Cameron aide: Policy on tax ‘cooked up on hoof ’

One of David Cameron’s most eyecatching election promises was made up “on the hoof ” because his team had nothing else to announce, a former senior aide has revealed.

Speechwriter Ameet Gill said promising to block tax rises was one of the “dumbest” economic policies ever created. He told BBC Radio 4’s Week in

Westminster yesterday: “We kind of cooked it up on the hoof a couple of days before, because we had a hole in the grid and we needed to fill it.” Critics will see the admission as evidence that the former prime minister was too focused on the media rather than thought-through policy.