With rapidly declining popularity, Ed Miliband would have hoped that his appearance on an ITV television debate last night would have won him favour, but he may have scuppered his chances after a strong debate with singer Myleene Klass, who quizzed him about Labour's proposed 'mansion tax' plan.
Credit: ITV
On 'The Agenda', Myleene explained to the Labour party's leader: "For me, it's so disturbing - the name in its own right: 'mansion tax'.
"Immediately you conjure up an image of these Barbie-esque houses, but in London, which is where 80 per cent of the people who will be paying this tax actually live, have you seen what that amount of money can get you? It's like a garage.
"When you do look at the people who will be suffering this tax, it's true a lot of them are grannies who have had these houses in their families for a long, long time.
"The people who are the super-super rich buying their houses for £140 million, this is not necessarily going to affect them because they've got their tax rebates and amazing accountants. It's going to be the little grannies who have lived in those houses for years and years."
Ed responded: "I totally understand that people don't like paying more in tax. The values of my government are going to be different to the values of this government."
Following his short response, former British ambassador to the US Sir Christopher Meyer also joined in and told the Labour leader: "You're going to screw me royally.", before host Tom Bradby attempted to smooth things over, saying: "Ed's getting a bit isolated here."
Myleene was however having none of it, and continued: "Ed's getting isolated because no one thinks it is going to work."
She added: "You may as well just tax me on 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 mess in the first place?'"
Myleene sold her former marital home last year for just below the proposed mansion tax threshold, for £1.8 million.
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