So who's going to say Ed Miliband isn't just being a shameless oportunist?

[gaelicsheep]

Go on. I dare you. Since when has the Labour cared two jots about higher rate taxpayers? I'm not saying I disagree with him, but I sense a rather large bandwagon of potential Labour voters.

Opportunist even.

Labour will oppose the cuts made and then claim the mantra that they are a party of the people whilst the Conservatives are a party of the rich and priveledged

Labour wouldn't have cut CB

That is true

That is not protecting HRT payers (as he said), it is something very different - a respect for mothers and family

I agree with LadyBlaBlah.

Before it was announced that CB would be cut for higher earners Ed Miliband had already said he would stick up for the "squeezed middle".

You also have to remember it was Labour who introduced the tax credits and extended free nursery provision which benefited middle incomers.

Get set for a lot more shameless opportunism as we head for the spending review. Lots of bluster about what Labour wouldn't have done. Nothing whatsoever about what Labour would have done instead.

Mind you.. haven't heard a dickybird from Millband about the cap on tax relief on personal pension contributions. All quiet in the sixth-form common room on that one.

Tax credits for households on £55k was yet more shameless opportunism. Robbing the tax contributions of the poor to give to the rich... in the hope that the rich would vote for them. Hardly subtle, was it?

Its a complete open goal for EdM to criticise the CB cut is being implemented.

Fair play.

I agree with the cut in the amount higher rate earners can put into a pension BUT will there also be a cut in what gets paid out of public sector pensions?

It would be unfair not to cut public sector pensions at the top end if the tax free allowance on private sector pensions is cut. Could be a bit tricky for EdM to either oppose or support on that issue.

"Get set for a lot more shameless opportunism as we head for the spending review. Lots of bluster about what Labour wouldn't have done. Nothing whatsoever about what Labour would have done instead"

You miss the point. It is PMQ's. David Cameron fucked up by asking Ed a few questions. But he should be answering questions, not asking them. Ed should certainly not be setting out his policies at PMQs

Ed will not be setting out his policies at PMQs or anywhere else, because he hasn't got any viable, alternative strategies. DC was right to turn it back and ask 'what would you do?'... because he knows the silence would be deafening. It's easy to yah-boo from the sidelines. Not so easy to get your sleeves rolled up and deal with the problem.

Again you miss the point

Ham head was rattled. It was pathetic

Agree with LadyBlah. Eton education not looking like such a good investment now?

The line about speaking for Deputy Heads and Police officers hit Cameron between his piggy little eyes.

It was an open goal for Ed Miliband and he took it well, sterner tests lie ahead for EM.

mrsdennisleary what has DCs education got to do with anything.

huddspur for many of us it's yet another indicator that he is unlikely to really understand what life is like for the majority of people in this country...

I don't really get this though, most politicians are from wealthy backgrounds and most are privately educated but David Cameron and George Osbourne seem to cop stick for theirs. Harriet Harmen went to one of the most expensive and exclusive all girls schools in the country but no-one ever mentions it with regards to her and you can't help your background anyway.
I don't understand why people think just because he is from a wealthy background that he cannot understand what is like for people who are less wealthy as he is clearly an intelligent and well educated man.

@huddspur. It's inverted snobbery, that's all. There was a big thread around recently questioning why Cameron was often photographed drinking Guinness... with the inference in many cases being that 'posh people don't drink it'. The list of things that 'posh people' are not supposed to be able to do/feel/think/enjoy is completely irrational. If the same things were attributed to someone that was, say, black or gay then we wouldn't tolerate it.

I don't especially want a politician to 'feel our pain'. I don't think anyone has to have been dirt poor to understand how miserable it is either. I want a politician to respond to the prevailing circumstances & get on with a competent job of running the country to the best of their ability - setting the agenda for the future. And if that means making a few unpopular decisions on the way, then that's life.

I think it would be rather odd if EM didn't mention the tories' totally bonkers policy on CB. Everyone else has.

Cameron and especially Osbourne get stick for it because they are generally duplicitous unsavoury unlikeable patronising and smug. The disingenuity is particularly pertinent as regards the type of criticism that is aimed at them. Ham head coming out with remarks like him and Sam being "sharp elbowed middle class", ffs, and all the "call me Dave" rhetoric - why does he feel the need to be like this. It is disingenuous and people can spot it a mile off.

