Political Focus, with Bill Jacobs

DESPITE Gordon Brown's efforts to make voters trust Labour on income tax, 55 per cent of the nation still expects him to increase it.

The figure is exactly the same as in 1992.

The poll result suggests that five years' hard slog by the Dunfermline East MP has been wasted. That all his promises to keep the lid on public spending and not to increase basic and higher rate income tax have been discounted by voters.

There is a little encouragement in other figures in the Guardian/ICM poll. The number who believe Labour might reduce tax has gone up to 16 per cent from six per cent.

This must be cold comfort for a Labour Party approaching a General Election knowing it was the issue that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in 1992. The dismantling of John Smith's Shadow Budget by the Tories and the "Labour Tax Bombshell" campaign is universally accepted to have done the damage.

Having realised this, Mr Smith, as Labour leader, and his new Shadow Chancellor Mr Brown were determined to prevent a repeat. They devised a new strategy to neutralise tax as a live issue before the next election through the message "You can't trust the Tories on tax." One senior source said: "The Tories had been lying about tax for years. We were not going to let them get away with it again."

Since then every back-door tax rise has been carefully logged, costed and publicised. Mr Brown's deputy, Alistair Darling, last year secured admissions from Treasury Chief Secretary William Waldegrave that despite headline cuts in income tax, the total tax burden on ordinary families had risen.

But last week's poll suggests that this coup and Mr Brown's dramatic announcement that the main income tax rates would remain unchanged for the full five-year term of a Labour government had failed.

Financial Secretary to the Treasury Michael Jack has no doubt why the public does not trust Labour: "Gordon Brown has taken the painting by numbers approach to tax. He has coloured in the two spaces which say top and basic rate of income tax and left the rest blank.

"There are 200 other allowances and taxes he can use to raise more money. This was pointed out by Michael Meacher and Nick Brown, and people are clever enough to understand this.

"People are highly suspicious of the lack of detail. There are promises to peg spending for two years and then a huge question mark.

"They know from their experience in local government that Labour are taxers and spenders and they know that if Labour wins the election there will be unstoppable pressure from the backbenches, local authorities and trade unions to increase spending and tax." But Mr Darling says people know from their own experience that, whatever the Tories may do with income tax, 22 other tax rises in five years have added more than £2,000 to the average family's tax burden.

And he takes heart from less prominent figures in the poll. If 55 per cent of those questioned expect Labour to increase income tax either a little or a lot, 44 per cent expect the same under a fifth-term Tory government.

But on overall taxation just 67 per cent expect Labour to increase their burden against 74 per cent who expect the same from the Tories.

Even more startlingly 27 per cent expect the Tories to put total taxation up a lot against just 22 per cent if Labour wins. Mr Darling said:"The people don't trust the Tories on tax. They have experience of what happens."

According to another poll in the Financial Times this week, he is right. Floating voters believe that Labour will only increase tax slightly more than the Tories.

Labour's campaign has achieved its main aim, and it would be icing on the political cake if there was an increase in those voters who believe income tax would not go up under them.

Mr Brown has succeeded in the project mapped out five years ago and neutralised the tax issue.

While it will inevitably play a part in the imminent election campaign, it will never be the Exocet missile that destroys Labour's drive for power.

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