“I am sorry to say that the Left Foot Forward analysis is inadequate (it totally ignores key aspects of Lib Dem tax and beneift policy) and the graphs you use are EXTREMELY misleading.

However, before I go on with my critique, I do acknowledge that your article makes SOME good points about Lib Dem tax policy – namely it is not as redistributive or as many of us on the Lib Dem left would like. I, for example, would like to see a far more redistributive package that helped people right at the very bottom – perhaps through a Citizen’s Income policy for example.

However, although I belive Lib Dem tax policy could be better (MUCH better) – I will attempt to explain why you are wrong to condemn it in full.

Concerning the graphs – you only analyse the effect of the raising of the threshold and the changes to the 40p rate. You do not include graphs which show the effect of the tax changes at the top (changes to Capital Gains Tax, Pension Relief and Mansion Tax). If you did, it would show clearly lower and middle deciles benefiting, at the expense of the very top. This would give the casual reader a very different impression of what Lib Dem tax policy implies.

Now, I recognise you do mention this in the text – though you still choose not to put a large emphasis on it. It remains the case that lower income earners DO benefit at the expense of high income earners. This is redistributive and progressive.

However, more worryingly, you miss some of Lib Dem tax/benefit policies entirely – both from your graphs and your text. Many of these address your concerns that Lib Dem policy is biased towards the middle.
Key aspects of this are:
- The Local Income Tax: Which I believe benefits the lower deciles at the expense of the middle and the top.
- The removal/reduction of tax credits from middle income earners. (Lets leave aside the debate over long vs short tapers for the moment and just focus on the pure, immediate distributive consequences)
- The introduction of higher rate child benefit. (Party policy, which will hopefully still be in the manifesto)

As you said in your text it is stupid to look at income figures before all tax/benefit policies have been applied – yet that is exactly what your own analysis does.

Taking these factors into consideration would show very different (and far more progressive) distributive consequences. It would show the poor benefiting more, the middle benefiting less and the rich really getting even more of a hit!

I hope that you can accept these points… then go back any redo your pamphlet showing the the effect of Lib Dem tax/benefit policy as a whole.

Leaving your article as it is can only mislead voters and lead to a seepage of votes away from what are actually the most progressive tax/benefit policies of any of the 3 major parties.

We can all say the policies could be better but don’t condemn everything wholesale on a partial and misleading analysis.

Peter Kunzmann,
Social Liberal Forum”

But it is an illegitimate challenge when you are only focusing on one half of the policy. And it certainly does deserve robust rebuttal when it is clear that you are lashing out to divert attention away from your own party’s failure to address the issue.