Feeble Labour folds in the face of anti-tax paranoia

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Polly Toynbee has an article with the above title in today's Guardian.

She rebuts the claim that George Osborne made last week that it is the Tories who will take forward the fairness agenda:

[I]f "aspirations" for fairness are not backed by hard cash then no amount of good intentions will prevent the disaster that saw child poverty rise from one in seven in 1979 to one in three under the Tories last time. Trying to turn back that tide has been very heavy lifting indeed for Labour. Osborne's Unfair Britain document, published last week, lists glaring social injustices but offers no useful remedies. If Britain is broken, who broke it - and who has tried hardest to fix it?

And she chastises Labour for its failure to respond:

But Labour responds bloodlessly with press releases complaining that Tory "sums don't add up", hopelessly missing the point.

As she adds:

The government is forever on the back foot, apologetic about the tax "burden". A Labour government should be the strong voice of the ordinary citizen, reminding people why cheating and avoidance by the undertaxed rich is despicable and why all those people who, like the late Leona Helmsley, think it's OK for their cleaners to pay more tax than they do, are a disgrace.

Her conclusion?

Where are the voices to make that case? It's time for a fair tax campaign to fight off this dangerous anti-tax assault.

Undoubtedly true. This blog is part of that campaign. That campaign will grow.


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