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I wonder if the government really do understand the "post neotaxation rebellion growth theory".

My how Darling has aged: even his eyebrows are now white!

The biggest problem I've seen with the Labour Party is lack of strategic focus and infighting when the going gets tough, and this difficulty should help them get a grip on that. If they want a reminder why it's important they only have to recall what a bunch of puddings they were during the Iraq War debate and the gesture politics that followed after General Petraeus surge. Sound reasoning, sociability, and the long-haul are key to success. Keep that in mind and votes will throw themselves into the ballot box of their own accord.

All hail Blessed Leader!

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What was all the cheering and desk thumping about in last night's meeting, Nick? It doesn't sound like they've got much to celebrate to me!

I'm surprised that all Labour MP's weren't persuaded by Ed Ball's "So What?" speach in the commons on budget day as regards to the incresing taxation of families etc.

I wonder if he'd care to repeat that very moving and motivating, if not inspiring speach to voters on their doorsteps as I'm sure they'll agree with him on this issue

"So What?" if pensioners are paying more
"So What?" if ones cleaner is paying more
"So What?" if the poor become poorer and the rich get richer

I'm not losing out on my £100,000+ a year salary he could say, ok some of you may lose out, but I'm not

"So What?"

Flip, flop. Dither, dither. How much time and money have this lot wasted turning around the Great Ditherer's last boast as chancellor that he was cutting taxes. Even Tony Blair saw straight through this gesture politics.

Gesture politics is all our new prime Minister is capable of and it's OUR money with whch he makes the gestures.

It's time to get rid of this self satistified financially incontinent bunch of charmless losers.

2+2= 4 and our PM gets it, after only 12 months and repeated prompting by his backbenchers and ministerial aids, who got there just one week before him.

It's easy to see why he has a reputation for a powerful intellect, a grip of all things economic and for surrounding himself with top talent.

You couldn't make it up.

With apologies to Charles H :

All failed, useless bleeders

Gordon Brown is to blame for this, he did this whilst he was chancellor.

Alister Darling is just a Gofer the only string he can pull is one at a loose end, lets face it look at the number of departments that has passed through his hands... and has anyone of them come out with credit?

The problem may be much more deep rooted than just this issue.

The "New Gordon" Project has been a failure by anyones standard, and it seems that even Labour MPs are starting to see that now.

The whole "just getting on with the job" and "setting out the vision" are just not washing with the public anymore, and they have sidetracked tackling problems entirely of their own making.

A would think an increasing number of Labour of MPs are starting to think "are people really going to vote for Gordon Brown as PM in a general election ?"

They really don't get it. At least the Tories knew they were attacking the poor with the poll tax (even if it was the middle classes who got really upset). This lot just cannot see that taking extra tax from the lowest paid, whilst giving money hand over fist to the banking sector is just plain wrong. Of course they can't afford to help the poor, they are too busy trying to keep house prices high for all those people who have made a fortune over the last 10 years.

Simple Really !

Take 10% from the poor underclasses.

Give £50 billion to Gordon's Banker friends.

Its called NewLabour Wealth Distribution
towards a fairer and more humane Society.

And when in trouble -

a)deny it is happening

b) state it is a good thing that the poor are being more and more dispossed because it HELPS the ECONOMY

c) and finally blame it all on the Media

Mugabe politics or what ?

If Brown cared half as much about the 5M people he has clobbered by this as he does about "losing face" he would have avoided this problem in the first place. Instead of working on the rebels ministers should work on a compensation package.

The principle is very simple: anyone who has lost our and is not already compensated by other means should have their PAYE code adjusted so that they pay what they would have done under the 10p:22p system. The details can be left to secondary legislation. They can pay for it by cutting ID cards, and why not a 10% cut in ministerial salaries while they are at it?

Amendments at Report Stage are somewhat tricky. Also why on earth does Brown, or anyone else in NuLab, think they would do better on May 1 with this issue hanging over them than with it resolved?

