Monday, December 08, 2008

The Monday morning blog: does this MP live in a parallel universe?

Labour MP for Blaydon, David Anderson, has an occasional column in the Journal, our regional morning newspaper. I am, as you know, often eager to experience the wit and wisdom of political opponents, so I read his article with interest on Saturday.

I was particularly intersted to read his claim that once the National Insurance increases are introduced, "no one earning less than £40,000 a year will lose out. To put this into perspective, only 10% of the workforce earns above £40,000 and half earn less than £23,000."

This must come as great news to the entire nation. Even the Chancellor said in his Pre-Budget speech that only those earning less than £20,000 would be worse off.

Mr Anderson also came up with an entirely new set of figures for the new top rate. Instead of applying to incomes over £150,000, he claimed, "Increasing the top rate from 40% to 45% for those earning over £100,000 raises valuable monies."

Unless I have missed something, the claims made by Mr Anderson are somewhat different to those made by the Chancellor. Or is it just that Mr Anderson lives in a parallel universe where things are a bit different?
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