Cynical Tories will take from poor to buy votes of better off

Left Foot Forward

The Tories are taking the pocket money and future assets of our poorer children to buy the votes of the better off, evidenced by their marriage tax plans.

Our guest writer is Seema Malhotra

This weekend’s Sunday Times revealed more details about the Conservative’s £1 billion tax break for married couples. Combined with their £6 billion pledge on National Insurance last week, as Left Foot Forward has argued, this reveals a party which is choosing to sacrifice fiscal responsibility for a pre-election giveaway for the better off.

In addition to that, it is a policy which is actually funded by cuts to child trust funds – showing how the Tories are taking the pocket money and future assets of our poorer children to buy the votes of the better off.

This isn’t really about supporting marriage at all; it’s a cynical move to get into power. If it was about supporting marriage, the Tories would be asking why marriages fell by almost 25% between 1981 and 1997, but then the trend reversed and marriages began to rise almost immediately after Labour came into power, particularly between 2001 and 2004.

Marriage rates were first calculated in 1862. Summary tables of marriage rates are available at the following link: www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=14275

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13 Responses to “Cynical Tories will take from poor to buy votes of better off”

  1. Brown kicks off 6 May election campaigning | England News

    […] On the subject of marriage (see 4.33pm), the Left Foot Forward blog has put up an interesting post showing that marriage rates have broadly been going down since 1980 but that there was a brief blip under Labour after 2000, when the number of people getting married […]

  2. Brown and rivals kick off election campaigning | Reaction Radio

    […] On the subject of marriage (see 4.33pm), the Left Foot Forward blog has put up an interesting post showing that marriage rates have broadly been going down since 1980 but that there was a brief blip under Labour after 2000, when the number of people getting married […]

  3. Mags W

    RT @wdjstraw: http://bit.ly/bzsMDg RT @BBCLauraK: P Hammond suggests Conservatives still haven't finalised the policy on tax breaks for …

  4. Cynical Tories will take from poor to buy votes of better off « The best Labour blogs

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  5. Steven Swank

    Cynical Tories will take from poor to buy votes of better off … http://bit.ly/cvB92D

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