I am sorry. A Prime Minister - and a Labour one at that - who needs to be told that it will spell bad news to remove the 10p rate of tax and replace it with one at 20p doesn't get it. Will never get it. Doesn't have it. Will never have it.

I wouldn't have a lot of confidence in a Treasury inquiry into what can be done. The obvious answer it will come back with is "nothing can be done", that is if an answer comes back on time, or even at all. It is not in the Treasury's interests to come up with a bona fide solution.

Parliament needs to do something to force the Treasury's hand. One possible measure would be to use a private member's bill to repeal the last Income Tax Act from a specified date -- this would essentially give the Treasury a deadline to come up with suitable measures or lose all revenue from income tax.

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What about pensioners. Some commentators, and MPs, do not think pensioners are affected by this tax change but in fact a significant number will end up paying twice as much in tax because of these changes and will not qualify for any compensating benefits. For example, a pensioner in their 60s with a small annuity (say £1000 - 1500, plus additional pension due to SERPS payments will now pay twice as much in tax as they did last year. A fact the pensioners grasped last year when the announcement was made by Gordon Brown in his budget. Although it seems it went straight over the heads of Labour MPs - or should that be 'straight through'?

As to what Gordon Brown said to the MPs to get them onside - I guess that would have been the promise of a bigger and better John Lewis catalogue!

Surely noone would ever believe a 'jam tomorrow' promise by G Brown.

Just look at his record -- even if he does say exactly what you want him to say, by the time it comes to actioning it, the words always take on a whole new meaning that noone else could ever have guessed.

Nick Robinson. Why don't you report the facts that at the budget last year when David Cameron pointed out that many people would be worse off those same McLiebour MPs now whining actually jeered Cameron?

Why don't you ask McLiebour MPs why it is the Tories and Lib Dems had worked out millions would be worse off but McLiebour MPs couldn't?

Why don't you ask those McLiebour MPs WHY the cheered Gordon McBean when he mentioned the 2p tax cut? Are they now ashamed?

Why was no protest made about the withdrawal of the 10% band made when it was first announced ? Did everybody think that the tax which was paid at 10% would no longer be applicable and the new 20% band start where the old 22% started ? Was the original announcement deliberately fudged ? The current justification of the removal of the band is on the grounds of simplicity. However there are many areas of the tax system which are considerably more complicated than a variable band structure on income tax so why start with that. My guess is that a 2p tax reduction sounded like a vote winner and stole a bit of ground from the opposition. My how it has backfired.

Well, whilst of course its quite right to critique Labour's socially iniquitous tax raising strategy the most telling remark for me is that Darling felt he had no choice.

Not because his boss actually introduced it but because the cash is desperately needed because of this administrations total inability to plan and run any significant project to a budget.

The most recent headlines are Olympics billions over budget, submarines, aircraft carriers, destroyers and planes, each project many billions ( e.g. £13 billion for Eurofighter and £7 billion for Nimrod replacement)over budget ( and many years late), NHS computer system billions over budget and no sign of delivery, Other government IT projects, often not delivered in a functional state at all, are rumored to total at least £20 billions over budget.

Its really not that difficult to come to a total sum for budget overspends equal to one years total tax income during the eleven years of this administration. No wonder the economy has problems , any real business, those that can't by law compel their customers to buy overpriced, late, shoddy goods and services would have gone to the wall long before now.

Essentially the poor are being asked to stump up for probably the most incompetent project management and wasteful government anywhere in the western world. Thats the real root of the problem.

The fundamental issue to my mind is that the Government has been found out big time on this one. There are many, many earlier instances in which they have done similar things but where either the number of people involved has been relatively few (still large absolute numbers) or they have been those without much electoral or lobbying clout. Once the genie of deception is out of the bottle, it is very difficult to get it back in.

