Frank Little

Councillor for East Central ward on Coedffranc Town Council Learn more

A Happy New Year to all

by franklittle on 31 December, 2010

– and I hope the Christmas festivities have gone (or if you are a traditionalist, are still going) well.

2011 is going to be a tough year, as even prime minister David Cameron has admitted. The UK technically moved out of recession a year ago, but the redundancies announced by large companies and government have still to work themselves out. On the other hand, small business in England and Wales is rehiring, as the coalition government expected. We will start off with a rise in VAT but we will also see a cut in income tax for the lower-paid and the first of the guaranteed pension rises.

The coming year is also going to be a bumper one for voting. On March 3rd, there will be a referendum on increased powers for Wales. Indications so far are promising; even Welsh Labour MPs are said to be onside. However, we cannot take the vote for granted and we need to get out and say “yes” to Wales. Later on, we have the Assembly elections and the referendum on Alternative Vote.

A further thought for those who say that the coalition is just a Conservative government with the Liberal Democrats merely there to give it an air of respectability: can you imagine a Conservative government

– retaining a 50p top rate of tax;
– introducing an increase in capital gains tax;
– implementing a bank levy to fund child tax credits for poor families;
– taking low income people out of income tax altogether;
– extending the national minimum wage to include apprentices;
– reducing the age at which the full minimum wage is paid;
– increasing the number of social housing allocations;
– investing £900m to reduce tax evasion;
– suggesting a £140 minimum state pension?

   Leave a comment

Leave a Reply

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>