Liberal Democrats announce manifesto

The Lib Dems launched their manifesto in front of the press today.

Mr Kennedy said his party's manifesto was "based on fairness, based on opportunity".
He described the document as a "fully-costed and affordable programme to create a fair Britain" and said it offered "dignity for older people, real opportunity for our children and a fair deal for families".

This manifesto (rather like the New Labour one I wrote about yesterday) is yet another big government manifesto. From my libertarian perspective, there are simply too few aspects of the Lib Dems' plans I can concur with.

First there is raising the rate of income tax for those who earn above £100,000. As a libertarian, you might guess I'm no fan of redistributing income or overtaxing the rich. Wealth and success should be praised and used as an example to others as a guide to succeeding (yes, I am a meritocrat too). The attitude that wealthy people should possess some 'responsibility' (by often paying greater amounts of tax) for their wealth is a misguided one, IMO.

Their plan to replace the council tax with a local income tax seems intriguing, but again I don't agree. If local government is to exist in a libertarian society, then I'd favour a local sales tax to be implemented. I suppose the only part of the manifesto I do agree with is the recall of British military personnel from Iraq. We had no business whatsoever in being there initially.