Balls and Miliband fail the credibility test

Eds Miliband and Balls gathered the press corps together this morning to broadcast a straightforward message: oh yes, we do have an alternative. And the shape of that alternative? A repeat of the one-off tax on bankers’ bonuses that, Balls claimed, raised £3.5 billion last year. The money would be used for an entire buffet of economic delights, from the creation of new houses to the funding of job schemes for the young. The upshot, apparently, would be 110,000 new jobs. Nice work, as they say — if you can get it.

Most popular

Katja Hoyer

How the Magdeburg Christmas market attack will change Germany

But there are a couple of problems with all that, the first of which Labour has pre-empted. It is that last year’s bonus tax may not have raised as much as £3.5 billion, after all. After knock-on effects to bonus payouts, and the amount by which they are taxed, it is estimated that the Exchequer actually made around