For a variety of reasons too tedious to explain, I don’t own my home. After my divorce a few years ago I decided to rent for a bit, just until I had worked out what to do next.
Then, one or two unforeseeable things happened which meant I had to divert my resources elsewhere – and the long and the short of it is I’m still renting, at exorbitant cost.
This is something that, if I’m honest, I’m rather ashamed of. Owning a home has always been, for my generation at least, the mark of a functional adult. The fact that I don’t makes me feel like a failure.
But it’s not just that: owning a home represents security. I look at friends who are struggling financially in an increasingly cruel and challenging job market, and I think: however bad it may be, at least they’ve got somewhere to live. If I lost my job tomorrow, or was unable to work for some reason, I would not.
Most of them have paid off or are close to paying off their mortgages. One or two have started to take in lodgers to make ends meet. Things may well be tough, but an Englishman’s – or woman’s – home is his or her castle, and so long as that remains secure, the world feels relatively safe.
Or at least it used to. Having already taxed pretty much everything the striving British middle classes hold dear, from pensions (soon to be included in inheritance tax), small businesses (clobbered by the rise in employer National Insurance), independent schools (slapped with VAT), to capital gains increases and tax raids on farms, Labour is now coming after that last bastion of middle-class stability – people’s homes, the very roof over their heads.
The latest leak from a Treasury desperate to plug the £50billion hole in the nation’s balance sheet was reported to be an instruction from the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to explore the idea of a ‘sellers tax’, whereby owners of houses with a value of £500,000 or more at the time of sale would have to pay a ‘proportional property tax’.
Rachel Reeves has explore the idea of a ‘sellers tax’, whereby owners of houses with a value of £500,000 or more would have to pay a ‘proportional property tax’
Over the longer term, a local property tax could also be introduced to replace council tax – with owners rather than residents paying levies based on the value of their homes.
Such changes would, of course, disproportionally affect homeowners in the South East and London, where the average house price exceeds £500,000. This might delight Labour’s class warriors, but it would also penalise anyone who had lived in their home for a long time, such as pensioners selling up to pay for care or simply looking to downsize.
As to the idea of a property tax, galloping house price inflation (as a result of years of artificially low interest rates, but that’s a whole other can of worms) means that you could easily end up with someone who had paid just a few thousand pounds for their home several decades ago facing a bill that would effectively force them to sell. It was a bad idea years ago when Nick Clegg was pursuing it, and it’s a worse idea now.
Perhaps because of that, since this plan was first reported, the Treasury has hastily rowed back on a sellers’ tax. But to be honest, the fact that they are considring new taxes on homes at all should be a huge cause for concern to everyone, whether they own their own home or not.
For better or for worse, home ownership is one of the cornerstones of British life. For many people, their home is their only real investment, the one true asset they will ever own in their lives. You mess with it at your peril. To even contemplate targeting this fundamental resource not only shows how desperate this government is, but also how much they truly despise hard-working people, and those who strive for a better life.
And it makes me wonder: on a personal level, is there any point in clambering back on to the property ladder if the government is just going to kick it out from under me? Why should I invest anything in a country that increasingly seems to despise everything people like me stand for? Shouldn’t I just enjoy myself while I still can – and just throw myself on the mercy of the state when I run out of road?
I would never do that, of course, it’s not in my DNA. And Labour is, of course, banking on people like me to just carry on, shouldering the extra burden without too much fuss. But I think it’s time we did start making a fuss. It’s just not fair that those who play by the rules should be punished like this.
For better or for worse, home ownership is one of the cornerstones of British life. For many people, their home is their only real investment
Because make no mistake, that’s what’s happening. The middle classes of this country are enduring a cruel and unjustified fiscal and cultural punishment beating at the hands of this government.
Already we’ve seen how the children who go to private school have been barred from certain internships in the NHS and the civil service. Already we see how more people are being dragged into the top rate of tax, around 1.2million up from 236,000 in 2010. If you add in other factors – such as student loan repayments, lost allowances and other stealth taxes – marginal tax rates are touching 70 per cent or more for some people. That’s madness.
At every turn, it appears, this government is determined to punish anyone who tries to build anything of any value for themselves or their family – while endlessly rewarding and making excuses for those who contribute little or nothing and take as much as they can.
It seems to me that their vision is not, as Starmer & Co incessantly claim, to build a vibrant economy which will attract investment and confidence – but a country where ambition and hard work are dirty words, and anyone who pursues either is just a poor sap.
A country where we are all just expendable worker bees whose only function is to fill the coffers of the state before we die, quickly and cheaply, and preferably before we’ve had a chance to use up our pension pots, so the state can grab those too.
There is a sense now that if you study hard, work hard, save to buy a house, pay into a pension or generally do any of the things that for decades have constituted a civilised and useful way of life, this government will come for you.
Labour may think that they have finally discovered the mythical money tree – and judging by recent policy they clearly do; but in fact they’re being moronically short-sighted. In their mulish and blinkered way, they are depleting the one reliable resource this country has.
Because, let’s face it, practically the only thing that keeps this country ticking over is the hard work and dedication of the middle classes, the values they instil in their children, the sacrifices they make and the huge sense of civic responsibility they feel. Oligarchs and foreign investors will come and go, the super-rich will always take refuge in the nearest tax haven when the going gets rough.
But the people who are really invested in Britain, the ones who put their heart and soul into this country and take pride in seeing it thrive, are the middle classes. That’s anyone who works for a living, anyone who cares about their children’s education, anyone who believes in building a future for their family. They are the backbone of this country, and what is Labour doing?
Doing its best to break it.
