Insulting the electorate's intelligence... take 3

The Labour manifesto came out today, and as in '97 and '01, it features the pledge not to raise the basic or higher rates of income tax. This is a bit like someone promising not to burgle your house via the front door - does it make you feel any safer? Only if you live in a bunker. There are a very large number of ways to raise tax without doing anything to income tax. Gordon Brown has used several already - employee NICs, employer NICs, self-employed NICs, ending the dividend tax credit on pensions, etc. Not that (IMHO) there's anything wrong with raising tax per se - my beef is that it's a complete insult to the electorate to make a 'pledge' on one aspect of the tax system whilst ignoring the rest of the system. Why should anybody care?

Labour - and indeed the Tories - have made great play of the idea that tax won't need to go up if either of them wins the election. This is almost certainly wrong - it is likely that about £11 billion per year of tax rises will be required by the end of the next Parliament to maintain the public finances in a reasonable state. That's about 3p on income tax, but of course it won't happen like that... and both parties are hoping you're too stupid to notice. Or of course, that you like tax rises.