Furthermore, they both lack any empathy, talk in soundbites and have no depth. They tend to have faux empathy - all this "difficult decisions" shite - why is it they look like they are enjoying it? Why do they never address people's real concerns. There appears to be an element of revelling in it - and ultimately, it really doesn't matter to them - they can always buy their way out of any trouble that comes their way.

If I were them I would prefer the criticism to be based on the fact that they had an elite education rather than on the actual facts that they are hated because they have fundamentally flawed characters.

just for fun

beenbeta the cap on the tax free part of pension contributions is now 50k from formerly 255k, and that's the 'deemed contribution', not the actual money which leaves your payslip. For private pensions the deemed value of each pound you contribute is ten pounds in the future pension, so you can now contribute 5000 in a year (jointly with your employer) before it attracts tax. 1:10 ratio makes 50k.

because public sector pensions are guaranteed (I won't get into whether they are more generous in absolute terms) the ratio used for the deemed value of a civil servant's pension contributoons will now be 1:16. Therefore I and my employer can only together put just over 3k into my pension before I start getting taxed on it. I have no doubt I will be taxed on it when the pension forms my income too.

beenbeta the cap on the tax free part of pension contributions is now 50k from formerly 255k, and that's the 'deemed contribution', not the actual money which leaves your payslip. For private pensions the deemed value of each pound you contribute is ten pounds in the future pension, so you can now contribute 5000 in a year (jointly with your employer) before it attracts tax. 1:10 ratio makes 50k.

because public sector pensions are guaranteed (I won't get into whether they are more generous in absolute terms) the ratio used for the deemed value of a civil servant's pension contributoons will now be 1:16. Therefore I and my employer can only together put just over 3k into my pension before I start getting taxed on it. I have no doubt I will be taxed on it when the pension forms my income too.

Lexi - the problem though is that public sector pensions are generous in absolute terms. The deemed funding of them is massively too low compared to what is actualy being paid out. It has never been properly accounted for at all. I saw an estimate last week that to cover the fture public sector pension liability a pot of £1 trillion of public money would have to be set aside now and all future contributions raised immediately to a realsitic level reflecting the true benefit that current public sector employees will get in their pensions.

That £1 trillion is a measure of the deliberate understatement of the actual value of pension rights that public sector employees have been given tax free and that was never counted as taxable contribution.

I only argue that the true value of the public sector pension is reflected in the public sector employees taxable income and thereafter taxed at the same rate and in the same way as private sector pensions. Obviously, low paid pubic sector workers will (rightly) not be affected as their pay and deemed contributions will never reach the cap.

bbenbeta sorry for double post - was on mobile!

To be honest I'm not particularly exercised by whether public sector salaries are artificially suppressed and a more generous pension is the other side of the coin. I work in central govt for a comfortable amount of money, and I will definitely be affected by the pension contributions cap, also by the CB cut and so on. I do just twitch a bit at being taxed twice on the same money. And this threshold is pretty arbitrary - my scheme is 3% employee 6% employer contribs; at a salary of 34k you will start getting taxed - that's a whole 10k away from being into higher rate tax, usually the measure of whether you're "well paid".

My point about the 1:10 and 1:16 ratio is that it is one of the ways that public sector pensions are being looked at - accrued benefits to date can't be taken away, but the pension/annuity purchasing power of the same contribution I make next year won't be as good as this year's.

Taxing the public sector's pension contributions at 1.6 times more than private pensions looks to me like a clear way of raising revenue upfront as you say they need to do. Again, I just twitch and think how this is a few hundred thousand middle income workers bearing what feels like a heavier burden than the family next door - lots of little hurts in payslips, when the same amount of money could be raised by one big eyecatching thing like the corporate rate, or the big debtors like Vodafone. I don't have an answer here, and I don't know the details well enough to pronounce. If I worked in HMRC I'd be getting stuck right in, I find it hugely interesting.

The other important point about public sector pensions is that they are not pension funds; they are not invested and at risk on stock markets, but paid out of current taxation (like state pensions). Therefore the big glut of these pensions follows the demographic curve of how many public sector employees are retiring. The government needs to be able to allow public sector retirees to cash in their whole pension at age 60/65 and choose to use it as they want, or take the longer term payments from retiring to death. The pension gap therefore is just starting to open up as the baby boomers retire. I don't know how the size of state employment fluctuated in the 60s, 70s, 80s, but I think the 90s and 00s saw a significant rise particularly in central government. Making big cuts in public sector workers AND a tax penalty on them putting too much into their nice government pensions will store up a good dividend to a government decades from now.