A mouse attacking the poor

One of the most worrying things for the Labour Party is the way that the Guardian's normally supportive opinion writers,Jackie Ashley and Polly Toynbee have turned against Gordon Brown.Toynbee is not happy with the 10p tax abolition which she sees as a betrayal of the party's obligations to the less well off.

This morning Ashley believes that events this week may see the

If the rebellion over the 10p tax rate abolition continues to gather
pace and the rebels hold their nerve, they can get rid of Gordon Brown as early
as next week

And continues

It would be curtains because of the issue itself. Brown's selling point as a politician has always been his concern for the poor. To fight and lose a key vote about taking hundreds of pounds of extra cash from more than 5 million of the poorest voters would be too big a humiliation to survive

In the same paper Greg Clark thinks that

Labour vaunts its help for the poor, but scrapping the 10p tax band has plunged 300,000 more below the poverty line

Adding

There is a bizarre symmetry that a government which has given such prominence to the official poverty threshold - 60% of median household income - should have chosen a policy which hits hardest people on that very poverty line

Tim Worstall writing in the Times goes further

The spectacular own goal of the abolition of the 10p income tax rate could have just been written off as happenstance. But when you look at all the other government actions that have increased the tax burden on the working poor, it's clear that “enemy action” best describes what Mr Brown has been up to.

And in the Independent,Bruce Anderson perhaps sums up what many Labour MP's are thinking

He too looks like a great beast, trapped and helpless, thrashing around to no avail. But many of his own followers also wonder whether the leader whom they regarded as a lion is only a mouse.

Labour councillor Bob Piper one of the many activists who is at the sharp end of the electorate suggests that Brown should do the following to get out of the mess

1. Do something about the 10p tax rate
2. Forget the plans for the 42 day detention
3. Scrap the Id card proposals

Not popular I am sure but perhaps at a swipe his unpopularity may decline

I am sure that although the first one may be tackled the second and third will not but at least according to Andrew Porter,Brown is preparing to face his critics

It has not been confirmed but I’m told Gordon Brown is likely to go to this
evening’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party.........Mr Brown will no
doubt seek to calm fears which have been heightened by MPs on the doorstep
encountering a lot of dissatisfaction ahead of next week’s local elections. The
whips will also hope that a return to the Commons will also bring about more
discipline. We’ll see

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