On Tuesday morning, Rishi Sunak will unveil the Conservative party’s 2024 manifesto. So far, there is talk of tax cuts, welfare reform and the need to reform the ECHR. But some on the conservative side are already voicing alarm that the 76-page draft document is playing it too safe on tax and borders – and lacks big ideas. As one figure privy to the document puts it: ‘It could flop’.
While Tory candidates pray there is a rabbit in the hat to be unveiled tomorrow, Labour are busy getting their own attack lines in. This afternoon Jonathan Ashworth – the shadow cabinet office minister with the unofficial title of ‘minister for the Today programme’ – held a press conference to get the press in the mood to scrutinise Tory spending plans.
Speaking at a location near Embankment, Ashworth handed out a dossier titled ‘Tory promises: the money’s not there’ before pre-emptively describing the unpublished document as the ‘most expensive panic attack in history’. The Labour frontbencher said that usually his party would attack the document after it was published, but this time they could get in there early as it was already clear that it would not add up. The reason? Ashworth said the £12 billion of savings the party has claimed to have from the benefits bill are either hard to deliver or already banked. He said compulsory national service would eat up most of the available money and raised questions about Tory plans to fund from tax avoidance.
The high energy performance – which saw Ashworth say ‘the money’s not there’ more than ten times – is part of Labour’s plan to attack the Tories on economic credibility. After Sunak went on the attack in last week’s ITV debate on tax and Keir Starmer struggled to hit back, the Labour attack unit is keen to land some blows. The hope is that by doing so, Labour will face less criticism for what is expected to be a fairly slim manifesto.
However, the downside of Ashworth’s press conference was that – given Labour look very likely to form the next government – most of the questions in the Q&A were about Labour’s plans rather than the Tories’. Ashworth was asked whether Labour would raise capital gains tax or taxes other than the ‘triple-lock’ ones of income tax, national insurance or VAT. Ashworth repeatedly could only respond what the triple-lock policy was, and said there were no plans to raise the other taxes.
At the end of the press conference, I asked Ashworth whether Labour ministers might enter government, declare the public finances to be in a worst state than anticipated due to the Tories, and then change their economic plans accordingly. He did not rule this out, instead talking about the dire state of the public finances already and the Tories’ record in government. But it is this scenario that several Labour figures see as likely, given Starmer and Reeves do not want to rock the boat.
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