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

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

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/dom...

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!!

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.....

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.

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.....

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