Cameron talks tax
Fraser Nelson 10:28pm
David Cameron has an interview with tomorrow's FT where he comes up with lots of reasons why there will be no tax cuts. Here's the gist.
1. The tax burden is a not a useful yardstick to judge a government by. As he says: "Using the tax burden is never a good idea because you can reduce or increase the tax burden depending on what you do with government borrowing. It is not a good measure of our success.”2. The “success” of a Conservative government should be judged not on
tax cuts but on whether it delivered economic stability.3. Public finances are in a “bad state” although that does “not necessarily” mean tax cuts would be impossible in the first term of a Conservative government. (ie, an attempt to roll back on Hammond’s suggestion there will be no tax cuts until 2015).
4. Asked whether he expected the prime minister to fight the election on a platform of “competence”, he replied: “Bring it on.”
Isn't "bring it on" what George W Bush said to the Iraqi insurgents? Anyway, to sum up: you may hate the amount of tax you pay, but there will be no option at the next election to vote for a party that would reduce it. Unless that nice Mr Clegg has some plans...
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Comments
steveb
March 27th, 2008 10:58pmNo point in voting Tory then.
mark
March 28th, 2008 12:45amVote Tory as that is the only realistic prospect of getting this lot out. Now if some other right of centre party were electable.........
Salvatore
March 28th, 2008 5:25amCutting taxes is an excellent principle, but in practice any commitment to do so will attract substantial political fire, and will only probably be possible when attention is firmly focussed on the inefficiencies of present public service delivery.
That is difficult whilst the Tories are in opposition, because most of the senior public service officers were appointed under the Labour regime, and any admission of failure would be tantamount to saying they were themselves poor managers.
Perry
March 28th, 2008 7:25amOh dear, oh dear, oh dear! The treatment isn’t working is it?
dominica
March 28th, 2008 7:46amThe first thing that the Tories will need to sort out is the state of the economy. We all knew that Prudence was never really there but it is only now becoming evident to the masses who were so taken in by Brown's lies.
Once the client-state "non jobs" have been culled and other costs brought under control, then is the time to start cutting taxes - cutting them a long way.
Just my two penneth.
David
March 28th, 2008 7:46amI see tax cuts are still considered the be all and end all. Some people never learn.
Dan
March 28th, 2008 8:50amErm - as government borrowing is just taxes delayed, Cameron and Osborne should, of course, be worried about the tax burden plus governement borrowing
Perry
March 28th, 2008 9:49amWise words, Dominca.
Ian C
March 28th, 2008 10:10amWhat Cameron (is wisely) not saying yet is that taxation can be re-structured to be simpler, greener, fairer etc. He would be unwise to let loose this agenda until the election campaign. While we have little evidence that he is planning to do this, I think we should give him some credit for being intelligent enough to know that this is likely to get British centrist/moderate voters juices flowing and an egenda along these lines would be a much better considered offensive weapon than a tax-cutting one. This is necessary in any event before we can bring down the overrall burden to anywhere near the 30-35% that needs to be the ultimate (20 year) goal.
Ian C
March 28th, 2008 10:12amYour 'bring it on' quip Fraser is worthy of a tabloid. Leave it out.
WitanSpeaker
March 28th, 2008 11:24amQuite so.
Spending = Tax + Borrowing.
Reduce tax without a commensurate reduction in spending and borrowing goes up and you would have thought £600 billion in debt was quite enough to be going on with just at the moment.
The only way to achieve tax cuts is to reduce spending and that means a bold decision for government to stop doing things. All we want to know is what the Conservative Party wishes the state to stop doing.
A few suggestions: scrap tax credits, much of the welfare sump, net payments to the EU, outreach and other assorted Marxist sponsorship.
Any other suggestions?
Damon Lambert
March 28th, 2008 12:31pmSo Dave subscribes to the Brown(ie) view that cutting tax rates means a reduction in tax revenues, despite contrasting evidence in virtually every other English speaking country.
Dave should consider what will happen to tax revenues if taxes stay at the current uncompetitive levels; its arrogant to assume that business and individuals will continue to pay the same levels of tax for overpriced ineffective public services, especially when other states offer better quality for less (tax) price.
Fraser Nelson
March 28th, 2008 1:16pmDamon, part of this is built into the Treasury. Their accounting system does not factor in the link between avoidance/incentive and marginal rates - so all of Whitehall is taught to calculate that a 1p reduction in income tax is a net loss to the Treasury and will forever remain so. No lessons learned from JFK et al.
Damon Lambert
March 28th, 2008 5:31pmTrue Fraser, but there's no need for the Tories to make the same mistake.
The Tax Reform Commission, set up by George Osborne, called for a dynamic model which would show the impact of tax cuts, just like the US has, but that part of the TRC seems to have been implicitly rejected by the Tory party.
Trumpeter Lanfried
March 28th, 2008 5:44pmFraser @ 1.16 PM. Astonishing! And I assume Gordon Brown, in all his years at the Treasury, never spotted this fundamental flaw in their forecasting systems? Or was it like this:
Sir Humphrey: 'Minister, Here's how we can lower taxes AND increase our revenue.'
Gordon Brown: 'Not listening, Not listening' [Fingers in ears.]
Peter Gardner
March 29th, 2008 9:17pmEr, not so, I strongly suspect. Is Mr Nelson stuck in the three-party mindset? UKIP is almost certain to stand on a platform of tax cuts.