Backtracking: David Cameron During the election campaign, call Me Dave promised: Do the right thing and you will be rewarded, not bled dry as you have been under Labour. The clear message was that, for too long, the law-abiding, taxpaying, middle classes have had the odds stacked against them. Vote Tory and we'll give you a break. Unfortunately, that's not how events are beginning to pan out. Working on the basis that it's best to get your betrayals in early, Cameron has been backtracking on his headline manifesto commitments ever since he stitched up his coalition deal with the Lib Dems. First to go was the pledge to raise the Inheritance Tax threshold to £1 million, which did more than any other policy announcement to put the Tories back in the game. Most people shrugged. That's if they noticed at all in the frenzied coverage of the coalition negotiations. Although Inheritance Tax is unpopular, this particular measure would only have benefited the relatively wealthy. it can wait. Cameron also promised to abandon Labour's proposed 1p rise in national insurance for employers and everyone on more than £20,000 a year. it was supposed to be worth an extra £150 a year to middle-income earners. Check out the small print and that's vanished, too. While employers will be exempted, allowing the Conservatives to say they've scrapped Labour's 'tax on jobs', employees will still have to pay up. OK, so £150 a year isn't a fortune, but every little bit helps. And not only was it sold as one of the Tories' top priorities, it would have served as a statement of intent, proof positive that the party is genuinely committed to low taxes once the country has dug itself out of the black hole of debt bequeathed by Gordon Brown. If that one seems to have slipped under the radar, it is probably because of the angry reaction to the reported plans to raise Capital Gains Tax. Nowhere in the Tory manifesto was CGT mentioned. This policy has been pulled out of the top hat to pay for the Liberal Democrats' promise to take everyone earning less than £10,000 out of taxation altogether. Currently, CGT is levied at 18 per cent on assets such as shares and second homes. It could rise to 40 or even 50 per cent. Leave aside the fact that all the evidence suggests that every time CGT is raised anywhere in the world, the tax take actually goes down. The aim is to hit bankers and hedge fund spivs who pay themselves in shares to avoid income tax. But it would also punish those who have invested in modest stock market portfolios and property to provide income for their old age. These are the very people who have suffered most from Labour's destruction of private pensions. Gordon Brown's naked £100 billion tax grab forced the closure of final-salary pension schemes and left hundreds of thousands of people facing an impoverished old age. Many decided to make alternative arrangements, diverting their savings into shares and buy-to-let properties which they could sell to provide an income when they came to retire. Now they could find themselves caught in a trap designed to snare get-rich-schemes and tax avoiders. Little wonder that prominent Conservative backbenchers such as David Davis and John Redwood are furious. In his enthusiasm to appease the Lib Dems, Cameron is in danger of forgetting that nearly 11 million people voted Conservative at the last election. I don't know the exact demographics, but I'm sure the votes of the vast majority of over-50s, especially in England, went to the Tories. This section of the population has most to lose from an ill-thought out increase in CGT. They also thought they were voting for a cut in Inheritance Tax and a promise to scrap the rise in National Insurance. They've been hammered by Labour. The last thing they expected was a triple-whammy from the Conservatives. Of course, the early reports of a rise in CGT to 50p in the pound may have been unduly, although deliberately, alarmist - leaked simply to test the waters and lay the ground for compromise. My money is on a return to the old policy of taper relief, which would hit short-term gains with the top rate while allowing those who hang on to assets for, say, five years, to avoid the tax altogether. That would probably keep the Lib Dems happy and allow the Tory backbenchers to claim victory. Maybe this is the kind of politics we are going to have to get used to over the next five years. It's unrealistic to expect every cough and spit of the Tory manifesto to be implemented. The parliamentary arithmetic doesn't add up. But Cameron must remember that he is the senior partner in this coalition and sacrifices at his peril the aspirations of millions of Conservative voters simply to let Nick Clegg save face with his own party. We've done the right thing, Dave. now it's your turn. Watch out for the safety Nazis As the value of the pound spirals downwards, millions of us are expected to take our holidays at home this year. If you are venturing to the seaside, watch out for the safety Nazis. They've already plastered beaches with 'Beware of Incoming Tide' notices, introduced crash helmets for donkey rides and banned fish 'n' chips being served in newspaper. Now, they've set their sights on another traditional treat. Steve Catterall took his grand-children to Southport recently. What struck him wasn't so much that a portion of candyfloss now costs a staggering £1.80, it was the fact that it no longer comes on a stick. When Steve asked why not, he was told that elf 'n' safety had decided that a stick could poke a child's eye out. Good luck to Iain Duncan Smith as he prepares to tame Britain's welfare monster. He's going to need it. it's more than 20 years since I was one of a party of hacks following then employment minister Norman Fowler across America, from Baltimore to Los Angeles. His mission was to study US welfare-to-work schemes, which the Conservatives had promised to bring to Britain. Despite Fowler's best intentions, it didn't happen. Duncan Smith has spent the past few years working out how to slay the welfare dragon. The murder of three prostitutes in Bradford not only conjours up memories of the Yorkshire Ripper, but also the hysteria surrounding the killing of five 'sex workers' in Ipswich four years ago. All these women lived wretched lives, selling sex on the streets to feed their drug and alcohol addictions. But their murders are being reported in reverential tones, designed to make us all feel guilty. I'm surprised Jon Snow, on channel 4 news, wasn't wearing a black tie and armband. He delivered the news like a vicar at a child's funeral. They are described not as prostitutes, but as 'women who worked as prostitutes'. Channel 4 news wouldn't dream of calling Harriet Harman 'a woman who works as a politician'. Even the legalisation of brothels, which I support, wouldn't have stopped these women falling into the abyss. I resent the widespread implication that their murders are somehow society's fault. What makes these killings newsworthy is the sordid, salacious, sexual angle. Dressing it up in social angst is simply a way of mitigating prurience. For the record, 192 women were murdered in Britain last year. Very few of these killings led the national news bulletins. With characteristic good manners, Gordon Brown didn't bother turning up for the State Opening of Parliament, even though he is continuing to draw his salary. In fact, Gordon has hardly been seen in public since he was kicked out of No 10. Perhaps he is working on an updated version of his book on Courage. Vince Cable has resigned the deputy leadership of the Lib Dems, citing his heavy workload as Business Secretary. Some people are speculating that this could make it easier for him to walk out of the coalition. It's no secret he would have preferred to jump into bed with his old pals in the Labour Party. But Vinny has shot his bolt. The moment he agreed to take cabinet office under Prime Minister Cameron he was bought and paid for. Cable's collaboration came cheap. He didn't even get a Treasury brief, because he couldn't stomach having to make the cuts so cheerfully embraced by his party's rising star David Laws. If he had doubts about the validity of the Lib-Con pact he could have become his party's most prominent refusenik. Now he's taken the shilling, his credibility is in tatters. The most perfect part of this imperfect political union has been seeing Saint Vinny done up like a kipper.Why don't YOU do the right thing, Dave!
More from Richard Littlejohn...
Sunday, 30 May 2010
Last updated at 9:11 AM on 28th May 2010
That's why candyfloss is now served in plastic bags . . . as Steve points out, just big enough to slip over a child's head.
Mission impossible
I don't want to rain on his parade, but if the Tories couldn't get it through when Mrs Thatcher had a majority of 102, it's not going to be any easier now.
Bring on the black armbands
When did you ever hear a nurse described as 'a woman who works as a nurse'?
Precisely.
Then again, they weren't ' women who worked as prostitutes'.
Cable stitch
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