The Chancellor has little headroom for another Budget. The Rwanda plan is a dud. A Nigel Farage return looms. How much worse can the Tory position become in the next six months?
But Tory Democracy has triumphed for much of our history since Disraeli, and can before long be expected to triumph again.
“I can confirm it will be, yes,” Hunt said when asked if the triple-lock would be in the Tory election manifesto.
The Chancellor spoke to Trevor Phillips after Vladimir Putin linked the Moscow terror attack – estimated to have killed 133 people – to Ukraine.
When we look at the priorities of Conservative voters, 46 per cent want the cost-of-living and inflation tackled, 36 per cent want energy security improved, 30 per cent want economic growth to return, and only 14 per cent want taxes cut.
Without some serious and fast work on the cost of living – the British public’s number one priority – a wholesale polling turnaround looks far, far off.
When asked about the overall effect, only 14 per cent of voters said they thought the Budget would leave them better off personally, with 2019 Labour voters (19 per cent) more likely to say this than 2019 Tories (12 per cent).
Last week, Jeremy Hunt took important first steps toward solving three serious problems: the system’s anti-family bias, too much disparity in how earned and unearned income is treated, and absurd marginal rates.
A mandate for abolition provided by a manifesto pledge might be easier for the markets to accept than just ignoring it in the pursuit of tax cuts, as Liz Truss attempted.
I have a theory: more often than not, a political party is better at evaluating its opponent’s political weaknesses than its own.
To those who say that election year budgets should offer short-term giveaways, I say this: history tells us that the British public is much too smart and much too sceptical to be bribed.
The PM and Chancellor are right to avoid the “jump to glory style of politics”, but this may only be recognised when they are gone.
National insurance is perhaps the biggest lie in British politics (or at least in tax policy). Unpicking this tax will unpick that lie.
You know politics is changing when your tour of competitive parliamentary seats takes you to a seat Jeremy Hunt held in 2015 with a majority of more than 28,000.