UK NEWS

TORIES SCOFF AS MINISTER VOWS ‘NO MORE TAX RISES’

Liam Byrne ruled out tax rises

Friday March 12,2010

By Macer Hall

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(15)

SENIOR Treasury Minister Liam Byrne sparked disbelief last night by ruling out any further tax rises by Labour to repay the Government’s massive deficit.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury suggested in a live television interview that Labour will not increase any taxes if it wins the next election.

He claimed planned rises in National Insurance and income tax were enough to halve the £180billion annual borrowing run up by the Government over the next Parliament.

The Tories dismissed his remark as a gaffe.

It contradicted dozens of leading economists who have warned that the dire deficit crisis will mean taxes will have to rise whoever wins the election.

And even Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling have both refused to rule out tax rises. Mr Byrne’s comment came in an interview on the BBC show The Daily Politics yesterday.

He was asked by host Andrew Neil: “Are you telling us that you can get to a 50 per cent reduction in the deficit with the tax increases we already know about?” Mr Byrne replied: “Yep” before going on to insist the Government didn’t need “any more” tax rises.

Dismissing speculation of a VAT rise to 20 per cent, he added: “We don’t see a need to do that because we’ve made some difficult decisions about National Insurance contributions.”

A Tory spokesman said: “What the country needs is a credible Budget that tackles spending, not a gaffe-prone Chief Secretary not in command of the detail.”

Last night Mr Darling failed to back up the claims in another BBC interview.

And giving a less optimistic view of future taxation trends, he ruled out any “giveaways” in his Budget on March 24.
He said: “I don’t think anyone’s expecting some sort of Christmas-tree-of-a-Budget. They’re not going to get anything like that.” He added: “What you’re going to get is a sensible Budget, a Budget for the times in which we live, a Budget for the future of the country.”

Mr Byrne also confirmed that decisions on where spending cuts will be directed will be put off until after the election.
“By October/November, budgets will be set for the three years ahead,” he said. He added that on top of tax rises, the remainder of the deficit would be cut through growth, which he said would generate £25billion.

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• Posted by: budd • Report Comment

TORIES SCOFF AS MINISTER VOWS ‘NO MORE TAX RISES’

13.03.10, 8:28am

Just like the rest of Nu Labour's lies, but they give themselves away every single time when their lips move!

Maybe they should learn ventriloquism before the election then they may be able to fool the deaf at least if there are no subtitles.

• Posted by: lucan07 • Report Comment

TORIES SCOFF AS MINISTER VOWS ‘NO MORE TAX RISES’

12.03.10, 11:29pm

That Liam Byrne has as much truth as when Labour said 'we will have a vote on the EU constitution'. I really don't see how anyone can believe a word that the Labour lot say.

• Posted by: Mike_JC • Report Comment

LATEST NEWS BULLITIN....!

12.03.10, 9:58pm

On another note and this may not be public knowledge until now where I truly have a lot of admiration for David Cameron and his fight but unfortunately he has gone on a journey to dismiss all other ethnic minorities from his party during the recruitement process of PPC's and has developed an internal strategy to bring in as many muslims as possible to try and gain the muslim vote.....be it all in good faith but unfortunately he and his shadow cabinet are causing anomosity amongst their own voters from particularly ethnic minority groups which are non-muslim! I personally feel that this outrageous strategy will definitely come to haunt the Conservative Party!

• Posted by: RealIstic09 • Report Comment

AND HAGUE LIES, TOO

12.03.10, 7:18pm

I have just had a letter from William Hague.

he is wanting to dispell Tory concern about Europe.

He writes "A new Conservative government with protect briatin's interests in Europe and SALVAGE AS MUCH AS WE CAN from the mess that laboutr has made".

He goes on "These guarantess are essential and deliverable. Essential because we have identified areas of the lisbon treaty that cause teh deepest concern - - -deliveable because WE HAVE CHOSEN AREAS where the RETURN OF POWERS FROM THE EU to BRITAIN PROTECTS OUR DISTINCTIVE NATIONAL INTEREST without harming the interest of our European partners".

This is nonesense.

1) We are a soveriegn nation - we don't need to ASK teh EU if we can have power back - we damn well take it and tell them we've done it.

2) The EU will not gracefully return powers to this country is we ask nicely; These promises are not "deliverable" becasue the EU won't let the UK government deliver them !

This letter is an attempt by the Conservative party to decieve it's core voters - who believe that teh Conservatives will not listen to their concerns about the EU - into believing that the Tories have heard their concerns and will address them - that is "vote conservative not UKIP / BNP".

It is nothing but a cynical ploy along the lines of "we guarantee you a referendum on the Lisbon treaty / EU membership if you vote for us" - they won't and they can't.

Europe, immigration and teh economy are major concerns and majot issues in this election - and until we leave the EU we cannot control immigration and teh EU will tell us what we can and can't do on the economy, too (witness Greece).

the conservative party - for whom I would dearly like to vote - is showing it's true colours at last - deceit on Europe and immigration, deceit on the measures thay'll have to impose to sort out the economy.

We distrust the labour party - but the Tories have just demonstrated in spades that we cannot trust them either.