What is a Mansion?

Today we are wrestling with the age old question that haunts the Liberal Democrats. What defines a mansion? Well it turns out that a Lib Dem mansion is a lot pokier than you might imagine.

Since its socialist turn, the Liberal Democrats have been obsessed about a mansion tax. Vince Cable, that great bastion of a command economy, might as well be saying "How dare the rich own mansions especially when they have worked hard to get them. We should penalise them for working hard and they can give money to the state to hand out to the people obviously oppressed. No matter that these mansion owners have added value to the country through jobs, ideas and making people's lives better off. We don't want people like that." Obviously this is all that is wrong with the Lib Dems, if you ignore that they are liars as well. 

 The main pusher behind the Lib Dem mansion tax is Vincey.

So what exactly do the Lib Dem consider to be a mansion? Well if you take the figure of £2 billion, which the Lib Dems want to raise from a mansion tax, you can work it out. But luckily you don't personally have to now because Knight Frank, the London estate agents, has already done it for you. They have found out to raise £2 billion every house valued at £1.25 million will have to have a mansion tax strapped on it. 

 This considered a Mansion if Vince Cable gets his way. Hopefully the occupier gets rather angry because this house is in Twickenham, where Vince Cable is MP. Vote him out.

Near to where I live you can probably buy a small stately home for that amount. But what is it like in London and the South East? Properties there, in the most dense part of the country, are worth a lot of money. Well it turns out that the 'squeezed middle' are going to be having a tough time because 31% of 'mansions' are terraces, 22% of 'mansions' are flats and 11% of 'mansions' are semi detached; the other 36% of mansions are detached (which can range highly in size). So a big majority of houses taxed by the Lib Dems aren't mansions and have middle income owners in them.

This is a terrible idea. A mansion is not a terraced house. Why should we slap a big tax on the 'squeezed middle' who are struggling through but only just. 

But it gets worse. A mansion tax means a revaluation of all people's houses so guess what that means. Yep everyone's council tax is going to increase. So a tax on the 'super wealthy' who live in terraced houses is actually a tax on everyone. And for those who think its just the nutty Lib Dems, well you may be surprised to hear that Ed Miliband has said he will back a mansion tax raising the same amount.

Its only the Conservatives who can stop a mansion tax and thousands of pounds being taken from people, whatever size house they live in. An English man's home is his castle, but government shouldn't be taxing everyone like it is.