Nothing got delegates more excited during George Osborne’s speech than when the chancellor pledged £3bn more cuts in benefits. They whooped with delight as he promised that the poorest 10 million households would face two years’ further real-terms losses of income. They thundered their approval when he told them you don’t “set the poor free by giving them money”. The Victorian passion for punishing the poor was never far below the surface in the hall. But David Cameron revealed that squeezing their living standards had another purpose - to pay for raising the 40% tax threshold on the top 15% of earners – or “middle England”, as the media quaintly likes to call them. Add to that his plan to raise tax allowances at a cost of well over £7bn – which benefits the highest earners four times more than the poorest – and cut taxes for wealthy pensioners, and it turns out clearing the deficit isn’t quite as important as we’d been led to believe. theguardian/commentisfree/2014/oct/02/tory-tax-cuts-war-iraq-cameron-thatcher-blair
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 08:17:17 +0000
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