Rachel Reeves rules out wealth tax if Labour wins next election
Rachel Reeves rules out wealth tax if Labour wins next election
Shadow chancellor also confirms Starmer leadership pledge to increase 45p top rate is off the table
At this point, I think we are more likely to get things that haven't been promised than those that have.
But this is no surprise. Keir Starmer screams conservatism. A far better choice than current Tories but still leaves much, much to be desired.
Though I'd still strongly encourage people to go out and vote. Not doing so plays right into the hands of the wrong people.
@lasagna @thehatfox A conservative government, socialist-flavour or otherwise, would be a vast improvement over the combination of radicalism, destruction, and theft of the recent governments, which whatever they might badge themselves have not been notably conservative.
Until Johnson there were some actually conservative Conservative MPs, in post, but if there are any on the back benches still, they are keeping their heads well down.
I have almost no doubt that even current Labour would be a vast improvement.
A government that puts immigrants into boats or tries to ship them to Africa? This is insane. Even if you completely avert your eyes to this humanitarian menace, it makes zero fiscal sense. Current Tories are evil, by the very definition.
Literally no point voting for the Tory seat-warmers. Even if you concede that they can't be worse, rewarding this behaviour just dooms us to, at best, treading water while the Tories pull themselves together and then pick up where they left off.
Been there, done that, it got us where we are today. Fuck that, fuck Labour.
What would you recommend?
I'm assuming you mean for voting, the least important thing you can do, politically.
It doesn't matter much. Protest vote (if there's a good protest vote available to you), spoil your ballot (if there's something you want to say because it will be read by bored candidates), or stay at home (so that you don't add to turnout). In the vanishingly unlikely event that your local Labour candidate is an actual leftist, vote for them.
For more meaningful action, whatever works for you. Protest, direct action, letter-writing. In the vanishingly unlikely event that your local Labour candidate is an actual leftist, campaign for them (and turn out to support them when the leadership inevitably comes for them).
Just don't pretend that voting for the least worst option will give you better options in future. It will not.
@JoBo @thehatfox This is not sensible.
could you imagine if they taxed the wealthy?? They might have to give up one of their super yachts! Won't somebody please think of the wealthy!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Reeves also confirmed that Keir Starmer’s leadership pledge to increase the 45p top rate of income tax was – as was widely thought to be the case – now off the table, after he indicated in June that he was no longer keen on the idea.
Her remarks underline how Labour has decided that it needs to go further in blunting Conservative attacks, with party figures fearful that any hints of tax rises or unfunded spending commitments would be used to suggest it would be profligate with the nation’s finances.
There are also plans to go on the attack over Rishi Sunak’s stewardship of the economy, as internal polling suggests Tory-to-Labour switchers are irritated by his optimism on inflation when they do not feel that their own finances are improving.
Reeves’ words, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, also mark a shift away from her comments in September 2021 that “people who get their income through wealth should have to pay more”, highlighting those with stocks and shares and buy-to-let properties.
Labour has stepped up its focus on wooing the corporate sector, with the annual business forum hosted at the party’s conference this autumn over-subscribed by 75%, with 200 delegates due to attend, compared with 130 last year, and 150 on the waiting list.
As recently as the party’s conference last September, Starmer had said it was “hugely divisive” of ministers to hand out a tax cut to people who were paid more than £150,000, as he pledged to reverse the scrapping of the additional rate on the highest earners.
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