What else are we supposed to make of widely-reported whispers that Rishi Sunak is considering tax cuts in response to his party's historic by-election drubbings? But these aren't any old tax cuts that would benefit everyone, as per the raising of the basic rate threshold. As if to prove that Liz Truss is still Prime Minister, Sunak is eyeing "relief" for the top rate payers. In other words, those earning £50k+/year are set to benefit from Tory largesse. Cutting stamp duty or abolishing inheritance tax are on the table as well.
The Tories like to talk about delivering on the "people's priorities", but poll after poll shows there is no popular appetite for tax cuts, let alone for those taking home a decent whack. There is a belief among Tory circles that cutting taxes is electoral gold. You could be forgiven for thinking the legacy of increased mortgage payments from the Truss interlude would have put a bullet in the brain of this zombie belief, but no. Here we are again. That said, putting forward tax cuts isn't entirely irrational.
As argued here and in the book, when the Tories lurched right after the 1997 disaster this wasn't "mad" or narcissistic politics. Coping with earth shattering defeat and finding your opponent annexing parts of your agenda for office, it makes sense to consolidate existing support and build from there. I'm not suggesting this was how William Hague and the Tories saw things then. Plenty of them believed anti-EUism and thinly-disguised racism was the route back to the big time, but the effect was a stabilisation of Tory support and, in the context of the desertion of Labour in 2005 by swathes of its support, afforded a modest advance. This gave them a base from which to intersect with discontent with Blair and later Brown, which was assisted by Dave and Osborne's splashings of liberal whitewash.
With a similar if not greater disaster in the offing, what the big brained politics commentators sneeringly refer to as "Tory Corbynism" is likely to have a similar effect. Tax cuts aren't going to win the Tories the next election. Neither will cancelling HS2, promising benefits crackdowns, deporting people to Rwanda, nor cutting the green crap. Again, plenty of Tories might think a manifesto framed around thin gruel and spite could win. In many ways, that's what Boris Johnson's 2019 platform was. But then isn't now. The Tories have completely destroyed their political credibility, and the narrowness of their policy offering reflects that.
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2 comments:
«Tax cuts aren't going to win the Tories the next election. Neither will cancelling HS2, promising benefits crackdowns, deporting people to Rwanda, nor cutting the green crap. Again, plenty of Tories might think a manifesto framed around thin gruel and spite could win.»
Anything could win if property prices were still going up fast. Even if the tory (actually whig) press were campaigning against the tory party leaders, as they did with the latter Johnson premiership and that that of Truss.
«In many ways, that's what Boris Johnson's 2019 platform was.»
His platform was simply a record of property prices increases (don't change the winning team) for the majority of voters, and brexit for the minority putting that before property prices, something that happens very rarely.
Our blogger's predicted fall of the thatcherite phase of the Conservatives is not happening yet, the current fall in their electoral fortunes is purely circumstantial as it was in 1997, indeed thatcherite voters are abstaining and a few are voting the the Conservatives Team B, for more and slightly better managed thatcherism, not against thatcherism. As long as property is booming thatcherism has a solid electoral base.
Aren't all changes in electoral fortunes a result of circumstances? Isn't that the whole point? Adapting to changing circumstances. If you don't, then you'll end up losing.
Well done for noticing.
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