‘A wealth tax to save the NHS’

Being affable and relatable already puts you on the front foot, Andy. 

But you know it’s not enough to win the next general election. You’re up against the extreme right in an era of micro attention spans and the need to supply immediate gratification. They can offer cheap, and nasty, attention-grabbing Trumpian promises and policies because it is quick and easy for them to do hideous damage to precious social policies built up over decades. 

It’s much more difficult and slower for you to show gains from new policies. What is the one massively popular idea that every ordinary person in pre-election media vox pops will have on their lips? You need, like Trump, to create and ride a huge wave of controversy so even the utterly politically disengaged – which is most of the electorate – cannot miss your big achievement. 

A wealth tax is much-mooted, but on its own that will not cut through and pull enough support. To do that, the money from it should be dedicated (‘hypothecated’) to saving the NHS. That at once links it inextricably to your biggest policy and spending challenge, and gives you the means to solve it. And it cuts off at the knees the right-wing media’s inevitable critique of ‘Labour taxing and spending as usual’. 

The Treasury hates hypothecation, of course, so recruit your chancellor on the basis they’ll vigorously support a ‘wealth tax for the NHS’. You’ve been Chief Secretary to the Treasury, so you won’t underestimate the power of the Treasury and the capacity of its conservative-minded officials to procrastinate and get in the way. 

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Announce your ‘wealth tax for the NHS’ at a higher level than previously mooted, to generate maximum reaction and give you lots of chances to argue why it is such a good thing and push it into the public consciousness. 

What amount is needed for you to be able to incontestably boost the NHS so everyone will notice? After the last general election, Labour increased health spending by 5%, but that has largely been used playing catch-up against rising costs and the impacts of Tory austerity. 

Tax Justice UK is calling on you to implement a wealth tax of just 2% annually on assets of over £10 million, which would give you £24 billion to add 10% to the NHS annual spend of £242 billion. But that is less than those people will be able to grow those assets annually. And it is far too little to start to redress the inequalities of wealth in this country, a society where, according to economist Thomas Piketty, 50% of the population own less than 5% of the total wealth and the top 1% own 30%. 

Imagine you could fund the NHS with £100 billion more per year, Andy. You would increase the annual NHS budget by over 40%. That would drive immediate change that everyone would notice. And it would be equivalent to a tax on wealth over £10 million of less than 10% per year. Although you might want to graduate your ‘wealth tax for the NHS’ so the top wealth brackets pay more and the lower brackets pay a lower rate than that.

No sane normal person will think it is a bad idea. Only 0.04% of the population have that kind of wealth. Elon and his billionaire pals will look appalling opposing it. Lovely. I look forward to you giving them a public thrashing. It will make us all feel better after the beating Trump has meted out to us.

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Announce it now, Andy: 

“Tory cuts to taxes on extreme wealth have impoverished our public finances and brought our NHS to its knees. Today I’m reversing that so the ultra-rich play their fair part in supporting our treasured health service”

And then spend the three years to the next general election pushing it. 

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