Sharpe's Opinion

The Return of the Green Eyed Monster

Tim Montgomery:

It was one one of the few real accomplishments of New Labour that they appeared to understand that heavy taxation of the wealth was counterproductive, leading to a brain drain of talent and a killing of incentives.’ That belief died today.

This is one of the most counter-intuitive areas of politics, and on top of that it flies in the face of the normal British mentality. In most countries, successful people are met with admiration, and looked up to as role models. In this country, anyone driving an expensive car needs to be ‘taught a lesson’. Sad, really.

The 45% tax on high earners will be quite a popular policy, despite being utterly useless. There’s plenty of time to get that message across before a general election, though.