The Green Party wants to tax the rich more. Here's why

The Green Party manifesto will include a commitment to raise the top rate of income tax to 60 per cent to act as a “disincentive to paying excessive salaries”.

The move, which the party says will raise around £2bn a year, will be announced on Tuesday and comes after the leader of the Greens, Natalie Bennett, told The Independent on Sunday that the party is still hoping to win as many as 12 seats and she will remain leader of the party regardless of its performance at the polls.

When asked if she would keep her job even if the party failed to win any of its dozen target seats, Ms Bennett responded: “I was elected for two years last September and that’s what I’m planning to serve. I was elected unopposed then and I’m planning to serve the [full] term.”

She insisted that “attacks” by the right-wing press and “certain elements” of the BBC in recent weeks were a sign that her party was having a “measure of success” on the campaign trail.

It is clear that the campaign has taken its toll on Ms Bennett, but she says she “definitely has a thicker skin” now than a year ago.

Despite the media attacks on her personality, and dire poll ratings, she remains hopeful of a breakthrough nationally, and points to the success online of the party’s election broadcast, which featured a boy band of party leaders wedded to austerity.

She said: “We are focused on 12 seats, but that’s with politics staying very much as they are now. There is still the chance, the time, for things to break wide open before the election. At some point, British politics is going to break wide open, if that’s this election or not, who knows. I think there’s such dissatisfaction with the current state of politics out there.”

More: The Green Party's party election broadcast is here and it's quite something