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Labour ministers are trying to work out how to mislead the public again (Image: Getty)
Labour ministers appear to be in a major linguistic panic. Just weeks after they finally worked out what a woman is, they have mysteriously forgotten how to define a "working person".
It’s like a phraseological version of the one-in, one-out policy Keir Starmer failed to negotiate with Emmanuel Macron. Senior ministers have been out on the airwaves over the last few days and appear to fall apart when asked how exactly they’re going to break their manifesto pledges on tax.
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Rachel Reeves assured us in the run-up to the General Election that working people would not pay any more tax – specifically income tax, VAT and National Insurance. She broke that pledge immediately when hiking employers’ National Insurance. While very technically not levied on working people, it is already hurting ordinary Brits in the form of fewer jobs and lower pay. Now we have the farce of seeing ministers trying to navigate this language minefield by coming up with new, inventive phrases that will allow them to break their manifesto pledge yet again while claiming they have not.
READ MORE: Tax raid looms for middle classes suggests Labour Cabinet Minister
Heidi Alexander left the door open for a raid on the middle classes (Image: Getty)
On Sunday, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander came up with the phrase “people on modest incomes”, but this appears to have been dropped after Labour was accused of trying to clobber the middle classes with higher taxes.
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On Monday, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones refused to clarify what counts as a “modest income”, deferring once again to the “working people” soundbite.
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He then defined “working people” as “anyone who gets a payslip”, which is about 99% of the working-age public, from those on minimum wage to multi-millionaires.
It’s also notable that he used the phrase “headline rate” of income tax, VAT or National Insurance, leaving the door wide open to a long-desired Treasury policy of resetting Britain’s confusing levels of VAT, which vary from product to product with wide-scale discrepancies and illogical rates.
Many readers will remember how this policy went down with the public when George Osborne tried reforming the system in 2012, sparking weeks of headlines about the "pasty tax", "charity tax", "caravan tax" and "churches tax".
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Darren Jones couldn't define 'modest incomes' this morning (Image: Getty)
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The move led to the Budget being famously branded as an “omnishambles” and forced a major U-turn weeks later.
One would think that even this Labour Government wouldn’t be so dense as to try a repeat of this miserable episode – though having watched their every move for the past year, I wouldn’t be so sure.
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Most insultingly of all, last week the i newspaper reported that Rachel Reeves wants to introduce new stealth taxes on the wealthy. It wouldn’t be called a wealth tax in public, but ministers could sell it as such in all but name to their hard-Left backbenchers.
All of this comes as a result of lies to the public about what Labour wanted to do in government, lies from all politicians about what Britain can actually afford, and a lack of plans from Labour – despite 14 years of opposition – about how to reform this country’s myriad crises.
Labour should spend more time thinking about how to deal with these problems and less time with focus groups coming up with language they can use to deny the truth about our record-high taxes.
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