LibDems push for £1200 tax threshold hike

Sounds like last night’s quad meeting saw the Lib Dems – Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander – push the case for the tax threshold expected increase in this budget (£630) to be doubled (to £1200 or so).

George Osborne is not opposed in principle to a bigger tax cut of course but he’s not convinced by all the Lib Dem ideas on how you rake back the money from elsewhere in the system.

As the FT blog argues, there is harmony emerging about hacking back tax relief for top end pension contributions though much still to discuss about where you draw the line.

On the credit rating story, here are two good reads from the blogosphere today – fundamentally two different views of last night’s downgrade warning.

Jonathan Portes is at notthetreasuryview and Fraser Nelson is at The Spectator. That CitiBank graph is quite striking.

Gary Gibbon tweets at @GaryGibbonBlog