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Your support makes all the difference.<\/strong>Read more<\/p>\n Sir Keir, what have you done? Having climbed down over welfare reform<\/a>, the prime minister now faces a left-wing with the bit between its teeth<\/a>. They are in the ascendant alright, and don\u2019t they know it. <\/p>\n The latest to step up to the plate is Lord Kinnock<\/a>. The former Labour leader says there are \u201cpathways\u201d to raising taxes<\/a> \u201cthat, I think, people are willing to explore and actually would commend themselves to the great majority of the general public.<\/p>\n \u201cThey include, for instance, asset taxes in a period in which for the last 20-odd years in the United Kingdom, like quite a lot of other Western economies, earned incomes have stagnated in real terms while asset values have zoomed. They\u2019ve just gone through the roof and they\u2019ve been barely touched.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, you wouldn\u2019t have to touch assets of under \u00a36 million or \u00a37 million, so people\u2019s houses would be secure, obviously. But even by going for an imposition of 2 per cent on asset values above \u00a310 million, say, which is a very big fortune, the Government would be in a position to collect \u00a310 billion or \u00a311 billion a year.\u201d<\/p>\n Kinnock once told the party conference: \u201cI am telling you, no matter how entertaining, how fulfilling to short-term egos \u2013 you can’t play politics with people’s jobs and with people’s services or with their homes.\u201d Presumably he did not mean rich people who create those jobs<\/a>. <\/p>\n Because, make no mistake, he is playing politics with them, with their assets<\/a>, with their success \u2013 and with the people who rely on the wealthy for their incomes, with an Exchequer that also depends on their taxes<\/a> and their continued faith in Britain. <\/p>\n Unfortunately, due to his status, Kinnock has a following. At least five trade unions have come forward to declare they will lean on Sir Keir Starmer to do what he suggests. Among them is Unison, once the employer of Angela Rayner<\/a>, who was its most senior elected official in the North-West of England prior to becoming an MP. Christina McAnea, the Unison general secretary, said: \u201cA wealth tax<\/a> would be a much fairer way of raising revenue to invest in public services and grow the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n Listening to and reading their outpourings you do have to wonder what planet they live on, which bit of a globally connected world<\/a>, that is seeing countries (including those Western countries Kinnock refers to, which have seen asset values soar and incomes stagnate) falling over themselves to attract foreign investors they do not understand. Those nations know their money generates prosperity<\/a> and jobs. Which is another way of saying economic growth. <\/p>\n The evidence of rich folks voting with their feet and departing these shores<\/a> is mounting by the day. Mostly they are non-doms, already a Labour target, but by no means all. One London restaurateur is nursing a 30 per cent drop in takings since Rachel Reeves delivered her first Budget. He says that is not the result of smaller plates and weight-conscious diners eating less thanks to Ozempic<\/a>, but them having gone, leaving empty tables in their wake.<\/p>\n Hers was the Budget that saw scrapping of non-doms\u2019 favourable tax breaks<\/a>, VAT on private schools, air transport duty on private jets, inheritance tax for the most valuable farms and of course, an increase in employers\u2019 National Insurance contributions.<\/p>\n There is a pattern here, to which Kinnock and his acolytes would now like to add a charge on assets over \u00a310m<\/a>. It might collect \u00a310bn or so as he claims, but for how long? And what signal does it send to those who have earned their money and paid their dues \u2013 only for them to be taxed again?<\/p>\n Kinnock fails to make the connection between the rich and philanthropy<\/a>. Those charities that help the poor and disadvantaged, organisations that research cures for cancer and other conditions, and the arts and sport<\/a>\u2026 \u2013 they would all suffer drops in their donations. <\/p>\n It’s also a London tax, which also adds to its appeal. Nothing beats clobbering the swanky capital inhabitants in their \u00a310m-plus mansions \u2013 conveniently ignoring the fact that without many of them, the UK economy would be under water, that London is the country\u2019s investment hub. <\/p>\n