Budget

What needs to be said about the budget has already been said; fantasy estimates for growth, incredible levels of borrowing, no practical plan to turn the country's finances around. The media and commentators are almost uniformly hostile and nearly everyone is staggered at the sheer lack of leadership at a time of national crisis. This brings us to the 50% tax band for those earning over £150k. This won't bring in much cash and risks damaging the sort of wealth creation that we need to bring us out of recession. None of that matters to this Labour government though, because all they wanted was to wrong-foot the Conservatives on tax, to push David Cameron into standing up for high earners and so position themselves as champions of 'ordinary' people. As a political trap it is so transparent that it would only work if the Conservative leadership were idiots and actually they aren't. Gordon Brown isn't going to get the argument he wants. That isn't going to stop some on the Right wanting the Conservatives to oblige as if this was just some sort of intellectual exercise. It started today with Simon Heffer in the Telegraph:

So what does Mr Cameron do? Does he say that the "rich" must be punished for the failings of the Labour government that he hopes to replace? Or does he say that this partisan policy, which will raise relatively little money, is unfair and counter-productive, and will not be persisted with should he come to power after April next year?

Heffer doesn't even toy with the idea that doing exactly what Gordon Brown wants might be unwise for the Conservatives. He thinks that ideological purity matters more than practicality. That might be forgiveable in a donkey-jacketed student activist, but it is pathetic and laughable for someone who wants to speak with any authority on politics.

Meanwhile our country desperately needs new leadership and that is what real Conservatives are focusing on.