Budget tax cuts would be disingenuous. Any headroom would be based on earlier tax hikes and further increases and cuts after the election. But are Tory MPs at all interested in the long-term sustainability of the public finances?
Claire Coutinho is clearly impressive, but has only been an MP since 2019, and the appointment of someone so inexperienced to so big a role comes with risks.
The second part of our series on reducing demand for government, in which we set out a programme for change – focused on families, civil society and government.
In the end, I’m with Nigel Lawson: these alternatives would produce marginal gains at best, and at worst decades of distraction from the real path back to a stronger health service.
The A list and its successors haven’t kept a golden generation out of Parliament. Many of those who might have made it up aren’t putting themselves forward for selection in the first place.
When he became Chancellor in 1983, he inherited an income tax system that had its roots deep in the 19th Century. It was crying out for reform.
On some issues, he got it wrong. On other issues, he got it right but is misrepresented by some of his cheerleaders. And on other issues, he was right in the context of the time but circumstances have changed.
Lawson backed Sunak last year due to his concern about unfunded tax cuts. Those using tributes to him to push for them again are failing to understand his record in office.
He was the most formidable Chancellor of the Twentieth Century and a titan of the modern Conservative Party – voting for Sunak and endorsing his approach in last summer’s Tory leadership election.,
“They’re all part of the Barmy Army which call themselves the Referendum Party. They’ve got many problems – one of which is that they don’t know what questions to put in a referendum.”
One ex-minister described the corporation tax rise to me as “categorically the wrong decision”. But the same old question for backbenchers remains: what will you sacrifice for tax cuts?
The former chancellor understood that the best way to kick-start growth – and increase revenues – was giving individuals and companies the incentives to invest.
The moral of this story is that these models provide interesting context – a little like horoscopes. But when it comes to decision-making, give me an economic historian in preference to a model any day.
Growth is as much a political problem as it is an economic one. We need to spend vastly more time thinking about the trade-offs and compromises required to achieve it, how to sequence reforms, and which battles to pick and when.