Lord Adonis, the former transport secretary, has said that business leaders are only critical of the Labour Party because they do not want to pay high taxes. The peer said that Mr Miliband’s proposals for a mansion tax and the 50p top rate of tax is “clouding the judgement” of business leaders criticising Labour. Lord Adonis said that business leaders are supportive of the party’s long-term industrial strategy, which would see greater investment in apprenticeships and infrastructure, and back his pledge to keep Britain in Europe. But he suggested chief executives are acting out of naked self-interest in the face of higher tax bills.
Source: The Daily Telegraph
To a chap with the least smattering of a background in Greek mythology, the name Lord Adonis always conjures up images that set an impossibly high standard. It must be a burden to milord to know that a first meeting with anyone is bound to be tinged with disappointment.
Be that as it may, Milord does us an injustice. By no means all those who object in principle to a mansion tax are the fortunate inhabitants of £2m homes who would be exposed to paying the tax: they just think that such a tax is wrong in principle. Nor do you need to be earning £150,000 a year to know that a 50% tax rate is a Bad Thing not only for those who are required to pay it but for the economy as a whole. If proof were needed, one has only to look back to the effect of the very high tax rates of the 1970s and the liberating effect of their abolition under the first Thatcher government. As Hegel said – “we learn from history that we do not learn from history”.
