Labour Party tongue tied on tax rises

Despite Liam Byrne suggesting only a few days ago that the UK government had "done with tax rises" Alistair Darling has been forced to clarify the UK Government's position. He has confirmed that no tax rises have been ruled out for the future, something which many people automatically assumed because of the growing UK budget deficit and the public finances. So what is going on?

Over the last few weeks Gordon Brown's attempt to grab the attention of UK voters has worked almost to perfection although this error by Liam Byrne could prove to be an opportune moment for the Conservative party to go on the attack. There is no way that any future government can rule out tax rises in the short to medium term purely and simply because of the massive national debt and budget deficit for 2009/10 which is expected to hit £178 billion.

It will be interesting to see how the UK government attempts to backtrack on earlier comments which were made by an experienced politician who should know better. This will also be a strong test of the Conservative will to win because David Cameron has been given a golden arrow with which to hit the UK government at its very heart.