So given where we are, Labour's high command's near unanimity that the party had to stick to the formula used in 1997 is unsurprising. But that is a measure of the retreat. It would have been infinitely better to fight on the party's record and to promise targeted tax cuts if possible but to insist that the priority is the protection of public services and public investment. This is a commitment which might entail some increase in taxation and of income tax rates, given the near exhaustion of 'stealthy' ways of raising revenue. That society requires a public realm which, in turn, does not come free.
Taxation is the subscription fee.
Tories may like to portray 'wealth-producing' businesses as precarious beings that bestow their gifts independently of the society in which they trade. The opposite is the case. The intellectual, human and physical infrastructure which creates successful companies, alongside their markets, is a social product and that, in turn, is shaped by the character of that society's public conversation and the capacity to build effective social institutions and processes. This, I think, is one of the fundamental divisions between Right and Left. The differences on taxation are the most politically visible part of a divide that runs very deep.