I suppose we are talking about the people who for almost the entire time the Labour party was in power were paying a lower rate of income tax, a lower rate of capital gains tax and a lower rate of stamp duty. I hear the Labour party’s position. [Interruption.] If we are trying to build consensus, let us look at what some Labour politicians have said. The noble Lord Myners, a former Treasury Minister, has said:
“The economic logic behind Ed Balls’s thinking would not get him a pass at GCSE economics,”
and that
“Ed Balls takes us back to old Labour and the politics of envy.”
Lord Jones, the former trade Minister in a Labour Government, described the policy as “lousy economics”.