With one bound, David Cameron is free... to promise tax cuts. Even before he had actually won the Tory leadership election three years ago, Cameron looked people like me in the eye and vowed that he would never fight a general election promising upfront tax cuts because that had not worked in 2001 and 2005 - when Labour translated the pledge into "Tory cuts" in public services. Today the Tory leader turned that strategy on its head after being outflanked by promises of tax cuts to keep the economy moving by Labour and the Liberal Democrats. He abandoned the Tories' pledge to match Labour's public spending totals, from 2010-11 onwards. That allowed him to promise to make "permanent" the "temporary" tax reductions to be announced in the Pre-Budget Report on Monday.
The Tories insist it is not a U-turn - no party likes to admit that - but is a very significant change in policy. The natural party of low taxation had been pushed into a position of being one of the few parties in the world to oppose tax cuts. It was a vintage piece of strategy by Brown who, incidentally, the Tories have stopped mocking and have started to fear.
Tonight delighted Tory MPs and activists are saying it's "game on" again on tax and spending after a miserable few weeks. It has taken a while for the penny to drop, but Cameron and his shadow Chancellor George Osborne have finally managed to draw a new set of dividing lines for the next general election with which they feel comfortable. In that sense, today's announcement was a success.
But the Tories still have a fight on their hands. A new survey by Ipsos MORI shows the consistent Tory lead of 20 points has dropped to just three points. The figures would actually make Labour the largest party in a hung parliament because of the way the first-past-the-post system works. And Labour is already moving the goalposts - again. The Cabinet was told today that an efficiency drive in Whitehall has found savings of a few billion pounds more than the £30bn target. That may limit Cameron's room for manoeuvre as he seeks to reduce waste to fund his tax cuts.
And still the Tories don't understand that it's deflation that's the threat, not inflation.
Posted by: Labour Matters | Tuesday, 18 November 2008 at 07:31 PM
the inflation threat as disapeared because unemployment is rising fast and people are not spending, people who work are fearing for their jobs and rightly so,brown as taken the british public on a journey called live now pay later,now we who pay tax, will all have to pay huge tax increases to pay for browns borrowing,then we have the tories who had to change their plans,because they realised that the financial mess brown had created for the british economy was the worst in europe,and browns borrowing could lead to the collapse of the pound.
Posted by: thomas | Wednesday, 19 November 2008 at 03:23 PM
Well well well...
What a surprise. Not!
The Conservatives have been backed into a corner, and what do they do? Lo and behold they revert right back to the evils of Thatcherism. Cut taxes and slash Public Spending.
Whatever the state of the country is at the moment: one thing is for sure. Under this Labour government the Public Service infrastructure has been well and truly transformed. When I go around the Country I cannot fail to be impressed with the fantastic new schools and hospitals that have replaced the unsuitable tired and crumbling ones.
It is with great clarity that I remember the mean chronic under-investment of Public Services under Margaret Thatcher and John Major's Conservative Governments. I remember visiting crumbling schools and hospitals and never want the return of a Party to Government with such a record.
That is not to say things in this country are "Rosy", they are not by any means. Much more needs to be done.
For all of his faults, and I have been an arch critic of his until recently, I would much rather trust Gordon Brown and Labour to steer us through these difficult times and continue to invest in Public Services than a Conservative Party hell bent on slashing Public Services and trying to "Bribe" the electorate with tax cuts which they would later reverse anyway.
I know my choice, and it is in no-way David Cameron and the Conservatives.
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