That 10p...

Some NuLabour MPs have seen what was obvious to many of us just 2 days after last year's budget, - that those on low incomes were the most likely losers, indeed the only losers from Bottler's rabbit out of the hat in 2007!

In other words the result is that on those liable to tax at all, many of the lowest paid will qualify for more benefits, although having to pay more tax, those earning under about 18,000 who do not qualify for credit, - single and childless for example, will be worse off, while those earning over £18,000 will pay less tax.

We have a supposed Labour Government increasing inequality.

There is more. Within one day of recently gaining independence from Treasury control, the head of the Office for National Statistics, Karen Dunnell, published a report on British Society.

Concentrating here merely on the income situation, her conclusion is staggering. During the period when Gordon Brown was chancellor the income gap between rich and poor did not narrow.

Average incomes of all income groups rose, but in percentage terms each percentile* gained the same share of total income as before.

This was despite all the cumbersome and complicated measures brought in by Brown. The 2007 budget did nothing to change the inequality, on the contrary....

*A percentile is a group of incomes representing 10% of income recipients when they have been ranged by size of income. So the top percentile has the top 10% of incomes, the ninth is the next 10%, and so on.