Ken Clarke hints at Tory tax rises | Politics | guardian.co.uk .
Taxes could rise if the Conservatives win this year's election, the shadow business secretary, Ken Clarke, admitted today.
The former chancellor said tax increases maybe necessary to get Britain out of recession, and he hinted at a possible rise in VAT to 20% under the Tories.
VAT is one of the more regressive taxes we have - charging a higher proportion on poorer people than the best off.
So that's the Tories' preferred option for a tax increase.
How entirely predictable.
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Surely exactly the same could be said of Labour. After all, according to the Times today;
“In his press conference, Mr Darling also said he was unable to promise that Labour would not raise VAT to 20 per cent so soon after it returned to 17.5 per cent at the start of the year — something Mr Brown and Ed Balls have repeatedly suggested the Tories might do.
He also revealed that the National Insurance rise and changes to pension contributions for top-rate earners will not — as the Prime Minister suggested yesterday — pay for reducing the deficit and will instead go to ringfencing frontline health, education and policing services. ”
So it seems both parties have the position that VAT may have to rise to 20%. And the leaders of both parties presumably, in this Orwellian state we live in, deny what their business secretary/chancellor say.
And you wonder why people despair of politicians?
@mad foetus
No, I don’t
It’s why I haven’t joined their ranks