Gordon's 10 worst financial gaffes

[Clippy]

Read 'em and weep!

Prudence my @rse!

[Gonzo]

1. Taxing dividend payments

There is an argument to be made that this was a clever tax grab because it is not obvious to people how they are being effected and those effected are not core Labour voters in any case. The full impacts such as the closure of so many final salary pension schemes (although this was not the only cause of that) would take years to become obvious.

2. Selling our gold

You could argue that noone knows whether the price would go up or down over the long time so it could have turned into a good call. It is just that it didn't but the impacts were not huge.

3. Tripartite financial regulation

This is the one thing that Gordon seriously got wrong and has been a huge disaster but few people seem to realise.

4. Tax credits

I am not surprised that complicated policies are difficult to implement but you have to expect that from socialists who want to micro-manage everything.

5. The £10,000 corporation tax threshold

There is an argument that this clever move brought large numbers of cash in hand businesses out of the black economy.

6. Abolition of the 10p tax rate

Guilty of a bad policy move there. You have to expect one or two of those during a parliament.

7. Failing to spot the housing bubble

Gordon Brown said he ended boom and bust, and in those innocent days before the collapse of the global finance system we believed him.

All Chancellors say that after a long spell of good luck. They are always wrong.

8. 50 per cent tax rate

We might not like it but I doubt that this will end up counting as a "gaffe".

9. Cutting VAT

Too early to tell. We have to wait and see the effect on inflation work through yet. That said it was too small a gesture to have any great effect on the consumption driven UK economy - what were they thinking?

10. Public-sector borrowing

Whatever happened to the "Golden Rule"?

All in all, I think that is a pretty piss-poor article.

[NickFitz]

Ah, so the Murdoch press are still anti-Labour then? The fact that, less than six months ago, the same journalist would have been writing an article praising Brown's policies makes me wonder how much faith to place in this

(Only kidding - I've known all my life not to place any faith in anything printed in a Murdoch rag, whether I want to believe it or not.)

[d000hg]

8. 50 per cent tax rate

We might not like it but I doubt that this will end up counting as a "gaffe".

Agreed. People here talk about how it will lead to a 'brain drain', but then praise Tory policies to raise tax as a necessity to fix Labour's cock-up. Make up your minds. Or maybe you only want to raise tax for the poor people (Labour voters) who don't have much to tax in the first place. Like it or hate it, the rich (and most here ARE rich comparatively) are the ones who have the money to spare on fixing the nation's economy, regardless of whose fault it is.

[xoggoth]

Time to stop thinking in terms of rich and poor and start differentiating between the deserving and undeserving. Why are Western socialists so lax in requiring everyone to make an effort commensurate with their ability as Marx required?

Maybe it isn't somebody's "fault" that they lack drive and discipline, we are all the products of our upbringing but in such cases the state should impose on them the discipline they lack. Did they have able bodied people on long term benefits in the USSSR? Hand out benefits to dishonest foreigners who have made no contribution to the UK? I don't think so. In China they place an enormous emphasis on acheivement.

PS I don't think there are enough idle rich for their taxes to solve our problems. "Rich" in Labour terms means the moderately well off who have worked for a living.

PPS A major reason why we still have this ludicrous class struggle in the UK is that we never had the catharsis of a bloody revolution. Where is our Franco?

[BrilloPad]

Agreed. People here talk about how it will lead to a 'brain drain', but then praise Tory policies to raise tax as a necessity to fix Labour's cock-up. Make up your minds. Or maybe you only want to raise tax for the poor people (Labour voters) who don't have much to tax in the first place. Like it or hate it, the rich (and most here ARE rich comparatively) are the ones who have the money to spare on fixing the nation's economy, regardless of whose fault it is.

If JP MOrgan decides to relocate its new London offices somewhere else then the 50% might be seen as the worst gaff of all.

The 50% tax will be on people who could be located anywhere. They are the sort of people who need to be encouraged to come here.

Did you know the top 1% of earners contribute 24% of the tax income?

[norrahe]

It doesn't matter who gets in, in the next election, for all the promises Cameron has been making, he might as well forget them as the country is fiscally hamstrung for the next 20 years.

[norrahe]

Ah, so the Murdoch press are still anti-Labour then? The fact that, less than six months ago, the same journalist would have been writing an article praising Brown's policies makes me wonder how much faith to place in this

(Only kidding - I've known all my life not to place any faith in anything printed in a Murdoch rag, whether I want to believe it or not.)

They're currently fence sitting, hard on labour but not exactly praiseworthy of the tories

[OwlHoot]

.. Why are Western socialists so lax in requiring everyone to make an effort commensurate with their ability as Marx required? ...

Although I agree Western governments are too indulgent with handouts and useless make-work employment and so on, there isn't nearly enough worthwhile work to go round any more, and in years to come it'll get much much worse as far more tasks are automated.

In a way western societies are already venturing into a post-employment age, and it's countries like China who are still in Industrial Revolution mode.

Today a large poor population is a boon for cheap labour and military might; but in forty years or sooner the boot will be on the other foot ...

(We just have to ensure the Chinks don't leapfrog us and become the first to develop practical robots)

[d000hg]

Time to stop thinking in terms of rich and poor and start differentiating between the deserving and undeserving. Why are Western socialists so lax in requiring everyone to make an effort commensurate with their ability as Marx required?

Because we're not Marxists?