Tories must start governing as conservatives
After its disastrous by-election results in Wellingborough and Kingswood, the Conservative Party needs to ask itself hard questions about why many erstwhile Tory voters are now choosing to stay home instead. The answer is not hard to find: conservatives are practically-minded by temperament. A party that talks about its true-blue beliefs but then fails time and again to deliver recognisably conservative outcomes cannot count on tribal loyalty to save it on polling day. Anyone who wants to understand why, after 14 years of Conservative rule, so many of the party’s natural supporters are frustrated and disillusioned, should look no further than the recent, quiet expansion of the Equality Act. This change represents a significant growth of a key piece of New Labour legislation that the Prime Minister himself has in the past criticised for allowing “every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life”. Conservative voters might reasonably have expected Mr Sunak’s government to stand in the way of expanding the act even further, or at least of ensuring these new, sweeping changes received proper scrutiny. Instead, as we reveal today, important amendments have been waved through on the quiet, without any fanfare and with parliamentary debate limited to two committee hearings and less than an hour’s discussion in total. These changes were made to implement ECJ judgments late last year, just before these ceased to apply to Britain from 2024 (yes, astonishingly, it is only now that we are free of this madness). The Government also appears to have “gold-plated” them in the process, going further than was strictly necessary (old habits die hard, even after Brexit). Yet this country voted to leave the EU in 2016. Even considering the legislation in isolation, it is hard to see why a government elected by voters who believe in small government and enterprise should be weighing down employers, business and ultimately the overburdened British economy with yet more rules and restrictions. While some measures seem unexceptionable, others look far more troubling. Several provisions appear to open employers up to action by opportunistic grievance-peddlers, even in cases where no victims of discrimination are alleged to exist. This is, unfortunately, wholly consistent with the Tories’ increasing capture by social-democratic dogma. The tax burden now stands at crushing levels and the economy has dipped into recession. Yet the party keeps piling more well-meaning rules on the backs of its own natural supporters. If they want to see more people turn out for them in the general election, the Conservatives must remember why they were elected in the first place.
Levelling down
The Labour party seems unwilling to engage with the concerns of private schools that its plans to impose VAT on their fees if it wins the next election will harm vulnerable pupils. That is disappointing, but consistent with a policy that appears to be driven by resentment and class envy rather than rational calculation. Behind the polished rhetoric from the Labour front bench about the party’s new respect for business, the worst elements of Labour’s Left-wing coalition are still dangerously powerful. This destructive tax raid shows the kind of policies they will demand once Labour is in office. Whatever gloss the party machine may put on the proposal, you only tax something if you want to see less of it. Adding 20 per cent VAT on private school fees is a weapon designed to hurt, and shrink, a sector that is already suffering thanks to the country’s current high-tax, lowgrowth malaise and a generalised cost explosion caused by absurd planning and other regulations. This is both immoral and self-defeating. In a free society, parents should not be punished for the choices they make about how to educate their children. Taxpayers who pay towards the state education sector and then are willing to pay again to take their children’s education out of the hands of the state help to relieve the burden on our public services. Absurdly, this measure takes aim at one of Britain’s greatest success stories. Our private schools are considered the gold standard of education around the world. Far from a bastion of so-called white privilege, these schools welcome talent from ambitious families of all backgrounds. This is something we should be celebrating, not attacking based on out-of-date narratives. Indeed, those who worry about entrenched privilege should be campaigning against this policy. The people who will be squeezed out will be those who currently struggle to pay private school fees. Does Labour really want to see our private schools become even more exclusive and attended only by the ultra-rich? A responsible party should instead be thinking creatively about how to help the sector to flourish. That would involve an effort to reduce the regulatory burden that has increased costs, especially for smaller institutions. Labour’s tax on ambition will do the opposite. It is an attempt to impose equality by reducing choice. Not so much levelling up, as levelling down.