Gordon Brown makes the 10p change sound simple

If you are mystified as to why Gordon Brown has had difficulty selling his ingenious 10p tax idea, you need be puzzled no longer.

Just listen to the great man explaining his policy on Labour's own website.

He is being interviewed by Arabella Weir (for more than half an hour for a video which has attracted less than 5,000 viewers) and she begins with a question on the 10p change.

"I must say, this has really confused me," she says. The Prime Minister responds with a lengthy discourse about other Budget measures at the end of which Weir, brow slightly furrowed, says "Ok, I think I understood that"

Clearly, she didn't. Because just past the 25 minute mark we get this priceless exchange:

AW:  I'm going to go back to the 10p thing because I can't quite get my head round it, in very simple terms ...

GB:     Well basically, what's happened is that we've got tax credits now in the tax system, so basically the tax system will pay people money as well as charge people money and now that we've got tax credits built into the system people who have families with children will get a child tax credit. So lets say you've got one child you'll get roughly about nearly £30, including the child benefits and the child tax credit it's just under £30, it's going to rise to £30, so that is the tax system paying you money and if you are single or if you are a couple that don't have children the tax system can pay you money as well.

If you are on the pension credit, the pension credit is money paid to you and so it is like a negative tax, the money paid to you, so it's a tax credit. So once we'd introduced the tax and the tax credit, the case for having a 10p rate was diminished, it was a transitional measure until we had introduced the tax credit, so now we can have the tax credit available to people and reduce the basic rate of income tax from 22p to 20p.

We've taking steps to try and ensure that millions of people are better off by raising child benefits and child tax credits, by at the same time raising the working tax credit that's available for people who work and by raising the pensioners' tax allowance so more are taken out of tax and more pensioners don't pay tax at all. These are the changes we've been making.

I am sure you don't just want to read this. Not when you can watch that incredibly watchable man. So I've posted the film here at the bottom.

When I asked Phil, who pointed the amazingly dull and incomprehensible waffle out to me, where he had seen it, he replied:

Believe it or not, it's from the Labour Party website. He might conceivably have been granted another go if he'd thought that explanation at all unclear.

Perhaps he considered it perfect.

Comments

[David Moss]

Your problems solved for 10p:

Next week, Gordon Brown explains Schleswig-Holstein.

[sjm]

Danny, you're probably too young to remember Professor Stanley Unwin, who used to (deliberately) speak his own brand of whimsical gobbledegook as an entertainment back when Radio4 was the Home Service.

But I think your example definitely shows a genetic link between Unwin and Brown.

[mitch]

Mans an idiot!!

[Lola]

Let's not get complicated about the analysis of as to why Brown behaves like this when it's so simple. It's because he's (a) completely deceitful and (b) a dope.

[Essex Boys UK]

2 of Brown's major defects (amongst all the others now being recognised by some who previously fawned) are:

1. He simply cannot admit an error if he's the source
2. He's obsessed with the Tories and getting one over them to the detriment of explaining his own strategy. Virtually every PMQs answer ends with a tirade on pre-97 or why Tory policy is evil.
3. He cannot use everyday language and speak like someone would to a bloke in the pub. What's more he never will and Mr Brown is a goner.

This interview is another prime example of all 3.
Well done again Danny!

[Mark]

Clearly, this is the PM under intense pressure, wishing he was a mere chancellor of the exchequer once more. The stutter in the voice intermixed with croaked out sentences that are barely intelligible suggests an intense awareness he is walking on thin ground indeed. He needs to buck up his ideas, and fast. Personally, I think we've all slagged him off enough. Please Mr Brown, find your inspiration and do the job you now know you need to do.

[Martin]

The last time I heard an explanation as transparently bogus and as long-winded, was when I was a student watching a case in a magistrate's court as part of a law module.

It ended with: "So you see, your honour, I was not actually stealing the lead from the roof, I was trying to repair the roof."

He got jail time.

[TrevorH]

Arabella Weir ?? The 'actress/ comedienne'?

What is SHE doing interviewing anyone? Just how desperate is Brown to avoid proper cross examination?

[John Miller]

Ermm, no-one appers to have commented on the whopping lie in the middle - that the 10% band (that which the towering intellectual Mr Brown calls "the 10p rate")was a transitional measure until he announced the increase in tax credits. So he abandoned the 10% band and a year later came up with vague "promises" (remember his barrister saying that his promises were never to be taken as real promises, just hot air" of recompense for some people, perhaps, at some possible time in the future. And only announced this because of threats from 46 Labour MPs. What a genius for policy making then.

