Tax and tactics

It comes as little surprise that early opinion polls suggest an overwhelming majority support the government's plans to impose a new higher tax band on those earning over £150,000.  Our Party Leadership has correctly identified that this blatantly political gauntlet has been thrown down purely to embarrass us  - after all it stands to raise negligible additional income.  Accordingly we are entirely justified in declining to play to this discredited government's tune. The most urgent priority of any incoming Conservative government will be to stabilise the public finances.
 
As I have frequently observed there is an increasing sense of insecurity amongst an ever larger proportion of the UK workforce that the spoils of globalisation are being spread inequitably. This will grow especially amongst middle-class professionals outside the once gilded corridors of financial and associated services.  However, the predictable truth of this imposition is that the super-rich will pay not a penny more of tax at all.  They are either non-domiciled or in the privileged position of being able to characterise much of their income as capital gains (subject to an unchanged 18% tax rate).  Additional revenue will come only from modestly successful entrepreneurs (who will have even less incentive or collateral to expand their enterprises) and salaried workers unable to avoid this increase and frequently earning sums not wildly in excess of the threshold, whose instincts to do the right thing on savings and pensions will be blunted as their disposable income falls.
    
Conservatives understand the critical importance to our national economic health of promoting small, start-up business. Competitive tax rates are essential to encourage entrepreneurs especially as we make our way out of this deepest of recessions.  Conservatives appreciate that raising tax now even on the wealthiest in our communities risks prolonging the UK's economic downturn.
 
A decade or so ago the decision of the then Labour opposition to "stick to Tory tax and spending plans" was an explicit recognition that our economic strategy was right for this nation.  This is in stark contrast to the situation today. Even in these turbulent times the public should not be taken for fools. No-one out there believes that the Labour government's recklessness with the public finances is worthy of emulation.