A few snippets

I was trying to see whether Cuddly Dave's Tories actually had any published policies on their website and perhaps they are starting to get there. I thought I'd see what they were proposing in 1997 and a few of that manifesto's promises made me chuckle. Were they never to be, well actually, though Labour has been in power, I found one that definitely has.

In 1997 John Major's Tories wanted to:

"Over the next parliament, our aim will be to achieve our target of a 20p basic rate of income tax, while maintaining a maximum tax rate of no more than 40p."

This was a feature of Brown's last budget as Chancellor.

Further, from this year on Corporation Tax Major's mob proposed:

"We will cut the small companies rate of corporation tax in line with personal taxation as we move towards a 20p basic rate."

This was enacted this year too.

But of course, I don't want to be doing the Tories' job for them, they are bad enough at that already. There is much they opposed in 1997 and after that I wanted Tony Blair's government to do and they did.

Major proposed that:

"No Conservative government will sign up to the Social Chapter or introduce a national minimum wage We will insist at the Intergovernmental Conference in Amsterdam that our opt-out is honoured and that Britain is exempted from the Working Time Directive: if old agreements are broken, we do not see how new ones can be made."

Of course, we signed the Social Chapter and this has made drastic improvements to the quality of life of millions with more holiday, better paternity and maternity rights and an end to poverty pay with the National Minimum Wage.