My verdict on the Tory tax plans...

Not good enough. Not good enough by far. A wasted opportunity.


Essentially, small businesses have the potential to earn a £2,500 tax credit (on employers' national insurance contributions) if they take on new employees who have been unemployed (claiming benefits) for three months. There are safeguards to prevent making people redundant and then re-hiring them.

Most small businesses will need to speak to their accountant to understand the scheme which will add to the administrative cost. This is exactly the same as all those other complicated tax credits that Brown has engineered over the past ten years.

Even assuming that businesses have the resources to take on people during a recession, which I doubt, surely it is just going to subsidise businesses that were growing anyway. Thus I very much doubt that the £2.5bn is going to be achieved.

I'm afraid I concur with Nick Clegg's conclusion that it is "Timid".

Yes - people are concerned about their jobs, but I think that most will just see this as a tax cut for business. And let's not forget - this only affects those who are not in jobs in the first place.

The Council tax freeze for two years is similarly timid.


I'm afraid that I appear to be in a minority of right-leaning bloggers. Iain Dale has described it as a 'home run' for the Tories.


There's little doubt that Brown is going to produce a substantial package of tax cuts over the next couple of weeks. Whether this is responsible or not is irrelevant politically. As a voter what would you prefer - jam today (i.e. tax cuts now and higher tax later) or jam tomorrow (responsible tax policy now and lower tax later)... The time value of money suggests that most voters would go for money now rather than money later.

The Conservatives will be politically outmaneuvered by Brown's announcement, putting them in the position of then opposing his tax cuts to those 'hard-working families'...