VAT rise

The big news story so far this week has (for obvious chronological reasons) been the VAT increase to 20%, which came into effect yesterday. Labour and their innumerable mouthpieces have been decrying this, even though we all know that it became necessary to help generate the revenue needed to keep the country going.

After all, was it not their own Liam Byrne, former Chief Sec to the Treasury, who left a note telling his successor that "there's no money left" after Labour's "scorched earth" deliberate attempt to bankrupt our nation?

It is also to be noted that current Labour leader "Red Ed" Miliband pushed for a VAT increase not once but twice during his time within the Labour cabinet, yet today he is among those now suddenly claiming it is a bad idea. Well, sunshine, it was your party's doing, and you were happy with it before!

Hypocrisy is always writ large upon the real faces of Labour people, even if it's hidden from normal view by spin, selective memory and attempted re-writes of history.

The two good things about the VAT rise are that it spreads the tax take additional needs widely, and thus thinly - something costing £2.35 on Monday will cost just five pence more (£2.40) today - and that essentials such as food and children's clothing aren't charged any VAT anyway, helping the truly poor (i.e. as distinct from the many plasma-TV owning layabouts Labour 'bought' through welfare profligacy) as their main costs will be unaffected.

Just think of the alternatives to bring in the same level of revenue and one can see how this is probably just about the best (or least bad) approach that could have been taken by a competent government without vested interests it is trying to pander to, as was generally the case with Labour and is clearly what they would be doing if they had still been running our country.

We have thirteen years' experience of their approach to public spending and taxation, so none of us should be taken in by anything Labour bods and their supporters are claiming now.