‘Starmer’s attacks on Sunak too personal’
LABOUR LEADER PERSISTS WITH TAX STATUS OF PRIME MINISTER‘S WIFE
ON THE subject of non doms, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is beginning to sound like a stuck record.
Does he keep raising the issue because he thinks it is really important in the grand scheme of things, or is he trying to get at prime minister Rishi Sunak through his wife Akshata Murty?
In Prime Minister’s Questions on November 23, for example, Starmer alleged that “because of the changes the prime minister has made, a typical household will end up paying tax increases of £1,400. Contrast that with a super wealthy non-dom living here, but holding their income overseas. How much more has he asked them to pay?”
The rules on non-doms, who do not pay tax on their overseas assets unless the money is brought into the UK, have been around since 1799 when they were introduced by King George III.
Rishi pointed out that “Labour had 13 years to address this issue and did nothing. It was a Conservative government who took action and tightened the rules. The problem with the right honourable and learned gentleman’s idea is that it would end up ‘costing Britain money’ not my words, but the words of a former Labour shadow chancellor.”
Starmer again attacked Akshata without mentioning her name: “The answer is that the prime minister has not asked non-doms to pay a penny more. He talks about the money. Every year that is £3.6 billion thrown away, because he will not make them pay their taxes here. How many extra doctors could Britain afford with that money?”
The Labour leader appears obsessed with Akshata’s tax status for he returned twice more to the subject: “Scrapping the non-dom status would allow us to train 15,000 doctors every year – that is what Labour would do. We can carry on handing out tax breaks to the superrich, or we can live in a society where people do not have to go private to get a doctor’s appointment. It is that simple.”
And he repeated: “He will not follow Labour’s plan to scrap non-dom status – instead, we have an NHS staffing crisis.”
People may agree or disagree with Rishi, but he is trying to fix a £50bn hole in the economy. On the question that really matters, Starmer has so far not convinced the electorate that he would be any better at getting Britain through the current economic crisis.
Rishi’s priority is to bring down inflation, while Starmer wasted much of the last PMQs on non-doms.
Even allowing for the cut and thrust of politics, Starmer’s decision to make his attacks on Rishi so personal is very disappointing.