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

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=491&id=334...

http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.stor...

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

Update:

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

Update 2:

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

Update 3:

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.

Update 4:

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

15 Answers

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    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

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    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!!

  • Frisky
    Lv 5
    1 decade ago

    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.

    Source(s): Chief Immigration Officer - UK - 15 years. Totally f u c k e d off with this useless government, their stupid policies and crappy publicity stunts. This used to be a good job. Now I'm at work spending the day on Yahoo cos there's little else to do cos they've dug us into such a bloody hole with their HRA and tree-hugging policies. W ankers.
  • john r
    Lv 4
    1 decade ago

    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.

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  • 1 decade ago

    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.

  • Scouse
    Lv 7
    1 decade ago

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

  • 1 decade ago

    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.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    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.....

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    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.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    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.....

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    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

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