Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard and found that the cupboard was bare. Could anyone else hear the old nursery rhyme running through their head while listening to Chancellor Alistair Darling read out his second Budget? An illustration of the bareness is the spiteful return of true Old Labour sentiment: when in doubt, tax the rich. Speaking of which, it was interesting to see the Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, use the dreaded quotation marks sign with his fingers when he used the word 'rich' in his reply to the Budget Speech (which I thought was a very good speech, much better than the usual turgid, flaccid response, if something can be turgid and flaccid at the same time).
This raises a philosophical question or two. Is someone earning £100,000 to £150,000 'rich'. The fact that they represent only around 2% of the country's population, as Chancellor Darling noted, suggests that the answer, relatively speaking, is yes. And few in the remaining 98% will waste any tears as they work out how to best avoid paying the new levies being proposed. One way of course is to work less hard, and earn less, and enjoy more spare time rather than trigger a large increase in the marginal tax rate.
I never understood this fully when I studied Applied Economic for my banking exams back in 1979-80, but eventually got the point. Maybe Chancellor Darling dropped out halfway through and never absorbed the lesson about how the propensity to work can fall quite markedly in response to the propensity to tax.
But if the politics of envy is to replace the politics of greed, at least we can all see one thing that should add a basis point or two to the nation's overall gaiety. The country's top footballers, playing in the so-called Premiership (or Football League Division One as it is still known to we hardened reactionaries) will be amongst the highest profile victims, both in their earnings and in their pension provision. I might enjoy an extra bit of schadenfreude from the knowledge that Brown, Darling, Milliband, Smith, Harman, Blears, Straw and the sundry others who make up the deep pool talent on Labour's front bench will also be hit in the pocket, but what the Chancellor takes away with his tax rises, our Right Honourable friends will surely find a way to claim back on their expenses. No receipts required, of course.
