A modest proposal?
Historians will not write about the Tory manifesto of 2019, said The Times. Unveiled on Sunday, the slim prospectus contains “few big ideas and, in truth, not many big policies either”. There are some modest tax cuts, a few boosts for public services, particularly the NHS, and other goodies such as a cut to hospital parking charges and a new fund to fix potholes. But it’s a deliberately cautious document: in all, the Tories are proposing an extra £2.9bn in day-to-day spending by the end of the next parliament, equivalent to just £1 for every £28 pledged by Labour. The Conservatives are desperate to avoid Theresa May’s mistake in the 2017 campaign, said The Economist, when she unveiled an ambitious plan for social care that all but destroyed her poll lead. But they may have “taken the lesson too far”. As Paul Johnson, head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, put it, these provisions would look modest in a single budget, let alone in a blueprint for five years in government.
Commentators have lined up to dismiss this as a “thin, unambitious damp squib of a document”, said Stephen Pollard in The Daily Telegraph. They’re talking nonsense. “This is – by a distance – the most far-reaching Tory manifesto of the past 30 years.” Why? Because its central provision is a credible pledge (unlike May’s “vague Brexit promises”) to take us out of the EU by the end of January, under a deal that has already been agreed. We’re not talking about some “minor tweaks to the fabric of national life” here: this move will fundamentally change our country’s destiny. That’s what’s so “dishonest” about this manifesto, said The Guardian. It delivers a reassuringly simple message – “yes to Brexit, no to tax rises, and God save you all from Jeremy Corbyn” – while completely obscuring the scale of the challenge involved in leaving the EU. Boris Johnson makes out that he just needs to win a majority to “get Brexit done”. If only.
The Tory manifesto insists that once the withdrawal deal is passed, Johnson will go on to seal a trade treaty with the EU by the end of next year, said Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. “This is a very foolish promise indeed.” You can see why the Tories made it – they needed to persuade Nigel Farage to stand down some of his troops – but it’s a major hostage to fortune. The chances of concluding a satisfactory trade deal in that time frame are vanishingly slim. And the lesson from the withdrawal deal is that by starting the clock ticking, we only weaken our negotiating position with the EU. If Johnson does indeed win a majority, he’ll likely have to seek an extension to the transition and make other politically awkward concessions, said Jeremy Warner in The Daily Telegraph. But that may only be possible if he wins a decent majority that enables him to ignore Brexit hardliners. “Therein lies the irony; the larger Johnson’s majority, the more likely a softer Brexit becomes.”