The Telegraph reports that "Alistair Darling will announce measures worth several hundred pounds to every family struggling to cope in the downturn." The Conservatives, meanwhile, will announce a fully-funded tax relief that, the Today programme reports, will be targeted on people in danger of losing their jobs.
Although small tax cuts can work electorally (see the experience of Canada) it is vital that tomorrow’s Conservative tax reliefs are proportionate to the scale of the economic challenge facing Britain. Tory members agree with the leadership that indebted Britain cannot afford even more borrowing but tough spending restraint could afford large tax reliefs (a position supported by today’s Daily Mail).
Trevor Kavanagh uses his Sun column to attack the "sloppy assumptions" of the Conservative position – particularly on economics but the most important warning to David Cameron and George Osborne comes from Fraser Nelson. Writing at Coffee House he points to the experience of America where Barack Obama ‘stole’ the tax issue from the Republicans:
"McCain didn’t think for a moment that the tax-cutting agenda could
ever be stolen from the conservatives. He was wrong. Obama put tax cuts
at the front and centre of every speech he made, even if this wasn’t
much reported in Britain. Look at www.obamataxcut.com to see the power
of the message he was sending American voters. You enter your income,
and see how much better-off you’d be under Obama than under McCain.
Obama placed tax cuts at the start of his “infomercial,” he ran
two-minute television adverts on tax cuts. He stole the issue from
under the noses of the conservatives. Just like Bush did with education
in 2000 and Clinton with welfare reform in 1992."