No true Tory PM should ever allow an increase in tax
CHANCELLOR Philip Hammond’s hint at the weekend that the Conservatives might drop their pledge not to raise taxes is deeply worrying. It is vital that this is a pledge the party does not drop. The so- called triple lock, promised in the 2015 Tory manifesto, guaranteed not to raise income tax, VAT or national insurance. As election pledges go it was especially good.
First, because it highlighted the contrast between the Tories and Ed Miliband’s Labour ( remember him?). Given the result – the first Conservative majority government returned since 1992 – it worked as an electoral tactic. But there was something more fundamental at work, too.
It worked as a tactic because it was believable. Conservative chancellors may often have increased taxes – Philip Hammond’s Budget last month planned to increase NI on the self- employed until he was forced into a U- turn, to cite just the latest example – but voters associate the Conservatives with low taxes, just as they associate Labour with high taxes.
Imagine, for example, if shadow chancellor John McDonnell decided to pledge that he would never increase taxes. The idea is self- evidently preposterous because tax and spend is in his Left- wing DNA.
Even if shrewder Labour types could see the political and economic advantages of such a pledge and even if Mr McDonnell grasped that too, the pledge would actually be worse than useless because no one would believe it. But for the Tories, such a pledge is electorally useful precisely because it is believable. And this is the crucial point.
THE pledge is not simply about winning an election. It goes to the heart of the purpose of a Conservative Government and the vision of what a Conservative Government should be about.
Conservatives should always try to reduce the tax burden to encourage enterprise and entrepreneurs and to enable people who work and produce growth to keep the fruits of their labour.
That is not just about business of course although providing the best possible