Gordon Brown pledges to keep 20p basic tax rate

Just been on the top floor of Centre Point listening to the whistling wind, looking out at overcast London and interviewing the Prime Minister.

 Gordon Brown says there will be a pledge in the next Labour manifesto to maintain the 20p tax rate. I don’t think he meant to say it.

He wouldn’t divulge any other tax pledges and it wasn’t clear whether there were necessarily going to be any other tax pledges – though the use of the plural in the denial makes me think there will be some.

This is what he said:

“The income tax rate has come down from 23p to 20p and we’ve kept it at 20p and that is what we will pledge to do in our manifesto.”

Would he be repeating the pledges to freeze ALL income tax rates that were in the 1997, 2001 and 2005 manifestos? He would only say:

“You’ll see our pledges when we make them and they will be pretty clear.”

Would he pledge to rule out VAT rises?

“Nobody’s going to make a pledge on everything?”