Where the burden of Brown falls most heavily

 In the Telegraph, John Kampfner makes the case that Gordon Brown is as ‘uncritically’ adoring of the super rich as Tony Blair ever was. He argues that this attitude stems from Brown’s fear of being seen as anti-business, his acceptance that the wealthiest just won’t pay their fair share of tax and his conversion to ‘trickle-down’ theory.

The most interesting part of Kampfner’s piece, though, is his contention that this approach combined with Brown’s desire to redistribute wealth has left to the tax burden being raised ever higher on the middle classes.  Certainly, one of the hall marks of Brown’s tenure as Chancellor was how fiscal drag saw more and more people being pushed into the top tax band. For the Tories, who are now once more behind Labour on the economic question, coming up with an agenda to appeal to these people should be their top domestic priority.