Johnson’s tax raid on workers should be a gift to Labour | Owen Jones

If Keir Starmer fails to put forward a credible alternative, Labour risks letting a scandal-ridden government off the hook

The national insurance hike to fund social care should have been a major political victory for Labour, personally gift wrapped by Boris Johnson. The policy amounts to a raid on the living standards of workers, whose wages have already been squeezed, to ensure “the children of Surrey homeowners can receive bigger inheritances”, as an unnamed cabinet minister eloquently put it. The new tax won’t even plug the gaps caused by years of cuts: while one 2019 House of Lords study found that social care needed £8bn immediate investment, the new pot of money amounts to just £1.8bn a year.

Labour could have presented a clear alternative, such as taxing capital gains at the same rate as income, which has broad political support and would raise £90bn over five years. It could have pledged to abandon the fragmented, largely privatised model of social care, where much of the care on offer is inadequate and seven in 10 social care workers are paid less than £10 an hour. Taxing the wealthy to build a publicly run care service that provides dignity and security for disabled and elderly people alike could have been a ready-made Labour pitch.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3lbLgh5