Labour has promised that, come what may, they will not be increasing taxes on ‘working people’. Well, jolly good. Those of us who work for a living will tend to welcome such a promise. So will hedge fund managers, who go to work every day, and the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and the lawyers and accountants who manage vast offshore tax efficiency schemes. Working people all.
‘Working people’ is a cant phrase, which – as Bridget Phillipson was forced to admit when she struggled to say if small business owners counted – means nothing concrete at all. It has the advantage, as all such cant phrases do, of denoting an automatic good: it’s something nobody can possibly be against. Work, as we know, collocates with all sorts of good phrases such as ‘dignity’, ‘sweat of brow’, ‘honest toil’. Nobody claims to be proud of not working, or dignified by idleness, or to deserve a reward for their indolence.
Capitalism, one way or another, is the only game currently in town
That sort of vibes–based rhetoric isn’t particular to Labour, of course.
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