Jonathan Todd

Interesting set of book reviews from Julian Le Grand in the latest Prospect. He comments intelligently on The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett – a book which David Aaronovitch has also recently commented upon. Le Grand also reviews Unjust Rewards by Polly Toynbee and David Walker.

It’s worth a look. He advocates a policy on inheritance tax – also, wrongly, known as the death tax – that I previously been sympathetic to myself. This is to “hypothecate the revenues from inheritance tax to the new Child Trust Fund. In true Baconian fashion, the wealth of one generation would thus be used to fertilise the growth of the next. It might also make inheritance tax more popular, or at least less disliked”.

This hypothecation is fundamentally just: redistribution, via the Child Trust Fund, from those who are born into wealth to those who are not. It also challenges the misconception that the death tax tag encourages: that the person being taxed is the person who has died, rather than those who stand to inherit unearned wealth.

The death tax language perfectly framed the inheritance tax issue from the perspective of George W Bush’s Republicans, while the linking of inheritance tax and the Child Trust Fund nicely frames these policies from a Labour perspective. Framing policies in ways that speak to your values allow beachheads to be created – Policies that are easily understood by the public but which cut to the core of your governing philosophy. Selling council houses performed this function for Margaret Thatcher. The minimum wage did the trick for the early Blair years. Labour desperately needs to quickly establish other beachheads. Le Grand’s idea might be a good way to start.