Arthur - may I point out that identifying why an increase in VAT is a regressive tax and how it unfairly taxes those on lowest incomes together with looking at the long term implications of the impact of ditching RPI as the measure for indexing benefits is hardly 'whinging'

In most years CPI is lower than RPI and does not include housing costs. The RPI includes changes in mortgage interest payments, council tax and some other housing costs which are not included in the CPI.
It soon starts to make a difference.

For example
If Carers' allowance – paid to people looking after dependents – had been linked to CPI since 2000 instead of RPI it would now be £5 less at £48.64 a week rather than its current level of £53.90.

calculation table


If we're all taking the hit equally, why is corporation tax going to be cut by 1 per cent every year for the next four?

"So we're going to end up before this parliament is out with the extraordinary situation that after offset of all the allowances and reliefs large multinational corporations enjoy they might have an effective tax in his country of somewhat less than 20%.

And that rate is lower than the basic rate of income tax, lower than the rate of VAT and lower than the rate of tax charged on small companies.

What an extraordinary outcome that is: when everyone else is going to be squeezed to pay for the deficits that banks caused their effective rate of tax will be lower than that of any real live living person enjoying anything but the most basic of incomes in the UK."

- Richard Murphy, chartered accountant and visiting fellow at the Centre for Global Political Economy at the University of Sussex, External Research Fellow at the Tax Research Institute, University of Nottingham