The Conservative Party seems to have run out of ideas. Anonymous voices claiming to speak on its behalf have said in the days since its disastrous double defeat in the Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth by-elections that Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are considering tax cuts.
It has been suggested that the prime minister and chancellor might cut higher-rate income tax before the general election – or that they might put a promise to cut stamp duty or inheritance tax in the Conservative manifesto.
If these are the only responses to an electoral setback that the great minds in the party can turn to, the Tories deserve to lose as badly as the by-elections and current opinion polls suggest they are likely to do. “Tax cuts” are a reflex that was taken to a destructive extreme by Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, who proposed huge unfunded tax cuts that would have blown the public finances apart, and from which they were forced to retreat in such disarray that they both lost their jobs in record time.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies