Is Gordon Brown a cheeky "tea-leaf" for stealing the Conservative Party's policy on a unified Border Force?

Question

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=491&id=334642005

http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=137736

Is New Labour so devoid of any decent policies of its own it has to "borrow" the oppositions?

Karen H: you may get the NHS for free but the rest of us tax payers pay through the nose for it.

Voice of Reason (yeh right): I assume you therefore agree that the other 93 are unjustified stealth taxes, over regulation and general State Nannying.

Karen H: if the last good thing Labour did for us was the NHS in 1947 then we really shouldn't have them back.
Incidentally if the Tories had won in 1945 we would have had a much more flexible Insurance based Health Service like most of the rest of Europe.

VofR: your not special, no-one can access Lorne's Q&A's.

Answer 1

You have a point - I hope you haven't forgotten everything else he has knicked:

1997
1. Mortgage interest relief cut
2. Pensions tax (payable tax credits abolished)
3. Health insurance taxed (income tax relief abolished)
4. Health insurance taxed again (IPT)
5. Fuel tax escalator up
6. Vehicle Excise Duty up
7. Tobacco duty escalator up
8. Stamp duty up for properties over £250,000
9. Limit carry back of trading losses to one year
10. Dividends on trading assets
11. Taxation of finance leasing
12. New Windfall Tax on utilities
13. Futures and options
14. VAT: cash accounting scheme

1998
15. Married couple’s allowance cut
16. Tax on travel insurance up
17. Tax on casinos and gaming machines up
18. Fuel tax escalator brought forward
19. Tax on company cars up
20. Tax relief for foreign earnings abolished
21. Tax concession for certain professions abolished
22. Capital Gains Tax imposed on certain non-residents
23. Reinvestment relief restricted
24. Corporation Tax payments brought forward and ACT abolished
25. Higher stamp duty rates up
26. Some hydrocarbon duties up
27. Additional diesel duties
28. Landfill Tax up
29. Exceptional increase in tobacco and alcohol duties
30. Amendments to offshore trusts
31. VAT: fuel scale charges

1999
32. NIC earnings limit raised
33. NICs for self-employed up
34. Married Couple’s Allowance abolished
35. Mortgage tax relief abolished
36. IR35: Taxation of personal services companies
37. Company car business mileage allowances restricted
38. Tobacco duty escalator brought forward
39. Insurance Premium Tax up
40. Vocational Training Relief abolished
41. Employer NICs extended to all benefits in kind
42. VAT on some banking services up
43. Premiums paid to tenants by landlords taxed
44. Duty on minor oils up
45. Vehicle Excise Duties for lorries up
46. Landfill tax escalator introduced
47. Higher rates of stamp duty up again
48. Capital gains on sale of companies
49. Controlled Foreign Companies: taxation of dividends

2000
50. Tobacco duties up
51. Higher rates of stamp duty up again
52. Extra taxation of life assurance companies
53. Rules on Controlled Foreign Companies extended
54. Aggregates levy increased
55. Changes to double taxation relief
56. Rent factoring
57. Capital gains tax: use of trusts and offshore companies
58. VAT: capital asset disposals

2001
59. Controlled foreign companies regime

2002
60. Personal allowances frozen
61. National Insurance threshold frozen
62. NICs for employers up
63. NICs for employees up
64. NICs for self-employed up
65. North Sea taxation up
66. Tax on some alcoholic drinks up
67. New stamp duty regime
68. New rules on loan relationships
69. Taxation of foreign company UK branches

2003
70. VAT on electronically supplied services
71. IR35 applied to domestic workers
72. Betting duty change
73. Tax on red diesel and fuel oil up
74. Controlled Foreign Companies measures on Ireland
75. Vehicle excise duty up
76. VAT: on continuous supplies
77. VAT: on privately operated tolls
78. Treatment of options for the purposes of tax on chargeable gains
79. Landfill tax increased

2004
80. Minimum 19% tax rate on distributed profits
81. Transfer pricing and thin capitalisation
82. Increase in rate of tax on trusts
83. Increase in tax on red diesel fuel
84. Increase in tax on other road fuels (including LPG)
85. VAT: transfers of going concern
86. Insurance premium tax: Changes to GAP insurance
87. Taxation of life companies
88. Foreign earnings deduction for seafarers
89. Construction industry scheme

2005
90. Stamp duty land tax: ending commercial disadvantaged areas relief
91. Increase in North Sea corporation tax
92. Further increase in tax on red diesel
93. Increase in taxation of leasing
94. Company car tax up

2006
95. Further changes to oil valuation for tax purposes
96. Stamp duty land tax: ending relief for initial transfers into unit trusts
97. Removal of income tax exemption for loaned computers
98. North Sea Oil tax increased
99. Air Passenger Duty doubled

Answer 2

Lorne - why do you insist on continually boring us with the above list, which you lifted from a Tory Party website a few months ago. The Tories scrabbled around for 99 so they could launch the campaign to "99 Red Balloons", but it has aready been proved to be wrong.

Your (pirated Tory Party) list has been widely discredited, see this link:

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/factcheck+has+brown+raised+stealth+tax+99+times/324047

If you go strictly by the Tory logic above, then Gordon Brown actually cut more taxes than he raised/imposed.

So just to prove that you are not simply an unthinking mouthpiece of the Tory Party, could you tell us:

Item 13 – what does this mean in tax terms?

Item 22 – what is bad about this?

Item 44 – which “minor oils” were these?

How do items 49, 53 and 59 differ, and why are they bad?

PWEI34 - I suspect a number of the others are closing tax loopholes and measures openly announced in budgets - so not really "Stealth" taxes at all. Trouble is, I, like Lorne and yourself, don't know what half the stuff on Lorne's list actually is. Difference between me and you Tories is that I wouldn't post something I didn't understand.

UPDATE - Oh dear! I seem to have upset Lorne. He's now blocked me from answering his questions. So much for democratic debate!!

Answer 3

No - he's a T W A T cos it is a B L O O D Y STUPID idea. Absolute bl*ody rubbish which is doomed to fail and which is being rolled out to fool the public into thinking that a new uniform and a new name can fix the immigration problem. They can't. We need NOTHING other than a government willing to fix the goddam Human Rights Act and to tell the goverments of India, Pakistan, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Jamacia, Nigeria, Sudan, Algeria, Bangladesh, China, Bhutan and all the rest that they are having their nationals back whether they like it or not - else no more aid and no more visas.

Answer 4

Sad as it is, myself being a Tory, If our current Tory leader will get off his bike and get in the car that follows him anyway, he may come up with more constructive attacks ,that will not show him as a public school boy out of his depth in the debates, who ever his advisers are need to be replaced before it is to late , it would be better to have Boris , at least we all know he is a Pratt.

Answer 5

There is already a border control force are neither parties aware of H M COASTGUARD they have both been guilty of cutting it back to a minimum. another case of the dead hands of accountants. Penny wise pound foolish.

Answer 6

A long standing tradition in British Politics, why should the opposition have benefit of it's ideas

Answer 7

Politics shouldn't be a 'game' with two sides, there should be co-operation and cross-party support where it is in the best interests of the country.

Answer 8

I just think he objectively thouhgt it was a good idea and tried to improve on it. Incidentally, it wasn't Gordon Brown who "stole" the idea - that was Tony Blair... and he failed to get it through!!! So in answer to your question, Yes, probably.....

Answer 9

well...they did give us a National Health Service for free...we didnt get that from the Tories! say no more!

edit to your additional: I pay too!!..my point was that there wouldnt be a national health service had it been left to the Tories - you have a short memory it seems. never mind.

Answer 10

get real. this is politics. whoever throws the idea in the air and pple notices it, gets the accolade. too badfor the conservs. hey this was done in various asian countries yrs ago where they dont hv unions to stop it.....

Answer 11

Who says a boarder police force is a tory idea? Didn't they nick the idea off another country? Are they just trying to justify their existence?

I just wish the tory political party and organisation would do the world a favour - and just die off quietly tbh