It’s reached the point where you need a high-powered
microscope to detect the differences between the major political parties. If
there are any, they are at sub-atomic level as the much-heralded speech on the
economy by Ed Miliband demonstrates.
The economy is in crisis, in its deepest recession since the
1930s. People have stopped spending because they don’t have the money. Retail
sales fell last month and not just because of the bad weather.
Most ordinary people are either repaying debts or simply
don’t have the income. If you have a job, your wages are falling in real terms;
if you’re unemployed your benefits are miserly and also declining.
ConDem austerity policies have made a bad thing worse. But
then they are also caught up in the crisis not just of the British economy but
of the global capitalist system. Yesterday Germany
and France
reported deep contractions in their economies, for example.
Corporations are ripping off the taxpayer while the
privatised utilities, rail networks and supermarkets are banging up prices like
there is no tomorrow. Meanwhile, the supermarkets have never bothered to check
whether beef is actually horsemeat.
People are angry, fed up and increasingly desperate for a
solution.
Enter the Labour leader Miliband. Did he promise a cut in
train fares, control of soaring private rents or a return of gas and
electricity to public ownership? Did he hell! All he came up with was the
return of a 10p tax rate for the low paid scrapped by the previous Labour
government and a so-called “mansion tax”.
The Tories are thinking of introducing the tax rate and the
Liberal Democrats are in favour of the mansion tax. So forgive me for declaring
Miliband’s speech to be a prime example of the politics of small differences.
As The Independent noted:
What was striking was the overlap with either existing Coalition plans or proposals from one or other of its members. Even the repeated references to “working people” sounded suspiciously similar to the Tory pre-occupation with “strivers”.
It’s not as if the sums even add up. A 10p tax rate for low
earners would cost the Treasury about £7 billion. The best estimates for the
revenue for a tax on high value homes is £2 billion, according to experts at
the Institute for Fiscal
Studies (IFS), which noted:
"To have observed lower starting rates of tax being
introduced and abolished by governments of both complexions over the last three
decades and then to propose the same thing again suggests a remarkable failure
to learn from history." The same aims, the IFS added, could be achieved by
increasing personal tax allowances.
On the mansion tax proposals, the IFS described the idea as
a bandage over the regressive council tax system which under-taxes valuable
properties. "Rather than adding a mansion tax on top of an unreformed and
deficient council tax, it would be better to reform council tax itself to make
it proportional to current property values," the think tank said.
Perhaps Labour will abandon the mansion tax proposal – which is widely viewed as a bid to cosy up to
the Liberal Democrats in case the next election is a stalemate – when it
realises that several of its MPs will be in the firing line.
David Miliband’s home is in the £2 million-plus bracket
which Labour intends to use as a benchmark. So is deputy leader Harriet
Harman’s home in Herne Hill, south London, which she bought with a cheap
mortgage provided by her husband’s union (she also has another home in
Suffolk).
And then there is the wealthy Labour MP for Feltham and
Heston, Seema Malhotra who won a by-election in the
relatively poor West London constituency. The
market value of her home in fashionable Chelsea
is reputedly over £3 million.
Finally, there is Ed himself. He lives in a house, in the
name of his wife, which is valued at up to £2.3 million – a rise of £700,000 in
the three years since it was purchased. Yes, they are all in it together. One
big ConDemLab nation.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
