by We knew their promises were unbreakable. Everyone said so. Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies himself spoke out during the election campaign saying that both parties were engaged in a “conspiracy of silence” about the sustainability of public finances.
As he approaches, after ten years at the IFS, to become the provost of Queen’s College, Oxford, with the gratitude of a grateful nation echoing in his ears, we can note that he communicated little to the situation . What the parties were really guilty of was not “silence”: their crime was making audible promises they could not keep.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves promised no tax rise to working people, and at times said no further tax rise was needed to fund the plans in their manifesto. Within days of the election, the new prime minister and chancellor announced that they were going to break those promises – although they didn’t put it that way – because the books were in worse shape than they were. expecting it.
This was despite the fact that Reeves said explicitly during the election that this device was to demand surprise on the true state of the finances something she would not do. “We now have the OBR,” she told the Financial Times on the 18th of June. The independent Office for Budget Responsibility sets out the public finances in an impartial way so that the government cannot hide the bad news. “We know things are bad,” she said. “You don’t have to win an election to know that.”
But we knew she would raise taxes anyway. Just after the election was called in May, Ipsos asked voters how likely it was that either party would raise the taxes you pay personally” if they won: 56 percent thought they would likely the Labour; 52 per cent thought the Conservatives were likely to.
You could say, then, that the voters were part of the not-so-quiet conspiracy. They didn’t believe Labour’s promises but they voted Labor anyway because it was time for a change and they didn’t think Labor could be worse than what they had.
It might be reasonable to complain now that Starmer and Reeves weren’t engaging with people. In fact, I would go further and say that it is necessary for us to point out that they are breaking their promises. But, but, but…
It is worth asking if the voters have some responsibility for a country where politicians feel they cannot be elected if they say they are going to raise taxes, at a time when that is not the only sensible and responsible thing to do. Voters want good public services, they complain loudly when they don’t get them, but they punish any politician who suggests they have to pay for them.
So while it’s important to hold politicians accountable for saying one thing before the election and then doing another, we should also say that taxes should go up – because the alternative is to -public services fall too far below what is acceptable in any case. civilized nation.
It’s a good thing that taxes will go up and that “working people” will have to pay them, because no one else will. As Reeves painfully discovered, when the Treasury imposes proposed higher taxes on the world’s mobile super-rich through its model, they tend to leave the country, cutting income rather than raising it.
However, the only group of people who have no right to accuse Labor of breaking its promises is the Conservative Party, which imposed a tax in March as a trap for Labour, and which their election tax and spending promises are just as dishonest.
Jeremy Hunt’s unfunded cut to national insurance was wrong and irresponsible, but the symbolism of a tax cut is so strong that Labor had to fight it – even though both parties, and most voters, knew it would not it would have to be reversed. after the election, but that further measures had to be taken to stabilize the public finances.
Any Tory attacking the government for raising taxes should be forced to focus on the substance of the issue. What spending would they cut instead? If the Tories had won the election, they would be in the same position as Reeves is now. They, too, would have agreed on public sector pay arrangements, as they should. Otherwise it would be impossible to recruit and retain doctors, nurses, teachers, police and the armed forces.
What spending would they cut? What tax increases would they face? They didn’t tell us in the election campaign, probably because they don’t know. I don’t think Reeves knew for sure what taxes she would put up, although she was quick enough to rule out a rise in employers’ national insurance contributions.
All the voters had to go on. They knew that Labor would be more likely to be in favor of public spending and the Tories would be against it. An Ipsos survey at the start of the election campaign found that while most voters thought both parties would raise taxes, 59 per cent thought Labor was “likely” to “increase” spending on public services, but not only 32 percent thought that was being said. Tory.
That’s what people knew they were voting for: higher taxes and better public services under Labour, or higher (maybe not so high) taxes and worse public services under the Tories. They chose the Labor option, and when you strip away all the noise around the Budget, that’s what they got.