My young daughter and her partner have spent a dreadful winter fighting money problems caused by job loss (due to a contractor's bankruptcy), broken employment promises (due to the financial services' problems), etc., and now cannot pay their rent in full for the third month running without parental help because of the 10p tax rate cut. The stress of all this has now driven them apart, and they're back home with their families.

I can only presume that Gordon Brown et al would prefer them not to go to uni and try to make a success of their lives on their own, starting out at the bottom and working their up. Should I tell her to just get pregnant as soon as possible and live on the handouts, complete with free flat?

Whatever they now decide, I for one will never vote for them again locally or nationally.

This Labour policy made no sense to me until I read an interesting theory today (Unfortunately, I can't remember where I read it).

Brown has promised to reduce child poverty by 2010. Child poverty is counted by comparing the income of families with children to to the income of everyone. By reducing the income of poorer people without children, Brown is actually "reducing" child poverty by making people without children even poorer. It's a bit like chopping the legs off the shortest 10% of the population to make the rest of the population taller.

So to summarize the Brown policy: reduce child poverty by making the poor without children even poorer!

I hope this theory doesn't contain any truth!

Given that it was Chancellor Brown who introduced the 10% rate in 1999, and was widely praised at the time for doing so, it does seem completely bizarre that his goverment should reverse it.

At a stroke he has destroyed his reputation for quiet progressive tax reforms, while retaining his reputation for the "stealth taxes" which paid for the reforms.

My only thought is that, facing a fiscal crisis, Brown and Darling chose to sting the poor (more likely to stick with Labour) rather than better-paid middle England who are more likely to switch to the Tories.

If so, this calculation, like so many of PM Brown's poltical calculations, has badly misfired.

What is there to get?
If tax goes up, as it does for some people, from 10% to 20% then they pay more tax!
Tis is not rocket science!!

So what went wrong?
Incompetence?
Cynicism?
Or Hubris???

So Gordon "the Brain" Brown finally "gets it".
What a pathetic figure he cuts as he tries to convince us that increasing the Tax Rate for the lowest paid workers was in fact
a) Beneficial
b) Would make them better off
and ,
c) Would convince them to applaud his genius and vote "new labour" back into power next time round.
As an OAP I'm one of the people Gordon "screws",fortunately having suffered a sizeable loss of income when Gordon first went on his Exchequer rampage in the late 90's and early 2000,I have taken all possible steps to neutralise the corrosive effect of his stupidity.If the Labour MP's have the courage of their convictions and back Frank Field in his endeavour to gain recompense for the Working Class people Gordon Brown taxed,we may well see an end to this dismat Chancellor and his successor.
Ed Corbett

I am a pensioner and expected to live and pay all household bills on £85 a week.The government gives £200 per year per household for heating bills, big deal,my quartely bill was £300.
I am sick and tired of hearing about eradicating child poverty which does not exist in this country, all the money thrown at single parent, normally is spent on drinks, cigarettes, drugs etc. and it encourages to have more children without a father figure or any responsibility.
I have paid full N.I. contributions and served my country for nearly 60 years but i did not expect to live in poverty.
It seems that we can afford to house, feed all the immigrants etc., but we cannot look after our own pensioners thanks to Brown garbbing £5 billion from the pension fund.
Brown has got a nerve critisising Mugabe when he himself was forced on us and was not elected.
This government has ruined the nation.
All they are interested is getting their nose in the trough and making sure that they are alright Jack!
This abolision of 10p tax is going to affect all pensioners, can anybody suggest how i can improve my financial situation?, maybe i should become an M.P?

OK Nick, would you please care to explain where you and the parliamentary labour party were for the last year? Whilst I was blogging about labour doubling the income tax of the poorest workers in the land, and writing letters and filling in feedback forms on the Evening of Brown's last budget speech, where were you? Where was the PLP? Crowing about the 2p tax cut, that's where!

Why didn't anyone realise AT THE TIME that labour was increasing the poorest workers income tax by 100%?

