Still no love for Darling

So New Labour's half-hearted apology for the scrapping of the 10p tax rate, is to be followed by a quarter-hearted compensation package. Namely, an increase in the personal tax allowance for anyone earning up to £40,835 per year (BBC News: Basic rate taxpayers to get £120). Sorry, but this isn't what we asked for, for 2 reasons.

Firstly, not all households will be properly compensated, and certainly not all workers! 1.1 million households will still lose out (as I feared in my earlier blog entry), but these "will see their loss at least halved". Well, whoopee-do! How dare this pathetic excuse for a Labour government still be so arrogant as to think anyone can afford to suffer a drop in take-home wages? After all, prices aren't exactly falling, are they ?!?

Secondly, again as I feared, this so-called 'compensation measure' is to be introduced in September. And tough luck to any low-earner (and his/her family) who hoped to have a summer holiday in August this year :-(

Last but not least, it is benefiting people earning up to £40k per year, well above the £18k level at which workers lost out when the 10p tax rate was removed. This isn't even compensation, it's yet another example of this bunch of closet Tories trying to get Middle England votes :-(

I demand, as do the Socialist Workers Party, that the 10p tax rate is reinstated immediately. Then again, I do feel it's only fair to repay the favour to New Labour for their pathetic effort ...

I hope only some of their MPs lose their seats at the next election :-P