Enemy of aspiration - Telegraph In his leader's speech to the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton tomorrow, Nick Clegg will doubtless make much of his intention to ensure that the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. Indeed, he is refusing to countenance further spending cuts unless they do so. The difficulty is that he never defines whom it is that he means. On Radio 4 yesterday, the Deputy Prime Minister confirmed that his demands for a greater contribution would fall upon the top 10 per cent of earners. That would be about three million people earning above £50,000 a year and paying at least a 40 per cent rate of income tax. Almost in the same breath, however, he appeared to confine his concept of "wealthy" to those living in houses valued at three or four million pounds, clearly a far smaller number. So which is it? Mr Clegg appears to be annoyed that this debate is being conducted through the prism of London and the South East, where incomes are higher than in the rest of the country. But so, too, is the cost of living; and the idea that a London family with several children and a shared income of £50,000 a year could be called wealthy is laughable. Yet many such people have been dragged into the higher tax rate through the wilful manipulation of thresholds. Since 1997, the number of taxpayers in this band has risen from two million to nearly four million, and is forecast to reach almost six million by 2015 - the ultimate stealth tax. However you measure wealth, those on higher incomes are already contributing vastly more. We have a tax system under which the top one per cent of earners pay 28 per cent of total income taxes and the bottom half pay 10 per cent. Imposing even higher taxes on earners who already pay the most is the enemy of aspiration, and would make a mockery of the Coalition's avowed ambition to stimulate growth.