Wednesday 2 April 2014

A curious belief

Plenty of others have already drawn attention to the twisting and turning of Labour politicians as they attempt to explain how they all hold the same view on devolution of tax, particularly income tax.  It isn’t pretty, and they’re deluding themselves if they think that their unity is in any sense credible.
The reason given by the Shadow Secretary of State for supporting the so-called lockstep struck me as a curious one.  He said:
“We agree with the Government that the principle of progressivity ought to be retained, which is why we agree, broadly speaking, with the notion of the lockstep, tying together those bands.”
I suspect that a Labour politician’s public agreement that Tory policy on income tax supports progressivity will come as a surprise to many, not least within his own party.  Perhaps my memory about the disagreement over whether the highest rate of tax should be 40p, 45p, or 50p is just an illusion.
But the basis of his argument seems to go further than that.  It is implicit in supporting the lockstep on that basis that he believes that the wicked evil Tories in London (which is a rough translation of the usual Labour description of them) are more likely to maintain progressivity in income tax than any conceivable government which might come to power in Wales.
It’s a very curious thing to believe.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another curious thing is the way Owen Smith emphasised how a referendum would only be triggered IF Wales secured fair funding i.e. Barnett reform. We'll they would be in power by definition and therefore able to reform it! You couldn't make it up.

glynbeddau said...

So three groups in Welsh Labour now,

One supporting Tax powers with the lockstep

One supporting Tax powers without

And one opposing Tax powers entirely.

They could have put it to a conference vote. But of course Parties don't do this anymore.