Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng Have Made a Declaration of Class War

THE GUARDIAN: This unofficial budget is morally indefensible, economically reckless and so risky it suggests a political death wish

Taking from those who have least, lavishing gifts on those who have most.’ Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng on a visit to Berkeley Modular in Kent. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/AP
She makes Margaret Thatcher look like a moderate and Ronald Reagan seem positively wet. Liz Truss has embarked on an ideological project so extreme that the de facto budget announced by her chancellor today amounts to a declaration of class war. It was a reverse Robin Hood: taking from those who have least, lavishing gifts on those who have most. It is morally indefensible, economically reckless and so politically risky as to suggest a death wish.

Trussonomics rests on a simple article of faith: that by rewarding the already wealthy, life will improve for everyone else. Trickle-down economics, they called it back in the 1980s, and it didn’t work then. Now it’s back in a form more stark, more extravagant, than even its most ardent apostles ever dared contemplate.

The generosity towards the amply blessed was breathtaking. Kwasi Kwarteng’s totemic move was the removal of the cap on bankers’ bonuses – as if the number one problem confronting Britain today was that bankers aren’t rich enough. It’ll be Cristal magnums all round in the City, obviously, but Labour HQ should also raise a glass: they’ve just been handed an attack line that cannot fail. The Conservative predecessors of Truss and Kwarteng had no principled objection to letting bankers receive telephone-number bonuses, but held off because they knew the optics were so screamingly awful. The new duo has no such restraint.

And so they have delivered the biggest tax cuts in half a century, outstripping the landmark Nigel Lawson budget of 1988 – and their largesse is aimed squarely at the top. Kwarteng decided it was those in the highest tax bracket who needed help, so he abolished the top rate altogether. That will hand an average £10,000 to the highest-earning 600,000 people in the country: literally the one per cent. » | Jonathan Freedland | Friday, September 23, 2022

Liz Truss makes Margaret Thatcher look like the fairy godmother! Divisive politics like this could eventually well lead to a revolution. Even tolerant Brits have their limits! Could Tory policies like this—giving the already super-privileged even more privileges—lead even to Britain overthrowing the monarchy? The French did it in 1789, declaring the motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. It is very difficult to see how we Brits could declare the same here! In the UK, there is liberté for the super-priviliged, there is certainly no égalité and where there are such class divisions, there can certainly be no fraaternité, either.

It is high time for this country to call time on giving the already super-privileged yet more privileges. A well-run economy, even a capitalist economy, should be, must be run for the benefit of all. I believe it is true to say that this country has more food banks than it has Starbucks outlets! How can it be morally justifiable to pursue such shameless economic policies when so many people have to go to food banks in order to put food on the table for their children? What we need is more food for our children, not more champagne for our bankers!

Once upon a time, when I was young, I was so proud to call myself British. These days, not so much. Moreover, we Brits were spoken about in the same breath as fairness and fair play. No longer, I fear. This country has become synonymous with class division, unfairness, greed and selfishness.

With policies like these put forward like this by Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss, it is easier to feel ashamed to be British than it is to feel proud. These are , indeed, sad times. – © Mark Alexander

For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. – KJB Matthew 13:12

Obama Hits the Road amid Republican Attacks on State of the Union Speech

THE GUARDIAN: President kicks off tour of swing states as Gingrich and Romney accuse him of 'class warfare' in asking rich to pay more

Barack Obama left Washington on a tour of swing states crucial to his re-election in November after delivering a populist state of the union speech that launched his 2012 campaign.

Obama called for a fairer, more equal America, the theme he is to pursue throughout the campaign, branding the Republicans as the party of the rich elite.

Republicans accused him of promoting "class warfare" and adopting "left-wing demagoguery".

Although Obama did not mention by name one of the Republicans chasing the party nomination to be his challenger, Mitt Romney was the president's target when Obama called for a minimal tax rate of 30% for millionaires.

"Washington should stop subsidising millionaires," the president said.

He added: "Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense." » | Ewen McAskill in Miami | Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Occupy-Bewegung: Die Globalisierung weckt ihre Kinder

SUEDDEUTSCHE: David gegen Goliath, 1 versus 99 Prozent, die Menschen gegen das Finanzsystem: Der weltweite Protest ist nicht typisch links oder rechts - es bildet sich eine europäische Öffentlichkeit, die ihren Zorn auf das System nicht einfach runterschlucken wird. Anstatt den Hindukusch zu verteidigen, gilt jetzt auch in Deutschland: die Demokratie gegen die Gier der Märkte zu verteidigen.

Die Globalisierung weckt ihre Kinder. Deren Protest ist nicht rechts und er ist nicht links. Er lässt sich nicht fangen mit den alten Lassos. Sicher: Der Protest ist Ausdruck der Empörung über soziale Ungerechtigkeit, das ist ein altes linkes Thema. Aber der Protest steht auch für das fatale Gefühl, dass die Staaten zu schwach sind und von den Finanzmärkten gewürgt und enteignet werden. Die Sehnsucht nach einem starken Souverän aber ist ebenso ein konservatives, rechtes Thema: die Marodeure der internationalen Finanzwirtschaft sollen gebändigt werden.

