Labour’s General Election plan is already coming unstuck

What does it mean to be rich? That’s the question already getting the Labour party into a tangle as it struggles to get its act together ahead of the snap general election. Yesterday, John McDonnell said a Labour government would send a higher tax bill the way of all workers earning over £70,000. The shadow chancellor said simply that those earning more than that amount were ‘rich’ and should ‘pay their way more’. A straightforward policy, you might think. But today, it seems, there is already confusion in the ranks. Emily Thornberry on the Today programme aimed her fire at the ‘elite’ – doing her best to define this group as those who ‘take the mickey’ and ‘don’t think the rules apply to them’, rather than talking about earnings. She said that those who should be worried about a Labour government were:

‘People who feel it is appropriate to keep their wealth off shore.