In this story last week about the Chancellor’s little local
difficulty over the increase in National Insurance, the Tory MP for Carmarthen
West and South Pembrokeshire came up with a real humdinger of a suggestion; or
at least it would be if he followed it through to its logical conclusion. In essence, as he sees it, the problem isn’t
that the Chancellor broke a promise, it’s that the Tories were silly enough to
make the promise in the first place.
Matters such as taxation policy are best left vague, so that the government
can respond to changes in circumstances.
That needs to be followed through, though. Clearly, without knowing what any putative
government is going to do on taxes, it’s difficult to make any spending pledges
either. And it isn’t only financial
circumstances that might change, so perhaps all policies should be left
unstated in case the government feels it needs to do something different. It’s an approach which would lead to very
short manifestos. One sentence would be
quite enough:
“We will do whatever we think needs to be done at any point in time.”
I’d like to think that it’s an approach which would never
catch on, but it actually strikes me as a refreshingly honest statement of the
current government’s approach. I’ll bet
that the PM won’t be overjoyed at seeing the cat let out of the bag.
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