This was an astonishing Budget for all sorts of reasons – mostly connected to the proposed levels of debt. But I was most struck by the political symmetry of Darling’s decision to raise the top rate of tax to 50 per cent for those earning more than £150,000 pa.
In his 1998 book The Unfinished Revolution – a book that was combed for lessons by the Cameroons in their early days at the helm – Philip Gould wrote the following:
“I have never had any doubt: increasing the top rate put us at political risk. Blair was always instinctively against raising the top rate, Brown more inclined to keep the option open. In meetings they would discuss it as a matter of principle: did increasing the top rate reveal your instincts as a tax-raising party, or did it not? Blair thought it did, Brown though it did not.
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