying a higher percentage, so the amount they pay is not even proportional to the lower incomes. The percentage system already allows lower earners to pay less.
What I don’t understand about taxation is how people in London and other giant cities pay exactly the same tax as people in rural communities and yet the rural folk are facing post office closures, hospital closures and school closures - so where exactly are their taxes going?
If A. Tory is correct this money is going to John Lewis’ to pay for MPs second home coffee makers. Something about this system doesn’t make sense and these are the issues the Conservatives should be trying to address.
Alix // March 18, 2008 at 9:53 am
“The higher earners are paying a higher percentage…”
Not on their whole income - the same bands apply to everyone - but on the top of their income, yes. That’s just, er, progressive taxation. Which I rather thought was a pretty unimpeachable principle of civilised governance. Silly me. Just shows you how useful these little chats are.
The answer to the London/rural problem is some form of local taxation system. I’m not much of a fan of the Lib Dem Local Income Tax to be honest, but I do think the principle of devolving taxation to communities is sound - that way central government can’t redistribute it to shore up one community at the expense of another.
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