The trouble with promising tax cuts we can’t afford

Beware politicians offering to make cuts to the tax burden, says James Moore: given the alarming state of UK plc, any such pledges will either be junked after polling day – or will ‘salt the ground’ for the incoming administration

A new Institute for Fiscal Studies report has warned Jeremy Hunt that Britain faces the worst debt challenge since the 1950s (PA)

When I heard that the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) had called on British politicians to show greater honesty when talking about the nation’s shaky finances, I thought: Really? In an election year?

The studiously non-partisan financial think tank has taken a look at what the two main parties have been saying, set against the daunting fiscal backdrop that Britain must contend with. Needless to say, it doesn’t make for a pretty picture. Think one of those headache-inducing splashes of violent colour one might see hanging in the Tate.

The principal problem faced by the nation is that the economy is chugging along like a banged-up old East German Trabant with a hairdryer for an engine. It is hard to see that changing, at least in the short term.