Why I fear the Tories lifting 4m workers out of tax has only helped Corbyn (and my Corbynista sons)

ONE of the Tories’ proudest and most oft-repeated boasts is that they’ve lifted an extra four million low-paid workers out of income tax since they formed the Coalition with the Liberal Democrats in 2010. And, yes, this is a remarkable achievement.

Along with Iain Duncan Smith’s benefit reforms, which were similarly designed to make work pay, they go a long way towards explaining the astonishing growth in employment in Britain over the past seven years, with the jobless rate now at its lowest since 1975.

Indeed, the party had every right to assume that its success in swelling the numbers who pay no income tax at all would be a sure-fire vote-winner in last month’s election. But the more I think about it, the more I believe this triumph may paradoxically have played into Jeremy Corbyn’s hand and done the Tories significant harm.

Consider. Human nature being what it is, there is surely no experience more likely to turn Left- wingers into Conservatives than glancing at the deductions section of their monthly payslips — only to see they’ve spent much of the past four weeks working entirely to support the Government and 5.4 million state-sector workers.

Preposterous

But if you happen to be one of the 23 million working-age adults who pay no income tax — that’s a hefty 43.8 per cent, or an even higher proportion of the electorate when pensioners are taken into account — then where is the incentive to vote for a party that promises to cut income tax? After all, you can’t pay less than zero.

No wonder millions, particularly among the low- paid young, asked so few questions about where the money was supposed to come from to pay for Mr Corbyn’s frankly preposterous spending plans.

For many, the temptation was clearly to think: ‘ That’s a problem for taxpayers, not for me.’ Except, of course, the country’s still-spiralling debt, fast approaching £2 trillion, is a massive problem for everyone in this country — this year, next year and for generations to come.

The truth is that if we go on borrowing like this, it will be only a matter of time before the UK’s credit runs out. And when it does, we’ll all suffer — the rich, yes, but especially young jobseekers, the old, the sick, the vulnerable and employees of both the public and private sectors, who will inevitably be thrown out of work when the money flees abroad.

Income tax payers are reminded of the nation’s desperate plight with the arrival of every pay packet raided by the state (and none more so than the top one per cent of earners, who now pay 27.5 pc of the total collected).

As for the 23 million low-paid workers who escape from income tax altogether, including the four million liberated by George Osborne, it’s true that they pay for the state’s profligacy by other means, in dribs and drabs — through alcohol, tobacco and fuel duties, National Insurance, VAT and the rest.

But without that regular payslip jolt from the taxman, taking ever-more cash from ever-fewer income tax payers, is it any wonder if they don’t have quite the same sense of our shared interest in bringing state spending down?

For this reason, I have reservations about William Hague’s latest wizard wheeze for luring young voters into the Tory fold after the overwhelming majority of them voted Labour last month (including, I shudder to admit, at least two of my four sons — and quite possibly more).

Certainly, I agree with the former party leader when he says the Conservatives should do all they can to encourage house building by the private sector, and so bring prices within reach of the increasing numbers unable to get on the ladder.

But as he writes in his newspaper column this week: ‘That will take years to show benefits, if it is done at all, and the divide between the generations goes deeper than that.’

Resentment

I’m with him, too, when he rejects the idea of abolishing tuition fees — partly for the excellent reason that this would do nothing for the 50-odd per cent who don’t go to university.

But where I take issue with Lord Hague is over his suggestion that we should reduce the rate of income tax, in every band, for everyone under the age of 30.

Yes, I can see this might go a little way towards cooling the burning sense of resentment felt by so many of my sons’ generation against their elders.

And I’ve nothing at all against low taxes in principle. I’m all for them, in fact.

But leave aside that his plan would offer nothing to the many under-30s who pay no income tax. Would it really be wise to complicate the system further, when what we should surely be aiming for is simpler, lower taxes for everyone?

Now, I know that the most zealous of my Corbynista sons will tell me that Tories — and particularly those earning healthy incomes like mine — are selfish to advocate tax cuts. But this brings me to one of the great conundrums of our time. Imagine a comfortably-off private sector worker who’d like to boost his disposable income by paying less tax to the Treasury. Now imagine a public sector worker, on a similar salary, who wants to boost his by taking more from the Treasury in the form of a pay rise.

Why, to the Corbynite mind, is the private businessman who wants to keep more of his own earnings, seen as selfish Tory scum, yet the public employee who wants to take more of other people’s earnings is regarded as virtuous, wronged and entitled?

Indeed, it was noticeable in the televised election debates that everyone in the audience who wanted to take more from the state was given a hugely sympathetic hearing by politicians of all parties.

Shamed

That went not only for benefits claimants and public sector workers, but for owners of expensive houses, who argued that the Government should pick up the bills for their social care.

In my youth, people tended to keep quiet about depending on benefits — no matter how deserving many undoubtedly were. These days, few claimants seem shy about demanding more, while it is those who pay most into the system who are shamed into silence.

The idea appears to have taken root that there is something disreputable about earning a good living, and that wealth deserves to be punished.

I reckon bankers are partly to blame, with their mammoth salaries and bonuses out of all proportion to the effort or brainpower they put into their work.

It doesn’t take much of a genius, after all, to accept free money from the Bank of England and pass it on to borrowers at usurious interest rates.

But whoever is guilty, it can only be deeply unhealthy for the economy to have a generation growing up believing that paying for public services is not their problem, but the sole responsibility of ‘the rich’.

The fact is there just aren’t enough of the rich to pay £2 trillion — and the more we tax them, the fewer there will be.

Surely the Conservatives taking so many millions of people out of income tax can only strengthen Mr Corbyn’s hand by reinforcing the impression that public debt is a problem for just a minority, not all of us.

Indeed, it’s no wonder the Labour leader wants to reduce the voting age to 16. Schoolchildren don’t pay tax either.

Wouldn’t the Tories’ message on fiscal prudence get through more effectively if every voter had to pay at least a little?

As it is, my terrible fear is that the only cure for Corbynism may be a spell under a Corbyn government. And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone — not even my Corbynista sons.