Cameron and Brown clash over National Insurance

Predictably David Cameron focused on Labour’s proposed rise in National Insurance in the last parliamentary question time. But despite the rise of indignation from businessmen (yes, check it out, all of the Telegraph business leaders who called for the NI rise to be reversed are men, except Anya Hindmarch), this measure would hit workers, not bosses.

Cameron said:

"This prime minister would wreck the recovery by putting a tax on every job, on everyone earning over £20,000, a tax on aspiration, a tax on every business in the country."

Instead of the £10 billion the 1% rise would bring in, the Tories are proposing… well, £10 billion of cuts in public services and service providers’ jobs, pay and pensions. Or, as Gordon Brown pointed out, an even bigger hit of a 2.5% rise in VAT.

But in fact, the NI rise is not anti-boss. First off, every worker would pay an extra 1% of their wages to the Treasury. Secondly, according to the Telegraph:

“Economists say that rises in employer Nics are effectively passed on to workers in the form of lower wages or job cuts.”

 What neither party nor the Lib Dems are proposing is to tax big business and the rich, close the “tax avoidance” loopholes, and jail the tax evaders. That's the blindingly obvious answer – but only the Anticapitalists and the TUSC candidates are calling for these measures in this election.

I’ll be taking this message out to the trade union backed “Defend Public Services” demo this Saturday. Join me and thousands more marching from the Embankment to Trafalgar Square!