Letters From A Tory

I’m assuming that most people have seen right through the tax changes made by Darling yesterday and accept that the whole exercise was merely a last-ditch attempt to avoid defeat in Crewe next week, but just in case you still need convincing I suggest you read THIS and THIS.

If you thought Alistair Darling was talking a load of bull yesterday, maybe THIS will put it in perspective.

“I attach considerable importance to making sure that we help people on lower incomes. …I want them to be able to keep as much money as they can.”

- Alistair Darling, during his interview with Andrew Marr yesterday

DARLING IS AN INCOMPETENT IDIOT - EXHIBIT A

Tuesday 9th October 2007: Darling promises a single flat rate capital gains tax of 18% .

Thursday 24th January 2008: Darling changes his mind and introduces a 10% rate on gains of up to £1m (£200 million less for the Treasury) but still insists a flat rate would be a fair system.

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 DARLING IS AN INCOMPETENT IDIOT - EXHIBIT B 

Tuesday 9th October 2007: Darling promises to tax non-doms £30,000 a year and demands that HMRC gets details of their foreign earnings and they must also pay tax on income and capital gains from offshore trusts 

Wednesday 13th February 2008: Darling changes his mind again and proposals to tax the foreign earnings of non-domiciled workers are dropped along with demands that they disclose income from offshore trusts.

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I think the facts speak for themselves, don’t they?

Dear Alistair Darling,

With bets already being furiously placed on your departure before the end of 2008, it is little surprise that this year has got off to a bad start.  Although the beginning of the Northern Rock crisis was probably not your fault to a large extent, the resulting mess has certainly been your responsibility.

As nationalisation for Northern Rock looms, thanks to the Government missing the boat on several much better alternatives in the immediate aftermath of the crisis (including doing nothing at all in response to the banks demise, which was my preferred option), your reputation is hanging by a thread.  Well, I say ‘reputation’ - you have only been Gordon Brown’s puppet thus far and I see little chance of this changing.  Regardless of whether the Northern Rock debacle was your fault, your spectacular failure to confront the media and instead rely on a few carefully crafted Commons statements has painted a very weak picture of you in the mind of the electorate.  Your preferred option at present seems to be setting up nationalisation by stealth rather than face up to scrutiny; no surprise there.

In a bizarre parallel to the Iraq war, the Northern Rock problems should never have occured in the first place.  But after digging a hole for this country on both occasions, it was Labour’s duty to get us out of the respective holes in the best way possible.  On both occasions, Labour have failed.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

Dear readers,

Three more Facebook groups to join, if you so wish:

‘Sack the incompetent Chancellor - Darling’

‘Who’s got my kids identity?’

‘Child Benefit Data Stolen’

Take your pick!

A.Tory

Dear readers,

After my prophetic post yesterday, I’m not going to revisit the disaster that is Alistair Darling - especially as Iain Dale did such a great running commentary of how events unfolded yesterday.  Instead, may I suggest you hop onto Facebook and join one of these groups - the last two being my particular favourites (click on the image to enlarge it):

I suspect these groups might get a little bigger as the day goes on.  Feel free to leave suggestions for names of new Facebook groups in the Comments section….

A.Tory

Dear Alistair Darling,

You really have dug an enormous hole for yourself, haven’t you.  The original decision to intervene in the Northern Rock crisis was still the wrong call in my view as banks must be allowed to fail, but instead you tried to fool the public into thinking that you were protecting the taxpayer.  What a load of rubbish.

I don’t know how you have the nerve to stand in the House of Commons and start backtracking on your pledge to make sure the taxpayer does not spend a penny.  Every announcement makes me more nervous.  None of the bids for Northern Rock appear suitable, their share price keeps dropping, and you keep pretending that everything is ok.  To make matters worse, I sometimes get the feeling that your priorities are somewhat clouded by the Labour Party’s prior relationship with Northern Rock.

Miliband is already showing his inexperience and incompetence as Foreign Secretary, and your performance as Chancellor has been similarly embarrassing.  Sort it out, Darling.

A.Tory

Dear Alistair Darling,

You poor man.  Your political ego must be feeling pretty bruised today after your spectacular back-tracking on capital gains tax.

I hope this serves as a valuable lesson to you.  For a government that claims to be so interested in listening to the public, the fact that your original proposals for reforming capital gains tax were met with such anger and disbelief in the business community shows how fake your promises are.  Anyone with a shred of business acumen would know that your proposals would have damaged small and large organisations across the whole country, which begs the question of how you came up with it in the first place?  Maybe the books aren’t quite balancing at the moment, thanks to Uncle Gordon’s complete inability to run our public finances correctly, so you thought you could sneak through some tax increases without anyone noticing?  Nice try.

With a certain degree of smugness,

A.Tory

Dear Alistair Darling,

So nice to hear that you’ve realised you are Chancellor of the Exchequer and have actually spoken about something financial this morning.  I was beginning to wonder if no-one had told you about your appointment.  Unluckily for you, the job you have inherited from Gordon Brown has led you into the lion’s den.

The reports this morning about the enormous consumer slowdown, falling house prices and your pathetic calls for banks to be more responsible are all pointing in the same direction - downwards.  Our economy is resting on top of a very steep hill, and with one small push could be sent into recession and there is nothing you can do about it.  The interest rate rises were reasonable enough and were probably needed, but the irresponsible bank lending that Gordon Brown has used to support the economy for so long by allowing consumers to borrow borrow borrow is surely about to end.  When it does end and the British public suddenly decide to be more cautious, the economy will be sent into a downward spiral that will take house prices and consumer spending down with it.

It really frustrates me that people think Gordon Brown was an effective Chancellor, when he increased government spending so much that this country is now £5oo billion in the red and he was more than happy to allow consumers to borrow even when they had already accumulated substantial debts to make sure that the economy kept growing.  Unfortunately I think it will be you who picks up the tab for this terrible mismanagement.  Worse still for the Labour Party, the prospect of an Autumn or Spring election will evaporate overnight if the economy snaps.

I’m looking forward to watch you try and squirm your way out of this one, Darling.

With genuine sympathy (not),

A.Tory