Bribing the middle classes Labour style.
After such a tumultuous, ignominious week for Labour, you would have thought that they would have retreated, taken stock, figured where they'd gone so hideously wrong, and moved on from there. No such luck. For some reason, Andy Burnham decided to give an interview to the Torygraph over how he believes that there's a "moral case" for the tax system to "recognise commitment and marriage".If these were, as the Treasury has been furiously spinning, either Burnham's own views or related to comments about inheritance tax, the former would be fair enough while the latter would deserve to be vigorously challenged. As it is, especially considering the week we've just been through, there's only one prism through which this will be viewed: yet another attempt by Labour to shift onto the Conservative's traditional ground.
It's even more questionable when you consider two highly pertinent facts. Firstly, that Brown in one of his few memorable and entirely correct passages of his speech to conference, denounced the Tories' proposed £20 a week bribe to married couples:
"I say to the children of two-parent families, one-parent families, foster parent families; to the widow bringing up children: I stand for a Britain that supports as first-class citizens not just some children and some families but supports all children and all families."
Secondly, the time when such recognition of marriage would be wholeheartedly welcomed has long since passed. Just after the Tories first made their plans known, the audience on Question Time was almost unanimous in both picking holes in and making clear the inherent unfairness in such a scheme. Around the only people who did celebrate it were the moralist, right-wing newspapers: the Mail, Torygraph and Sun all saluting the discriminatory scheme, it has to be said not just on the grounds that it encouraged the establishment and "stability" of the family unit, but also because of the pound signs in their eyes: £20 a week simply for being already married! £1000 a year! When you consider that a married couple, simply for having tied the knot will be getting more back a month than the average person on income support will get in a week on which they have to live on, it only emphasises what an iniquitous and dubious use of taxpayers' money this would be.
Even after all of this, Brown and his acolytes seem blind to the dangers of trying to appease someone who holds the equivalent of all the cards. The Daily Mail, regardless of Dacre's friendship with Brown will never be brought onside, no matter how many of the Conservatives' clothes Labour decides to wear. To go to the Mail itself with this latest shamelessness would have been too brazen and obvious. Instead, Burnham chose the next best place to drop the latest sign that under Brown Labour will be just as opportunistic and shape-shifting as the party was under the helm of Blair. Then again, why should we expect anything else? Today's interview with Cameron in the Grauniad shows that he doesn't care about Labour's cross-dressing, as he knows full well that it only makes him and his party look all the stronger. Labour is only hurting itself, and the Tories are understandably overjoyed.
Labels: Andy Burnham, Gordon Brown, Labour, marriage, tax
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