Labour’s London Mayoral hopefuls should lay off the Mansion Tax

Over the summer, I wrote a piece for the Evening Standard in which I worried openly about:

“Labour [Mayoral] hopefuls could spend months grandstanding, peeling away from party policy and ingratiating themselves with the London establishment.”

Last week Ed Miliband announced that the party’s proposed “Mansion Tax” would be spent on funding the NHS. And in the week since, several London politicians who are likely Mayoral hopefuls (and a few other London politicians) have spent their time at best distancing themselves from the policy, and at worst trashing it (both publicly and privately).

Some have expressed concern that homeowners who are asset rich but cash poor could be squeezed by the Mansion Tax – but ignore an article by Ed Balls back in June that explicitly ruled out that kind of impact from the tax.

The Tories are going to spend much of the next 8 months whipping up scare stories over the Mansion Tax, claiming (wrongly) that old people will lose their homes, and that whilst the Mansion Tax may only hit a small number of people now, but it could be you next. That’s nonsense – but it’s worryingly close to the lines being peddled by some likely candidates for London Mayor, and their comments will be used against Labour in Labour’s twelve target seats in the capital.

And besides – what kind of candidate for Labour’s Mayoral nomination is so focussed on the very (asset) richest of London residents. Calling it a “tax on the capital” or arguing that London will be hardest hit by the tax ignores that London is the city of the wealthy oligarch and stockbroker, but also the city with some of the highest levels of poverty in the country. Funnily enough – the people who will benefit from a stronger health service (funded by a Mansion Tax) get to vote in the London Mayoral election too.

Although perhaps unlike some who will be paying the Mansion Tax, they won’t be funding Mayoral campaigns.

And while we’re on the subject – when did so many in the Labour Party become so relaxed about the pernicious impact of sky-high central London housing pushing up rents and house prices across the capital, making it unaffordable for so many to live in the capital? And when was it decided that unearned wealth – of which house prices are a classic example – was something to be left alone?

There are plenty of ways we can fix our broken housing market that are more worthy of discussion and priority than the Mansion Tax – I wish as many London Labour figures were singing so loudly from the rooftops about the need to build more homes – to give but the most obvious example – that doesn’t mean the Mansion Tax is a bad idea. It isn’t.

As I wrote in August, candidates should:

“spend the next year campaigning for the next election that matters. Labour members will surely reward those who put party — and country — first.”

That still stands. Taking pot shots at a policy that is overwhelmingly popular with the public isn’t what Labour members will want to see.