Gosh, has the post of PM ever been held by such a stupid person?

[Rob]

The man is a fool and so out of his depth. PMQ's are just painful. I dont think he has answered a question since he has become leader. The leader of the house should actually insist that he answers a question instead of slagging off the Tories of 12 years ago!Who fault is the pensions crisis,Northern Rock,the sale of the Uk's gold at a record low,this tax credit mess, that even a tax partner can barely understand, let alone the lack of control of immigration and the missed opportunity of the huge windfalls inherited from the Tories, the man is a disgrace and should resign now.

[albert hall]

Poor Gordon. He has wanted to be in No. 10 so much that he will do anything - and I do mean ANYTHING - to stay there. Gordon comes first. The country far behind.

[Silent Hunter]

This is just painful........as a country, we are now a laughing stock because of this idiot.

ELECTION NOW PLEASE!

[mike sanders]

It is really very sad, this man wanted to be in No. 10 so badly and now he is there he looks more and more like a drowning man. The party heavyweights are as much to blame they must have known the job was too big for him but let him have it anyway, never mind the country, party and politicians first as always. Somebody wrote that we have become a laughing stock how true this is.

[Letters From A Tory]

Obviously the Prime Minister still needs to work on his 'presentation and communication skills' which every employee in the country apart from him is asked to demonstrate.

[James]

The performance is poor,and the explanation clumsy, but what is particularly bad is that he had not, in fact, mentioned the tricky bits, let alone explained them. (The explanation would have resembled Tom Lehrer's "New Math".) The tax credit calculations are so complicated that HMRC itself describes them in a help leaflet as "very complicated" and doesn't say how they are done. They are based on supplicants' and partners' 07/08 incomes, and many other parameters, and if the 08/09 incomes or other parameters change significantly, recipients are presumably liable to owe money next year. I could elaborate, but I see your eyelids drooping already...

Of course the common man wonders why you could simply not remove the tax in the first place, or refund it with a simple calculation in each year's tax return (cf. Ontario Tax Credit) but honestly, how can you get a simpler, fairer tax system that way? Hopelessly naive. Much better to spend time and money on complex legislation, explanatory leaflets, telephone advisors, and incomprehensible interviews.

[Roger B]

I understand Gordon has hired George W Bush to help him with clarity in his public speaking.

[Jeremiah]

The last time I hear an explanation like this it was Groucho Marx explaining to his wife what he was doing to a gorgeous blond in a closet

[Richard Hemingway]

Is he determined to destroy this country? He's forgotten the KISS rule. Keep It Simple Stupid.
Instead of charging everyone loads, and then spening billions administering credits to give it back, why not just collect the right amount of tax in the first instance. Or would that not be complex enough for our esteemed "leader".

[John of Enfield]

"Gordon Brown makes the 10p change sound simple". Not!

[Jimmy cricket]

Articulate, articulate, articulate!

[Simon Bradford]

The 10p tax will hit low paid single blue collar workers the hardest.

At the same time they are going to cap the entry of skilled workers in to the UK, whilst permitting free entry to unskilled/low skilled workers. Thus depressing pay for blue collar workers further whilst protecting the middle classes.

They better be careful, folk might start to think they have something against blue collar workers.

Or perhaps they know where their votes really come from.

[Tone E Blair]

Oh my god. I've just realised. He's not a dour but brilliant financial strategist. He's actually a bit thick.

[Greyhair]

Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling are in for a big surprise if they think this fiasco of removing the 10p band and dropping the 22p to 20p by using smoke and mirrors will impress. Just wait until everyone on low earnings look at their next pay slip.
I took early retirement and do not qualify for tax credits of any kind. My private pension was increased by £18.62 but the tax man took £15.29 of this leaving 83pence a week for me. I would not mind if everyone was treated the same but if I had been on a larger income then I would have seen the full benefit of my pension increase plus some more from Gordon. Even if he increases the minimum wage how will this compensate anyone in the same circumstances as me. Heating allowance increase will also benefit everyone over 60 regardless of income.
Angry is too tame a word to express my feelings.
Never will I vote Labour again.