As a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I am uneasy about the bail-out of Flybe. Every time a private business is bailed out by the taxpayer, the pressure grows.
The tax burden isn’t a full measure of the size of the state. But it’s arguably the pre-eminent factor and certainly that which most concerns the TaxPayers’ Alliance.
Labour is banking on our innumeracy. I don’t say that they are taking us for fools. Plenty of clever and educated people can’t process numbers on that scale.
The Chancellor says that the party will publish “the most detailed, most transparent costings that have ever been published in British electoral history”.
Their manifesto doesn’t provide any costings for their most expensive plans. The IFS says their tax pledge is not believable. But will they get away with it?