Balanced budgets = austerity? Where did you come up with that? That's a very... unique definition.
Labour will not increase taxes on anyone who earns less than £80k/year.
I am not sure you understand how tax brackets work. Nobody is going to have to pay 52% of their income in taxes. Even if 52% is the top rate (I'm not sure where you found that...), it would only apply on income earned above the £80k threshold.
Do you earn more than £80k a year? If not, than your tax rate will not change.
As for the 'where is the money going to come from'? question, which is perfectly legitimate, Labour will in addition to raising taxes on income earned above the first £80k, also increase inheritance taxes (which apply only to bequeathments above £325k), and restore corporate taxes to what they were before 2010.
The UK currently has the lowest corporate tax rate of any major industrialised country; even after restoring the 2010 rate, corporate tax levels would still be comparable to Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, and lower than France, Germany, Belgium, New Zealand, Japan, and Australia.
Labour will also (at least as per the 2017 manifesto) borrow money to invest in infrastructure. And because I can spot some of your hackles raising from miles away, it is worth comparing what the financial world tells us (we can't afford schools and hospitals anymore) with what they tell themselves (we can't make any money loaning to governments because interest rates are so low compared to inflation that they are actually earning money by borrowing from us)
From just this morning:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...-if-history-of-debt-is-any-guide?srnd=opinion
...Real 10-year yields recently went negative in the U.S. and are barely positive at present, while they are negative in much of the rest of the developed world. Negative real yields did happen in the aftermath of the war, but not persistently. In general, increasing inflation has in the past eased the pain of financial repression. As is well known, there are no great signs of returning inflation at present. If the markets are right, we are at the beginning of the longest period of sustained negative real yields in history. That suggests a significant opportunity for any government with financing needs.
With financial repression a virtual given, the scene is set for governments to spend money. The Deutsche Bank team suggests they might even be able to launch “zero coupon perpetuals” allowing them to borrow without promising a coupon or a repayment date.
Just the other day, we had Christine Lagarde literally begging Eurozone governments to start spending all the money they ECB has spent the last ten years printing, so that European economies can start growing again and we can have sane interest rates so that pension funds can earn enough to allow us to retire:
https://www.ft.com/content/0ff70e24-cef8-11e9-99a4-b5ded7a7fe3f
In the UK though, it's as though basic facts on finance and fiscal policy don't exist. The level of hysteria and emotion and misinformation on here is something else.
Does nobody bother to check whether what they overhear online is actually true anymore?
