The question the Tories must answer

Before George Osborne gave his speech at LSE today, I just coudn’t get a handle on what his message would be.  In his interview on the Today programme, he was making positive noises about reducing the tax burden.  “The best way to help people is through targeted, funded tax-help … certainly not increasing taxes like the government are planning to do,” he told listeners.  But the FT seemed to have a different take.  Their preview of the Shadow Chancellor’s speech began: “George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, will pave the way for tax rises under a Conservative government while warning against a ‘tax con’ short-term cut by Gordon Brown.”

Thing is – as Fraser noted earlier – Osborne’s speech didn’t clear up the confusion.  Sure, half of it was – like Cameron’s PMQs performance – an effective and punchy attack on the government’s borrowing plans.  But the other half – the half about what the Tories would do instead – lurched awkwardly between promises to lower the burden on taxpayers; warnings to look out for any government effort to lower the burden on taxpayers; and assertions that lowering the burden on taxpayers will have to wait until the Never-Never-Land of the “medium term” .  Just as the morning coverage suggested it would.

Now, you could argue that Osborne’s unclear message needn’t mean that his thinking’s unclear too – maybe he’s yet to hit on the right words to express himself.  But it is rather symptomatic of the Cameroon’s allergy to the phrase “tax cuts”.  Thing is, the longer that allergy continues, the more opportunity the Lib Dems get to do all the running on helping low-income earners.  Iain Martin spells out the simple truth in an excellent post over at Three Line Whip:

“The Conservatives, surely, still believe that individuals are generally better at spending their money than the state, even in a downturn? Do they? And if they don’t, voters might be tempted to ask what the point of the Tories is.”