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- Rachel Reeves, just tell voters why taxes must go up – and then do it | Polly Toynbee
Rachel Reeves, just tell voters why taxes must go up – and then do it | Polly Toynbee
The political stage is set for a defining moment of fiscal courage, yet Chancellor Rachel Reeves seems to be hesitating at the precipice. With the November 26th budget looming just six weeks away, the air is thick with a speculation that feels less like genuine inquiry and more like a deliberately orchestrated campaign of fear, a tactic all too familiar in the theatre of power where women leaders are often held to a different, harsher standard.The central question isn't whether taxes will rise—the £40 billion fiscal chasm makes that a foregone conclusion—but whether the government possesses the political will to reframe the entire narrative around taxation itself. The Thatcherite legacy, which successfully painted tax as a form of state-sanctioned theft, a punitive measure on individual success, remains the ghost in the machine, an ideological poison that has stunted our collective imagination for decades.Reeves and Prime Minister Keir Starmer have a profound, almost feminist, task ahead: to dismantle this corrosive myth and articulate, with unflinching clarity, that taxation is not a penalty but the very bedrock of a decent, civilized society. It is the subscription fee we pay for public health, for educated children, for cared-for elders, and for safe streets.The current silence, the failure to 'roll the political pitch,' is a strategic misstep of potentially historic proportions. Voters are not children to be shielded from difficult truths; they are citizens who deserve to understand the stark choices between crumbling schools and robust ones, between overwhelmed hospitals and a functioning National Health Service.The political danger lies not in the act of raising revenue, but in the failure to connect that revenue to tangible human outcomes. This is where the conversation must turn to justice—specifically, targeting unearned wealth.Why should income from hard work be taxed more heavily than income from passively holding assets or inheriting fortunes? A serious, social-democratic government would be courageously exploring a genuine wealth tax, higher capital gains taxes aligned with income tax rates, and a radical overhaul of inheritance tax loopholes that perpetuate dynastic inequality. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has long provided the blueprints; what has been missing is the political bravery.The prime minister’s personal story, his roots in the toolmaking trade, should instinctively align with this fight for fiscal fairness, yet the messaging remains trapped in a defensive crouch. History offers clear lessons: governments that level with the public during times of crisis, like the post-war Attlee administration which built the welfare state amidst national bankruptcy, are remembered as transformative.Those that prevaricate and hide, fearing short-term headlines, are often consumed by the very storms they tried to avoid. The opposition and their media allies will cry 'betrayal' regardless of the policy details; they are not arguing in good faith.Therefore, the only viable path is to embrace the inevitable and use it as a teaching moment for the nation. Explain that every pound collected from a more progressive system is a pound invested in a child’s future mental health support, in retrofitting a cold home for an elderly pensioner, or in funding the research that will cure the diseases of tomorrow.This is not merely accountancy; it is a moral choice about the kind of country we wish to be. The political risk of raising taxes is palpable, but the social risk of not doing so—of allowing public services to decay further and inequality to harden into a permanent caste system—is far, far greater.Reeves must step onto the national stage not as an apologetic accountant, but as a builder, a visionary articulating a covenant between the state and its people. She must tell a story where tax is the hero, not the villain, in the epic of our shared national life. The success of this government, and the integrity of the society it seeks to steward, depends entirely on this act of political storytelling and the courageous policy that must follow.
JA
Jamie Lowe123k2 days ago
tbh i'll believe a wealth tax when i see it, feels like we've heard this all before
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JA
Jamie Wilson123k2 days ago
tbh i wish someone would just explain it all clearly like this smh it's just money for schools and hospitals
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