Stop playing politics with public trust
THIS has been a truly dismal week for public trust in politics and politicians. It began badly, with another attempt by the unelected Lords – spearheaded by that preening popinjay Michael Heseltine – to thwart the people’s will over Brexit. Then came the Budget, in which Chancellor Philip Hammond cheerfully tore up one Tory election pledge after another, laughing and joking as he heaped punishment on the strivers, savers and self-reliant risk-takers who make up the backbone of Britain – the very people his party had vowed to champion.
It was less than two years ago that the Conservatives went to the polls on a promise, spelled out four times in their manifesto: ‘We will not raise VAT, National Insurance contributions or Income Tax.’
In that now discredited, apparently worthless document, there was no suggestion the pledge referred only to Class 1 NICs (how many voters even knew there were four classes?)
Yet this was the devious excuse offered after the Chancellor increased the rate for Class 4, costing 2.4million selfemployed workers some £240 a year each – almost eight times the 60p-a-week ‘average’ he so disingenuously cited.
Not content with this betrayal of his party’s core supporters, he slashed the tax-free allowance on dividends from £5,000 to £2,000. Thus, he hammered family- owned businesses, freelance workers and every saver with stock market investments of more than £50,000.
Meanwhile, tax rises and changes to compensation payments are likely to add £75 a year to car insurance premiums.
But still Mr Hammond hadn’t finished. Having joked he would not exhume Labour’s death tax, he is now pushing through… a huge increase in death tax!
Disguised as a rise in probate fees (straightforwardness seems not to be the Chancellor’s style), the change means families will be forced to hand over £1.5billion on top of inheritance tax.
Indeed, fees for the legal authority to distribute a loved one’s property will soar in May from the current £215 to between £300 and £20,000, depending on the value of the estate – with officials bullying grieving families into handing over cash before they receive a penny from a will. Mr Hammond’s taxes are not just unConservative. By discouraging saving, investing, taking out insurance and looking after families, they actively undermine the very behaviour governments should encourage.
And now it emerges the Chancellor has another £700million trick up his sleeve. Complex changes in already baffling tax rules mean some shops and newsagents will see their VAT more than quadruple, while self- employed service-providers will also be hard hit. So bang goes another pledge that helped sweep the Tories to power in 2015. Indeed, all parties seem to see manifestos merely as vote-winning exercises, to be forgotten once an election is won.
David Cameron is right about one thing. It is indeed ‘stupidity’ to break manifesto pledges. But then look who’s talking! He was the PM who shredded almost every core promise he made in 2010, from cutting migration to below 100,000 to scrapping the Human Rights Act.
Meanwhile, his shameless sidekick George Osborne is becoming a veritable Tony Blair, stuffing his boots with banknotes on the strength of contacts and experience gained in public office.
He even tried to bury news of his oneday- a- week, £ 650,000 job for a US investment company by sneaking it out on Budget day. No wonder politicians are held in growing contempt.
One of Theresa May’s great strengths is that she is seen as trustworthy and straight. To preserve that reputation, she must bring her party into line – and remind her MPs who elected them.