SIR,
The much-derided proposed Labour increase in Natioanl Insurance contributions in April 2011 is based upon very optimistic estimates for future GDP growth at a time of great uncertainty over the timing and scale of a UK economic recovery.
The Conservatives, despite this very obscure economic future, promise to cancel this future tax in their first budget, which we are told will be devoted to deficit reduction. The loss of this considerable tax income will be balanced by unspecified, and generically very doubtful, 'efficiency savings', which it seems are immediately available.
If the financial situation was not so serious, we might be excused from thinking that this whole charade was an elaborate April's Fool hoax.
Eric Crawford
(Monmouth)