James Forsyth James Forsyth

New Year, same old Brown

Gordon Brown was on Andrew Marr this morning. Brown didn’t make much news but I thought there were three aspects of the interview that tell us much about how Brown intends to campaign. First, take his response to Marr pressing him about how Labour would cut the deficit:

“No, we’re raising your taxes to do it. You will have to pay more in the top rate of tax to do it. The pension tax reliefs that were very generous in the past have had to be removed. We’re raising national insurance by 1% to protect our public services so that we can still spend more on health and more on education and more on policing.

ANDREW MARR: (over) And even given … I’m sorry …

GORDON BROWN: And we are taking the difficult decisions that the Conservatives refuse to take, to halve the deficit over the next four years.”

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