How can we trust Labour with the economy when they don't understand the weekly shopping bill?

Yesterday's Times reports on the Labour own-goal that was their latest campaign poster. The paper points out that the claim that the UK coalition has increased VAT on food does not stand up to scrutiny, whilst the figures they quote are based more on fantasy than fact.

The poster depicts the Tory and Liberal Democrat leaders as “peas in a pod”, surrounded by images of everyday goods including fruit and vegetables, soft drinks, ketchup and biscuits. However, many of the items portrayed are in fact zero-rated for VAT, and so were not affected when the standard rate rose from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent in 2011.

As Joe Otten points out on Liberal Democrats Voice:

Unfortunately for Labour

• Most of the groceries in the picture are zero-rated for VAT. Even chocolate chip cookies. (Though biscuits covered with chocolate on one side, or decorated with a chocolate pattern, are standard rated, as everybody knows.)
• Labour is proposing to increase rather than reduce taxes on some of the “unhealthier” products in the basket.
• To get the figure of £450, you would need to spend over £20,000 a year on standard rate goods. Only the top two deciles pay this much.

With a reputation for economic competence hanging in tatters, it does Labour no good to demonstrate how poorly they understand VAT, and to get their sums so wrong on how much the average family spends on standard rated goods.

Labour really are scraping the barrel; now.