Bad politicians push the envelope on decent laws to make them worse. They often do so without going back to Parliament by making a minor tweak here, a little fiddle there, until what's left is a hideous travesty of the original... .. so don't be too quick to pass an Assisted Dying bill.
Leave had no plan for Leave. Remain had a plan for Remain: "change nothing". (The status quo can always be implemented instantly at zero cost.) That planning asymmetry left us in the current mess. Had Leave been forced to plan for Leave, they'd have found doing so impossible.
Things often glossed over in discussions about inheritance tax: 1) Ripple effect: Only 4% may pay it, but far more than 4% experience the consequences as most people leave their estate to more than one other person. 2) Most of the people living in hugely inflated properties haven't died... yet.
If your pay rises by inflation, but frozen tax bands mean all that additional pay gets taxed at 40%, then surely your pay has failed to keep up with inflation in what-you-can-spend-it-on terms? You're in effect poorer. (This applies at the 20% tax level too but more so at 40%.)
The ridiculous thing is, Labour could have stuck to announcing only the new investments and the total would still have sounded impressive. But by commingling Tory era stuff, they've gifted the media another round of negative headlines. So. Many. PR. Mistakes. www.theguardian.com/business/202...
For reference, here's what the public think about inheritance tax. It's not even close to being close. yougov.co.uk/topics/polit...
Leave had no plan for Leave. Remain had a plan for Remain: "change nothing". (The status quo can always be implemented instantly at zero cost.) That planning asymmetry left us in the current mess. Had Leave been forced to plan for Leave, they'd have found doing so impossible.
Are Labour about to make a similar mistake with inheritance tax as with the winter fuel allowance? In both cases, there are strong arguments for raising/cutting them. But we don't live in a vacuum. In the real world, people HATE the changes - even those not impacted by them.
Thing is, quite often their stories are subsequently supported by other media outlets.
And that's understandable. But it's not the same as saying "it's in the Telegraph, so what do you expect?" or words to that effect.