I have already referred to my book The Joy of Tax once this morning. Let me do so again. In it I described tax as the single most powerful mechanism available to a government to influence behaviour and shape the society it wants in what might be called ‘normal times'. In that context let me note the IFS analysis of Boris Johnson's tax plans. As the FT notes:
Boris Johnson's tax cut proposals would cost the exchequer as much as £20bn a year while mainly benefiting richer households, according to calculations by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The think-tank warned that the Tory leadership front-runner's “expensive pledges” to cut taxes for high earners and lift the national insurance contributions threshold were incompatible with the government's promise to end austerity.
What does that say about Boris Johnson? Everything, I would suggest. This is a man who makes the creation of class division and increasing inequality the priority for all he does. Indeed, he ignores the supposed economic priorities of his party in pursuit if this aim.
Is there anything else to add?
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Only two things to add. You can’t put much weight on anything he says: like Trump, he believes in “creative ambiguity”, which means telling different people that he either will and won’t do something. Or lying, as we call it. (Not only that, but in the spirit of speaking his mind, he arrogates the right to be as misinformed, racist, sexist, or just plain offensive as he likes, and think he gets away with it by apologising later if any offence is taken.)
Second, anything he says now has only one real motivation, which is to appeal to the electorate – meaning, in this case, the peculiar slice of our country (about 1 person in 500, generally older, richer, weighted to the south and southeast) who are members of the Conservative party.
Agreed
The only comfort I can take is that what Boris Johnson says he will do is so often a very poor predictor of what will actually happen!
What does anyone expect? As a product of privilege, as were Cameron and Osborne before him and as they did, he seeks only to underline and reinforce that privilege. Without it, we’d never have heard of him, or them, so they all three naturally act to preserve it.
His actions go in concert with this https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/25/britains-top-jobs-still-in-hands-of-private-school-elite-study-finds and let’s not forget that making education expensive removes it and the consequences of it, like job eligibility, from those who can’t afford it, no matter how able. This is obviously detrimental to society as a whole. Who do we blame but ourselves though, as If we endlessly promote the privileged over the able, what else can we expect but chaos?
‘Is there anything else to add?’
Where do you want me to begin?
🙂
If I was a politician in power, I would want to legislate straight off to remove the charitable status for these places. Whilst it could logically be argued all that would do is make them even more exclusive (and would certainly end the tokenism they presently offer to a tiny minority who can’t afford the fees), I don’t see why the rest of us should be expected to subsidise privilege through the tax system.