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