Kinnock’s crazy wealth tax threat

Bring in a wealth tax, said the man credited with laying the groundwork for New Labour, as the party surveys the wreckage of what passed for its growth plan after last week’s humiliating retreat on welfare reform.

Ex-leader Neil Kinnock will have given the hard-liners encouragement for a massive tax raid, in the belief that a new tax on anyone with assets over £10 million will raise abut £10 billion a year and cover the £5bn hole blown in Rachel Reeves’ budget by last week’s rebellion.

In a government which has relied on believing fag-packet calculations for its budgeting, it’s far from that simple. The highest earners will have plenty of access to good advice on how to avoid higher bills; they did in the 70s when Labour tried to bleed the rich and they will again. And even if it is at some personal inconvenience, many will move out if they must.

Ending non-dom tax status for overseas nationals living here was supposed to raise £3.2bn but a recent study revealed an exodus of 25,000 non-doms leaving the UK in 2024 and it will almost certainly have accelerated after the unexpected decision to make their overseas assets and foreign-held trusts liable for UK inheritance tax.

A new wealth tax would wreak havoc among cash-poor farmers already worried sick by those inheritance tax changes, not that the class warriors cheering on Mr Kinnock care.

And without a plan for anything other than higher public sector wages, it’s an easy way to make us all poorer.