Boris Johnson attacks the 'chop-smacking relish' of SNP for taxing London

 
'Chop-smacking relish': Boris Johnson, pictured with Eric Pickles, has attacked the SNP (Picture: Jeremy Selwyn)
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Boris Johnson attacked the “chop-smacking relish” of the SNP for taxing Londoners today as he and David Cameron hit the campaign trail together for the first time.

The Mayor said Nicola Sturgeon’s party wanted “sassenachs in London and the South-East” to pay for higher spending in Scotland. He and the Prime Minister visited key marginal Kingston-upon-Thames, where Conservatives are battling to unseat Lib-Dem Cabinet minister Ed Davey.

Mr Cameron was making a speech highlighting the Tories’ new pledge to give 15 more hours of free childcare to working families, saying that it would “make work pay” for thousands of people who previously lost money because of the way the benefits system was configured.

Mr Johnson warmed up by warning of the dangers of Labour leader Ed Miliband having to rely on Ms Sturgeon’s MPs to pass legislation, giving her the chance to hold him “to ransom”. “Under the SNP you can imagine a sort-of supertax being imposed,” he said. “There is a kind of chop-smacking relish with which the SNP and Labour in Scotland approach the idea of taxing the sassenachs in London and the South-East in order to pay for things in Scotland.”

He cited the mansion tax row in which Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy gloated that Londoners would be paying for extra nurses in Scotland.

The Mayor said: “We accept in London we have a duty to the rest of the country. We export huge sums in tax already... yes, of course that’s fair and reasonable, but there comes a point when you’re being unfair to people living in homes in London that have inflated in price through no fault of their own.

“There are all sorts of risks in that approach, the Scottish Nationalist tail wagging the Labour Party dog.” He said there would be “a lot of really crackers policies on defence and so on” if Ms Sturgeon was given the whip hand over a minority Labour government.

“The problem with the SNP is not just that they are not wholly devoted to the health of our beloved United Kingdom, the problem is they are much more Left-wing even than Ed Miliband.

“They want to grab the steering wheel of politics and tilt it sharply to the Left. They want to borrow another £148 billion, they want to scrap Trident.”

Mr Johnson denied that he had been treated as a “super sub” in the election campaign, brought on to score a late goal. “Totally absurd, nonsense,” he told LBC’s Election Call. “I’ve been out and about all over the place — and throughout London, before Londoners think I’ve abandoned their city.”

He said voters were only just waking up to the importance of their votes on May 7. “The truth is, for a lot of the time people haven’t really been focusing on this election. It’s only starting to crystalise now. That’s what happened in 1992 as well.”

Mr Cameron was trying to spotlight his welfare reforms by unveiling figures that show how low-paid people and families on benefits had been made better off if they tried to get a job. Under Labour, he said, a single mother working 15 hours a week lost 76p for each extra hour she worked because of benefits withdrawals. Following Tory reforms she would keep 62p of every extra pound. A father on the minimum wage could have been hit by “an 83 per cent tax rate” for every extra hour worked. He would now take home 31p for every extra pound.

A single parent could have been made worse off by working under the old system. Mr Cameron said that the free child care plan would ensure she could earn money. “In other words, we’re making work pay,” he said.

“This goes to the heart of the country we are trying to build: One based on the principle of something for something, not something for nothing where those who put in, get out, where hard work is rewarded.”

He accused Labour of leaving behind a “poverty state”, rather than a welfare state. “The Labour Party? Really? The name’s an offence under the Trade Descriptions Act,” he said. “Make no mistake — with the SNP holding a Miliband government to ransom it would be even worse.”

Tories today revealed they are bringing youth members of America’s Republican Party to help their campaign in the final week in key marginals, including Enfield North. The Young Republican National Federation is organising the trip to begin on May 2.

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