Honesty is an attractive though rare quality in a politician, and Alistair
Darling’s self-awareness and morose delivery always grabs attention. Last night, the former chancellor told a conference of bankers that the 50 percent levy on bonuses over £25,000 was
a failure. The FT reports him saying:
Darling’s is a curious definition of failure. The tax may have been avoided by professionals whose business is to exploit loop-holes and market conditions, but £2bn is levied annually. That is a success by any definition of tax. What Darling means is that the levy has not moderated behaviour.‘I think it will be a one-off thing because, frankly, the very people you are after here are very good at getting out of these things and . . . will find all sorts of imaginative ways of avoiding it in the future… what I wanted to do was send a message to them that we all live in the same world together.’
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