Ed Miliband took more than 12 hours on Tuesday to craft a mocking response to the singer Myleene Klass after the millionaire classically trained musician launched an aggressive attack on his plans for a mansion tax during a joint television appearance.
As MPs voiced concerns that Miliband had allowed himself to be unsettled by a pop star on a flagship policy, the Labour leader alluded to Klass’s most famous song to explain the need for a £1.2bn mansion tax to help fund the NHS.
Miliband tweeted a link to a hastily compiled six-point defence of the tax in a blog on the Labour website with the words: “Here’s why our NHS needs a mansion tax. It’s Pure and Simple.” Klass first made her name with the pop group Hear’Say, whose debut single Pure and Simple reached No 1 in the charts in 2001.
The Labour leader’s tweet and new defence of the party’s plan to impose a new tax on properties worth more than £2m showed the extent to which Klass unnerved him when they sat side-by-side on ITV1’s The Agenda on Monday night.
In remarks that would have done a Tory spin doctor proud, the singer told the programme: “For me what is so disturbing is the name in its own right – mansion. So immediately you conjure up in your head these Barbie-esque houses, something like Blake Carrington or Krystle Carrington would live in. But in London, which is where 80% of the people who are going to be paying this tax actually live, the south-east of England, have you seen how much money that is going to get you? Often it’s like a garage.
“When you do look at the people who are going to be suffering this tax, it is true a lot of them are grannies who’ve had these houses in their families for a long long time. It sounds like a very sexy tax, let’s take from the rich and give it to the poor, but nobody is actually looking at why this was instigated in the first place.”
Klass then said that more and more people would be liable to pay the mansion tax as “fiscal drag” kicks in, the process by which greater numbers pay taxes if they do not rise in line with inflation.
Miliband tried to laugh off her attack, saying he got the impression that she did not support the policy. He then defended it. “When the NHS is crying out for resources, we’ve got to make it more efficient, but let’s be frank about this – we’ve got to face the fact that the NHS is going backwards under this government and it can’t survive with just the kind of resources it has.”
Klass cut in on Miliband to say: “But why? What are the other options to save the NHS? Is that your only option?”
Grabbing a glass of water, she said: “You might as well just tax this glass of water. You can’t just point at things and tax them. You need to have a better strategy and say: why is the NHS in this place in this mess in the first place, who is handling that, who is managing that?”
Labour MPs suggested that Klass had been rude to Miliband, as had another guest on the programme, the former British ambassador to Washington Sir Christopher Meyer who so annoyed Tony Blair that his staff attempted to exclude him from a dinner with President George W Bush. They also suggested that Miliband appeared to have beeen unsure how to respond to a highly articulate pop star. One MP said: “The really worrying thing is this shows that Ed does not command respect.”
Atul Hatwal wrote on the Labour Uncut website: “Comparing taxing a glass of water to higher tax rates for properties worth over £2m is idiotic. But because Myleene was up against a hesitant and tentative Ed Miliband, she has emerged this morning in the press as an anti-tax Boudicca.”
The pop star v the politician
Myleene Angela Klass
Age 36
Family Divorced. Two daughters, Ava and Hero
Education Notre Dame High School, Norwich; Great Yarmouth College; Royal Academy of Music
First famous for Singer in Hear’Say, formed on reality TV show Popstars. Two UK no.1 singles
Big moment Showering in a bikini on I’m a Celebrity Get me Out of Here
Favourite music Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2
Hobbies Amateur astronomy
Favourite food Pasta and pesto with cheese, chocolate
Favourite book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Home Reportedly an £8,000 a month rented house in Highgate, north London
Estimated net worth/salary £11m
Party trick Singing. Wearing a bikini. Not necessarily at the same time What she says “I don’t profess to be the best at anything I do … All I know is that I’m really, really privileged to do the things that I do”
Edward Samuel Miliband
Age 44
Family Married to Justine Thornton. Two sons, Daniel and Samuel
Education Haverstock Comprehensive school, Chalk Farm; Corpus Christi college, Oxford; LSE
First famous for Influential special adviser to Gordon Brown
Big moment Beating older brother David to become Labour leader in 2010
Favourite music Angels by Robbie Williams
Hobbies Watching Desperate Housewives and supporting the Boston Red Sox
Favourite food Chicken Tikka takeaway
Favourite book Also The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Home Dartmouth Park, north London, worth an estimated £1.6m
Estimated net worth/salary £1.9m (according to the Telegraph in 2012)
Party trick Reading speeches without an autocue. Not always successfully
What he says: “Labour is determined to be a party that looks outwards, not inwards” Madeline Ratcliffe
