Labour is stoking tensions between Scotland and England after it announced a “fiscally vindictive” plan to pay for an extra 1,000 nurses north of the border through a mansion tax that will be levied mainly on properties in the south-east of England,Boris Johnson has said. The London mayor accused Labour of adopting divisive tactics after the new Labour leader in Scotland, Jim Murphy, highlighted how the party’s mansion tax would benefit the Scottish NHS while homeowners north of the border would make only a small contribution. Speaking on his LBC phone-in, Johnson said: “Londoners perfectly accept that we have a duty to the rest of the country. We already export huge quantities in taxation – about £19bn a year. But I don’t think it is right that the Labour party should be saying one thing to the Scots and standing on a completely different ticket in London … It is very regrettable that Labour should use divisive tactics and should be setting up one part of the country against another. It won’t pay off for them.” Johnson spoke out after Murphy intensified his campaign to woo back disaffected Labour voters, who have flocked to the SNP since the independence referendum in September, by outlining how the mansion tax would benefit Scotland. The Labour leader in Scotland said that the levy on properties worth more than £2m, which is designed to raise £1.2bn for the NHS, would help to pay for 1,000 nurses in Scotland. He said that of the 100,000 homes likely to be eligible for the tax, fewer than 1,000 would be in Scotland. Murphy, who did not clear his remarks with Ed Miliband as he seeks to distance the Scottish Labour party from its UK leadership in London, told the Times: “We will tax houses in London and the south-east to pay for the 1,000 new nurses in the Scottish NHS. It’s a real win-win for Scotland.” Johnson said Labour was attempting to squeeze Londoners “till the pips squeak”, quoting Denis Healey’s remarks about what should be done to property speculators. He told LBC: “It is no way to run a country. This is no way to claim you are the unifying force in this great country of ours. You should not be saying to one group of people: vote for us in Scotland because we are going to tax, we are going to mug even, squeeze those Londoners till the pips squeak. That is a way to set up resentments. I don’t think it is the right way forward.” The mayor added: “Labour created [the] monster of Scottish nationalism, which almost led to the breakup of our country last year. What’s happened now is Labour has made a cynical calculation that they are more vulnerable in Scotland to the SNP than they are in the south-east or London. They have decided to be fiscally vindictive towards the south-east of England in order to try to bribe the Scots to vote Labour.”
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 19:49:06 +0000
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