Vote!
Can Gordon Brown recover from the 10p tax fiasco?
- 46% are saying yes
- 54% are saying no
comments from readers
- Carl Jones
14 May 2008 - yes
Brown doesn`t need to recover. Boris will do it for him.lol
The next general election will likely be decided by the quality of the hacker....the machines are taking over.LOL
- Jenny Webb
14 May 2008 - yes
I fear he's got his work cut out but if he takes on the wimps on the Tory frontbench there's every chance
- swatantra nandanwar
14 May 2008 - yes
Yes, but time is running out. Brown needs to connect more with the public and really show that he feels their pain.
- George
15 May 2008 - no
It wasn't the abolition of the 10p tax band,per se, that caused the damage, it was the the u-turn that followed.
- roy ormond
15 May 2008 - no
What thought went into the introduction of the 10p tax?
Typical of all the Blair/Brown ideas over the past decade. Resulting in yet another U turn. Policies cobbled together on hoof. - patty
16 May 2008 - yes
i think he can becasue he is cool :)
- patty
16 May 2008 - yes
yes he can because he has a nice body mmmmm
- patty
16 May 2008 - yes
i agree
- patty
16 May 2008 - yes
im gonna hav a bat now
- William
16 May 2008 - yes
Whats a few pence between friends
- Glenpars
16 May 2008 - yes
He has had a hard start to his new role but is still more to be trusted than the rest.
- timbo
16 May 2008 - no
Unless he can pull something absolutely magical out of his hat, which isn't his sytle at all, then he's had it. In London, we can feel especially aggrieved as not only has he recently robbed the poorer members of our community with his 10p tax changes but his errors of judgement have landed us with Boris Johnson. Cheers.
- George Eaton
16 May 2008 - yes
He must use the fallout to put the case for a genuinely progressive tax system, with a new top rate for the richest.
- alexweir1949
16 May 2008 - yes
The Establishment and the Media have it in for Gordon Brown. They regard him as a dangerous idealist with potential to be an iconaclast. Mr Alex Weir, Harare
16 May 2008- no
He's so clever, he met himself on the way back. Utter garbage. Time to allow someone else to rescue Labour from annihilation in 2010 - tho' only to a position where the core support is restored.
- npgdavies
16 May 2008 - no
The mixture of arrogance and incompetence is very unattractive
- RHF
17 May 2008 - no
It is really the 10% tax, 42 days, Northern Rock, too many to bother listing Fiasco, or Fiasci. Blundering his way into oblivion.
17 May 2008- no
You've got to be joking - it's clear that he worries more about his rich friends in the city than the poor people who used to vote Labour!
- ainslie
17 May 2008 - no
i feel we are being railroaded into a cameron goverment gordon brown has made mistakes but please give him some time.as a fellow scot salmond scares me so lets train our political guns on him.
- jo
18 May 2008 - no
i'm not sure about the question, actually. what does the the new stateman mean by 'recover'? recover legitimacy? with which group?
with the working class, he never had legitimacy. if he ever did it was based on manipulation, not real working class policies, and therefore it was always weak.
to the tories, who would happily keep working class wages down and cut social benefits, even more than new labour ever could, and bend over backwards for capital as much if not more than new labour ever could, the 'fiasco' was just an opportunity to finish off brown in the most hypocritical way.
- Hepsibar
18 May 2008 - no
we are a family of low earners (despite my degree and loads of experience, etc), my daughter has just secured a job where she earns the grand total of #12,450 pa for back breakingly hard essential work. Our 10p tax has not been abolished, it has been doubled. Why cant people see that our tax burden has doubled, and is by far a greater contribution paid in tax of our paltry wages than the so called professional classes and well off who are manking and moaning about their mortgages! anyway, what is a mortgage? It is something that is only in fairy tales as we can never afford one. Too busy paying ridicously high rent to these middle class investors (we call them "exploiters") as there is no social housing any more. But that is yet another terrible consequence of successive government inactivity towards the poor. Labour? What Labour? When there is a real Labour party around let me know and then I will vote for them. Until then, we shall remain one of the many "apathetic" who are just trying to prevent ourselves from living on the streets due to their obsession with the rich.
- suell
18 May 2008 - yes
yes - just, as the public can be fickle. However, his reputation for financial wizardry does seem permanently damaged and he will need to deliver some sgtrong measures in other policy areas asap.
Sue Lloyd
- David D, London
19 May 2008 - no
as this 10p tax fiasco shows GB is out of touch with ans does not care about the electorate he cannot recover from this huge error
- enza61
21 May 2008 - yes
from Enza Corigliano, Reggio Calabria, Italy
Italy is experiencing a new form of intolerance, that is what I would call fascism and racism. Unfortunately Fascism is a state of mind, a mentality more than a real doctrine nowadays in Italy, and especially in the South of Italy, where I live, people are in a condition of slaves, not of citizens: they are slaves to whoever promises them a job or a profit, and people are trying to stick to that notorious Italian policy of "si arrangi chi può" (go and get whatever you can). So they become prey to politicians, government officials and other public administration officers who in exchange of favours or money can give them what they want regardless of expertise and meritocracy.
- Nathalie
23 May 2008 - no
I think the Italians are not that stupid as to forget what happened in Italy during WW2. They may be fed up with all types of governments (radical, socialist, conservative, Olive, etc) but going fascist is something very different. It is particularly violent. I doubt that Italians want that.
