RE: BBC Question Time23 Nov 2024 11:20
Governing is hard and rarely has that been more comprehensively proven than during the opening months of this new Labour Government.
For Starmer his difficulties actually started well before the general election, with his decision to rule out any raises to income tax, national insurance, or VAT. This fateful decision, which was designed to avoid a “tax bombshell” campaign being run by Labour’s political and media opponents, inevitably stored up even bigger problems for his Government post-election..
Stripped of these simple revenue raisers, Labour’s new Chancellor Rachel Reeves was instead forced to root around for alternative, and in some cases far more politically tricky alternatives.
Most controversially of all, they included scrapping winter fuel payments for pensioners and slapping inheritance tax on large farming estates. In particular, this so-called ‘farmers tax’ quickly caused an avalanche of bad publicity for Starmer’s Government, for the simple reason that some of those most likely to be affected are those who also have big established media platforms from which to make their dissatisfaction clear. Whether it’s multimillionaire TV presenter and Sun columnist Jeremy Clarkson, or major landowner and Daily Mail proprietor Viscount Rothermere, there has been no shortage of big names willing to use their position to plead for special treatment from the taxman.
However, as our Chief Reporter Josiah Mortimer explained this week, that prominence has also enabled the spread of some seriously dodgy claims and statistics about the proposed changes, none of which stand up to much scrutiny.
https://mailchi.mp/bylinetimes.com/behind-the-headlines-with-josiah-mortimer-1zgaoeis8b-16079650?e=c27bb24ce7
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