Weekly Survey: Scottish income tax, Rochester & Strood by-election and Thornberry’s resignation

Former Chancellor and chair of the Better Together campaign Alistair Darling weighed in on matters of fiscal devolution this week, arguing that income tax should not be completely devolved to Holyrood. “We risk ending up with the same institutional structures of the eurozone: an integrated monetary union without a fiscal union,” he warns, “No one voted for that.”

Of the candidates for Scottish Labour leader, all have expressed their reservations about total devolution on the subject, although Jim Murphy has indicated that he may be willing to go further than Findlay and Boyack in handing over these powers to the Scottish Parliament.

Does the desire for devolution in Scotland mean it is now right to transfer over all powers of income tax to the Scottish Parliament, or does it risk the health of the UK economy? What’s your view?

In the Rochester and Strood by-election last Thursday, Labour finished third behind the Tories and winners UKIP. We polled 16.8% of the vote – a drop of 11.7% from 2010.

Labour came under fire from some activists for not putting enough resources into the seat – Luke Akehurst slammed it as a “Mr Micawber strategy” on LabourList.

However, while it is technically a seat we held until the last election, post-2005 boundary changes have been unkind to Labour. On top of that, a media narrative of a Tory-UKIP two-horse race may have left Labour lagging from the off. Meanwhile, a voteshare did not fall as drastically as either government party.

So how do you rate Labour’s performance in the by-election?

On Thursday, Emily Thornberry tweeted a now infamous photograph of a house in Rochester covered in England flags with a white van outside. For many, this seemed to cement an idea that many in the Labour Party are out of touch – especially after Thornberry defended posting the picture as she thought the house was “remarkable”.

By Thursday night, Thornberry had resigned from her position as Shadow Attorney General, saying that she did not to remain if it might do anything to make a Labour victory in 2015 more difficult.

Others have come out to defend the Islington MP and attached the fallout as an overreaction, unworthy of a resignation.

What is your view? Was she right to resign, or should she have stayed in post?

The survey will be open until noon on Thursday. You can vote here.