Die Proteste sind schließlich Ausdruck zorniger Enttäuschung. In der Finanzkrise 2008, als die Staaten ungeheuerlich viel Geld in die Banken pumpten, glaubten viele Bürger, sie erlebten eine Läuterung des Kapitalismus. Das war und blieb eine Täuschung. Die Großbanken haben mit den Mitteln und Methoden weitergezockt, die vorher die Finanzkrise herbeigeführt hatten. Sie konnten ihr Spiel weitertreiben; denn keine von den strikten Regeln, die von der internationalen Politik angekündigt wurden, trat in Kraft. Der Finanzkapitalismus wurde keinen Deut menschlicher, der Turbo des Kapitalismus blieb angeschaltet. » | Ein Kommentar von Heribert Prantl | Sonntag 16. Oktober 2011

A Stupid Bitch by Any Other Name – Harriet Harman! Harriet Harman Puts Class at Heart of Election Battle
If this is so, then what the hell has the Labour Party been doing all these years? It's the Labour Party which has reduced this once great nation to scrubberdom! – © Mark

THE GUARDIAN: Labour deputy leader to make inequality a key dividing line with Conservatives

Harriet Harman's speech is designed to put fight against inequality at heart of election campaign. Photograph: The Guardian
Harriet Harman will reopen the politically explosive debate over class tomorrowby insisting that it remains the single biggest factor in determining individual achievement.

In a speech designed to put the fight against inequality at the heart of the general election campaign, the Labour deputy leader will unveil a new "inequality bible" which admits that the government has merely slowed the trend in rising inequality despite more than 12 years in office.

The 420-page report, commissioned by the government, has been written by a panel chaired by Professor John Hills.
In her speech, Harman will say the report, to be published next week, makes uncomfortable reading for Labour, and sets out home truths about the scale of the challenge.

But she will also seek to create dividing lines with the Tories by arguing that the evidence shows socio-economic background, not parental warmth, is the main determinant of an individual's success.

The report's findings are politically sensitive since they may revive accusations – furiously denied by Gordon Brown – that Labour is embarking on a "class war". >>> Patrick Wintour and Amelia Gentleman | Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Labour Has Given Up Governing and Now Just Wants a Class War
THE TELEGRAPH: Gordon Brown is picking a fight with the Tories that will damage Britain, says Benedict Brogan.

So the general election is to be fought on the playing fields of Eton, which I suppose makes a nice change from the West Midlands marginals. No wonder Gordon Brown sounded so perky yesterday. He spoke like a man set free. In a fight to the death, there is no longer any point pretending to govern in the national interest. As it was in the beginning for Labour, so shall it be in the end: class war, plain and simple. Soak the rich, crow about it, and damn the consequences.

That enclave of privilege and educational excellence featured prominently at Prime Minister's Questions. Mr Brown spat out the name with the venom he reserves for those he despises most – namely Tories, those educated privately, and the English middle classes. "Is it public services for the many or inheritance tax cuts for the few? Your tax policy seems to have been dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton," Mr Brown taunted David Cameron, quoting no doubt from Labour's campaign battle plan. On the benches behind him, it was open season on the toffs in tails.

The brazenness with which Mr Brown reduced the election ahead to a battle between the rich and the rest has one advantage at least: it exposed the fraudulence of his claim to govern for all the people, or whatever the phrase was that he used when he first took over in 2007. He governs for himself and his party, first and always.

And, like the Russians retreating before Napoleon, Mr Brown pursues a scorched earth strategy. Its purpose is two-fold: to put the Tories on the spot as an Opposition by driving them towards difficult policy choices that can then be demolished, while doing everything to ensure that if they do get in, they will find the wells have been filled and the fields ploughed with salt. >>> Benedict Brogan | Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Budget 2009: Gordon Brown Declares Class War with Tax on High Earners
THE TELEGRAPH: Gordon Brown has been accused of launching a "class war" against Middle Britain as he introduced a new 50 per cent top rate of tax to make the wealthy pay for the catastrophic state of public finances.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Photo courtesy of The Telegraph
Casting aside more than a decade of New Labour ideology, the government broke a key election manifesto promise by announcing an increase in income tax for those earning more than £150,000.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, also announced that the highest earners will lose valuable tax breaks on pension savings, as part of a package of measures that will see the tax grab from high earners raising up to £5.5 billion a year - an average of £18,333 annually per person.

The surprise new measures - which mean Britain will have the highest top rate of any major economy in the developed world - came as Mr Darling was forced to lay bare the true extent of Britain's levels of borrowing in his Budget.

In the worst economic forecast since the Second World War, he said he planned to borrow another £700 billion over the next five years, taking the national debt to £1.4 trillion.

Mr Brown and Mr Darling were accused of indulging in party politics at a time of national crisis by seeking to exploit the divide the Tories' on tax policy.

It was also suggested that the Prime Minister was returning to Old Labour policies designed to shore up Labour's core vote ahead of an election next year that he is on course to lose.

Labour MPs in the party's heartlands will welcome the move and ministers will argue that taxing those on very high salaries is popular among many voters.

But in raising the top rate of tax the government risk alienating the middle class voters that swept Tony Blair to power in 1997. >>> By Andrew Porter, Political Editor | Thursday, April 23, 2009