The Budget
In yesterday's Budget, Gordon Brown pre-empted the Tories by, in effect, doing their work for them - cutting corporation Tax and cutting the basic income tax rate. What he has not done is produce a real Labour Budget which would dramatically cut growing inequality by ending glaring tax loopholes that favour the rich. (E.g. non domicile tax status for the super rich and the taper relief exemption for private equity investors) while at the same time raising the basic State pension to pensioner credit level as of right for all pensioners and linking all future increases in the pension to earnings.
He has not tackled environmental issues adequately. His policy of bringing the airlines into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme in several years time will not deter the fastest rising cause of greenhouse gas emissions. Bringing in a carbon entitlement for individual households in 2012 is far too late. He has done nothing to increase the pathetically low level of electricity generation in UK from renewable sources of energy, still stuck at 4% when the rest of the EU level is 20-25%. Building standards and energy efficiency still remain disappointingly low and he has refused, wrongly, to earmark all green taxes for expenditure on better green alternatives (e.g. bus rail and smaller engine cars).