Cameron: Tories may need to raise taxes
There's been a really interesting development in UK politics recently with David Cameron, the Tory leader, saying that an incoming Conservative government might have to raise taxes.
This is a substantial change from the way the Tories normally approach elections. In the last three elections the public have faced a choice. Better public services - hospitals, schools etc - or pay less tax under the Tories.
After eighteen years of Tory rule which almost brought the national health service to it's knees, the public have on three occasions now made it very clear that they do not want tax cuts.
Cameron appears to have heard them, though I'm not sure he's fully understanding the reasons for why we keep rejecting tax cuts.
Cameron is right to back away from the Tory instinct to bribe the electorate into voting for them, but he's making a fatal error if he thinks he can end any attempt to redistribute wealth without facing an electoral backlash.David Cameron has warned that an incoming Tory government might be forced to raise taxes because the economy will be in a dire state after the next election.
The Conservative leader also hinted that he might scale back Gordon Brown's flagship tax credits scheme. He warned that Labour's efforts to combat poverty by redistributing money from rich to poor had reached "the end of the road".
Maybe I'm misreading his intentions, but he would do well to remember that Britain is a much more humane country than it was the last time the Tories were in power. Indeed, it is that very wish to live in a fairer society which has done much to keep the Tories out of power.
Perhaps Cameron has another plan to help the poorer members of society which he has yet to articulate, but telling us that wealth redistribution has reached "the end of the road" is not a good place to start.
There's a by election coming up in Glasgow East and one of the figures which has been highlighted is the fact that life expectancy there is lower than in the Gaza Strip. There are many of us who find that fact utterly shocking.
And, in a country which has the fifth largest economy in the world, there are many of us who see statistics like this as shameful.
So, while I welcome Cameron's back track from the Tory norm of promising tax cuts, he better have some idea of how to help the poorer elements of society if he is ever to convince us that the "nasty party" which ruled Britain throughout the eighties has been transformed.
We all remember Thatcher's claim that "there is no such thing as society". We disagreed. And, I think most of us would disagree with Cameron's claim that the days of wealth redistribution are over. I don't want to live in a country where some of our citizens have a lower life expectancy than in Iraq or the Gaza Strip, and I'm willing to pay more tax to stop that. I think many Brits would feel the same.
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