A range of media reports suggest that Labour is in disarray over the mansion tax, with some senior figures within the party being critical of the proposal.
A former Labour housing minister, Nick Raynsford, the MP for Greenwich and Woolwich, is quoted as saying the proposal outlined at last week's Labour conference is good politics but bad policy". Instead, he wants a revaluation of council tax bands - they have remained unchanged for 23 years now - to create extra bands for the highest-value properties.
He claims the current system, under which people in properties worth just over £320,000 pay the same council tax as those in homes worth tens of millions, was "grossly unfair."
Margaret Hodge, now best known for her chairing of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, is reported to have described the mansion tax as a punishment tax for those who live in London and have seen the values of their properties grow in recent years.
Tessa Jowell, a possible candidate for the Labour nomination for the 2016 Mayor's election, says: "Take one of the many elderly couples living in my constituency in Dulwich, who might have bought a house 30 years ago and are now living on pensions and are asset rich but income poor. No mansion tax should drive them from their homes."
Meanwhile David Lammy, another London Labour MP and another candidate to win the party's nomination for the next Mayor's election, says council tax revaluation is his preferred way of raising revenue through property taxation.
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Comments
INCOME only, from every source, should be taxed - nothing else ever!
Does seem more like a populist policy than one that has been properly thought through. Whilst it would appeal to many voters, Tessa Jowell's point is a good one. Asset-rich, cash-poor people need to be taken into account. As she says, a couple who bought a house in London, say, 30-40 years ago, and have subsequently seen house prices balloon in the last decade, shouldn't be subject to the same tax as the owner of a 300m house in Knightsbridge.
If this tax is implemented, for every pound it raises it will cost many more. Rather than penalising successful people the Polititians should be encouraging them. Of course, Milliband already knows this but this is not about what is best for the country but what will get the most votes. It's ironic and hypocritical that Milliband & Co profess to follow a (failed) ideology but are prepared to act against their conscious in order to achieve power. I can only hope that eventually more and more people wake up to this amoral manipulation and send these patronising destroyers of society a clear once and for all message, to consign themselves and their politics of envy to history.