Donald Trump famously branded his internal party critics as RINOs – Republicans In Name Only.

Today I am prepared to label Boris Johnson and his toothless cabinet TINOs – Tories In Name Only.

Under his leadership, the PM has overseen the complete demolition of Conservative policies and values, many under the guise of a global health emergency.

Brits' civil liberties and freedoms have been stripped, in favour of draconian regulations, police powers and a disturbing march towards a biosecurity state.

Our ability to drive diesel and petrol cars, travel at will and even have a gas boiler are under threat because of the so-called 'climate emergency' pushed by extremists like Greta Thunberg and the Extinction Rebellion.

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In what could amount to signing his political death warrant, Boris is planning to break his famous 2019 election promise on tax rises.

You know, the promise that got him elected with a huge margin against all odds, destroying Labour's Red Wall in the process.

Back then Boris pledged: 'I guarantee we will not raise the rate of income tax, VAT or National Insurance.'

No ifs, buts, or maybes. It was a cast iron promise.

But there was no 'clear plan' and that's why the PM and his new health secretary Sajid Javid have cajoled the reluctant chancellor into agreeing to a 1.25 per cent National Insurance hike, which could be announced as early as tomorrow.

Like so many, I believed in Boris Johnson.

[...]

And I wanted to believe he would be a prime minister who would stick to his long-held public persona as a low tax libertarian Tory who wanted the government to butt the hell out of our lives.

Many folk excused the creep away from those values as a realistic cost of a global pandemic.

But it's gone far too far now.

Astronomical tax rises; the state interfering in all aspects of our lives; a sprawling and inefficient National Health Service that sucks up billions and billions more each year; and a desire to damage the British economy to achieve net zero before comparable western democracies.

If we wanted that sort of hellscape, we would have voted for bloody Jeremy Corbyn.

Boris needs saving from himself – before it's too late.

Haha, Dan Wootton is such a clown.

He is right about one thing (and one thing only) in this article though: the rise in National Insurance is shit, albeit for completely different reasons from his most likely.

That word ‘punishment’ is deliberately used by me. NIC is a deeply regressive tax. As the government’s own table of rates, allowances and reliefs makes clear, the tax targets those on lower pay. The charge starts on income below the income tax threshold. It is cut drastically on income above £50,268 a year. It is, therefore a deeply unfair tax already.

But worse are the exemptions from the tax. The retired, however well off they might be, do not pay it.

NIC is not paid at all on unearned income, whether from interest, dividends, rents, trusts or other sources.

And those with the means to manipulate their income - as many self-employed people with their own companies have been able to do - can avoid large parts of their NIC liability.

So, this is a tax on those in paid employment above all else.

This means that this is a tax on those most likely to be least able to afford a tax increase in this country.

It will hit those on very low incomes suffering cuts in Universal Credit and facing increased fuel poverty very hard.

And the wealthiest will not pay a penny more. You could not make up a tax outcome this bad however hard you tried.

Of all the tax options the government could have chosen this one is the worst. So why are they doing it? I actually genuinely think it is to punish. The punishment is on those who have not opted out of the NHS with private medicine. The Tory logic is that the wealthy will have done this - so they should not pay. Except, of course, in an emergency no one opts out of the NHS.

From what I understand, it's 12% below £50,268 and 2% above it. Why that is the case I have no idea (probably some bullshit about the rich "taking less out of the system" / using public services and healthcare less, which is stupid given that NI is meant to be collective thing, hence the name National Insurance).

Equalising that would bring in more than Boris' planned increase.

Whether Boris' social care plans even need to be "paid for" by taxes at all is of course another matter. Then there's this.

So yeah, socialism / Corbynism is the more you rob the poor (and insulate the rich from it), and the more you rob the poor the more socialister it is (this is no doubt what Dan believes).