The politics of envy
Alice Thomson has written today one of the most self-pitying articles I have ever read in a newspaper, "How Labour abuses the middle classes".It beings by telling us that:
If you are living on benefits, smoke, drink, have out-of-control children and like shoplifting on the side, then the Government can help. It will provide you with a personal trainer, a supernanny to sort out your domestic problems, extensive family tax credits and will turn a blind eye to anything small you might like to nick from a shop. You don't have to worry about taxes and the police are too frightened to stop you keeping a gun on the side without a licence
There is nothing factually correct in this piece, which really is quite impressive for something that makes 30 claims. How many people on benefits have a 'supernanny' and a personal trainer? Or people who drink? Does she mean people who fit all of those categories, in which she must mean about one person, or is it an 'or'? Last time I looked I was quite fond of drinking, and haven't been offered a personal trainer. Indeed the middle classes are hardly strangers to drink as a group. And I thought the Telegraph was on smoker's side? But what's the point or arguing with something that is utter fantasy.
After this she then has a go at the rich, which others can discuss, and then she turns into a standard middle-class rant about taxation, with hardly any evidence to back it up. Obviously by 'middle class' she means the small proportion of us who pay higher rate tax, though she supplies no figures about how much more tax is paid, how much more income is earned, to what extent pension contributions offset that etc. These don't exist presumably becuase they would not show what she wants. She probably still believes that taxes have risen from 35p to 50p in the pound, which the Telegraph last year in an article, a leader and other columns, claimed had happened since Labour were elected.. When one looked at the figures, they assumed every middle class person moved house once a year. Which is obviously a fantasy. This meant almost all of the increase was stamp duty!. When this kind of thing has to be invented, you know the underlying case is weak. She also apparently wants to soak the rich, though she doesn't give details, strangely.
With a straight face she says:
"Those in the middle are struggling with inheritance tax (six million are now liable)"
Struggling? How? It doesn't make sense. How can you struggle with inheritance tax? It's paid to other people when you are dead. In any case, it ignores the reason why inheritance tax is now biting, which a simple example shows. The argument must be as follows. Before 1997 people were thinking 'when grandma dies I'm going to get £200,000 from her house, and not pay inheritance tax'. Now they must be thinking 'when grandma dies I'm going to get £400,000 from her house, and will have to pay about £50,000 inheritance tax, so I'll ONLY GET £350,000. Bloody Socialists'.
It is dishonest to complain about the widening of inheritance tax, without acknowledging it is because of the huge gains in house prices, which have made the middle classes very rich, and which are not unrelated to government economic policies. There is no way someone inheriting can be worse off from inheritance tax now than in 1997.
Finally let's consider her own economic situation. She is an editor of the Daily Telegraph. Her husband is chief political writer on the Daily Mail. Both publications are known to pay very well. Their joint income is going to be in the hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. That is super rich.
posted by Matthew @ 3/08/2006 05:38:00 PM
Comments: 0
