Tory peer Norman Tebbitt praises Lib Dem tax policy

7.07.00pm GMT Fri 15th Jan 2010

Norman Tebbitt (now Lord Tebbitt) has written in praise of Lib Dem tax policy...

"And I hate to say it, but only one party leader seems to have grasped that, if you construct a system where unskilled people are worse off by taking a job than by staying on welfare, they remain trapped in poverty - and that is Nick Clegg. Lord knows, Frank Field and Iain Duncan Smith spelled it out in words and figures that only a simpleton could fail to understand, but the two main parties are unwilling to bite on the bullet and commit themseves to raising the income tax threshold from £6,475 to something like £10,000 or £12,000.

It is madness to claim that people so poor that they need welfare payments are at the same time sufficiently well-off to pay income tax."

To read his whole piece see http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/normantebbit/100022127/why-wont-the-two-main-parties-do-anything-about-the-madness-of-taxing-the-poor/