Why does the media insist on calling this an abolition of the tax, when in reality in people's payslips, it is a doubling of their tax? Where is the honesty in reporting? And how can you ever have the gall to collect your massively inflated salary for such shoddy fact-lite reportage?

If the labour party doubling the taxes of their core constituency, the working poor in whose name the labour party was founded, is not considered newsworthy, then, excuse me, but, what the hell is???

I am a housewife with no earned income. However I have bank deposits which earn me about £7K interest each year. I have always been able to claim back 20% tax on the first £5K or so (personal tax free allowance) AND ALSO 10% ON THE 10p BAND. This second part of my claim will now be lost, thus I lose £232. (10% of 2320, the former 10p band).
I have not seen anyone else bemoaning this situation.

The rebel MPs hold all the cards. Brown and Darling cannot afford to ignore them or threaten them, as the possibility of losing a vote on the Budget is too terrifying for them to contemplate.

No doubt the solution will be incredibly complicated and waste millions of pounds and rack up the bureaucracy in central government even further.

These people don't care a jot about Joe Public having to tighten their belts in Tesco, or at the petrol pumps in order to stay in a house which is now in negative equity.

I really hope the rebel MP's make things extremely difficult for Labour and they lose lots of seats in the forthcoming local elections. This Government do not deserve to stay in power a minute longer than necessary and the sooner we get rid of them all - the better!

I think what is telling is how the Government has got itself into such a daft situation. In a way it is all part and parcel of the horribly convoluted, inefficient and degrading system of 'tax credits'. What is needed is a complete and thorough rationalisation of the tax system, and for 'rationalisation' read 'simplification'. I personally favour replacing direct taxation with indirect taxation, but whatever principle is chosen, it must become simpler. With computerisation it is now possible to have not only two or three tax band but ten, and it would be far fairer to tax us all progressively than to take money away from us and then get us to apply to the Treasury to get some of it back again. I firmly believe that that the state is there to serve us, not we the state.

I know all the arguments about how this government wants to focus on looking after the old and families with young children, but when a Labour administration doubles the tax burden on society’s poorest members it really is only a matter of time before hell freezes over.

I don't believe Gordon Brown really 'gets it' - but he will at the next election.

Today's news is that he wants the flag of St George flown at all government buildings. What planet is he living on?

I don't get it - and I'm sure most people who live in the real world don't either.

Who will rid us of this troublesome Scot?

Forgive me for appearing cynical, but MP's have had six months to oppose the change on the 10p tax increase since it was proposed in the pre budget statement. Why have they waited until the local elections are about to happen before they complain ? Could it be that they care more about losing their seat, gold plated pension and expenses, than they do about the poorest low paid workers and pensioners.

I am a socialist and a member of the Labour oparty up to 2000. At the next election, I will not be voting, simply because I do not believe that a single mainstream party is there for the poor, the marginalised, the vulnerable. Labour have betrayed their people, the people who the party was set up for and by, and they deserve now to lose next time round, however much the thought of 4 years of the Thatch wannabe Cameron fills me with horror

Imagine the uproar from the Labour benches if a Conservative government did this. I just can't believe that it took so long for the Labour MPs to realise what the budget actually meant!

Gordon Brown still doesn't "get it", he's just pretending to because his own job is in the balance. He had over a year to "get it" but decided not to because his own job wasn't at risk until now.
The labour rebels do "get it" (I think they always did) but they'll be bought-off by insanely over complex new rules/credits that won't help anyone in the real world.
So, although the rebels "get it", they don't "get" the level of intense hatred that people now have against their party/government who has stolen all their money and then burned it.

Of course Yvette Cooper’s Wikipedia entry’s equally as enlightening as her hubbie’s - . Never had a ‘proper’ job – straight from university into becoming a political researcher.

And, crime of crimes - well somewhat tongue in cheek - where was she born? You’ve guess of course Inverness.