Ed Miliband’s pledge to freeze energy process for twenty months, should Labour win the General Election, will be immensely popular with hard pressed consumers. His commitment, backed up by some effective and feisty performances from Labour’s Energy Spokesperson, Caroline Flint, has interestingly not been seriously countered by David Cameron or anyone from the Government’s front benches. This is most likely because Ministers know that this is a popular message, and that when Ed Miliband says that he is ‘on the side of the British people’, they, the public, know it. Even a former Conservative energy adviser, Tom Burke, has leapt into print in The Spectator to say that Labour’s plans to fix the ‘broken energy market deserve cross party support’. Continue reading
Tagged with Price Control
Ed’s speech and the elephant in the audience
Ed Miliband’s speech today is absolutely right to place the emphasis on living standards. The economy is central both to Britain’s recovery and Labour’s political strategy, and it is in their living standards that our people are feeling the impact of the failures of neoliberalism and austerity. The restoration of the 10p tax rate and imposition of a mansion tax represent a commitment to tax fairness and redistrubution which we need. The fact that it pays for a tax cut the Lib Dems oppose with a tax the Tories oppose is smart tactics. So far so good. Continue reading
Share:
A tax on the drinking classes
I am not a champagne socialist. But that is solely because I do not actually like the stuff. Otherwise, I fully endorse the maxim of the late Christopher Hitchens that cheap booze is a false economy. Give me Glenmorangie, or give me death.
It is a pretty fair bet that David Cameron thinks along the same lines as the Hitch. The assumption has to be that £4.15 Tesco’s red has not been the vino da tavola of choice among the Chipping Norton set this festive season. There is a reason why fancy schmancy wine from Bordeaux is called Cru Bourgeois and not Cru Prolétarienne. Continue reading
