Jeremy Hunt just made the case for why you should vote Labour

The chancellor and his shadow went head-to-head on the central election issue of tax and public spending... and Rachel Reeves won, writes John Rentoul

Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt insisted Labour’s tax plans would be ‘damaging for every family in the country’ (Aaron Chown/PA Wire)

Jeremy Hunt simply cannot decide whether he is a nice guy or a ruthless political operator. Today he delivered a cynical pre-election exercise, taking the rules on civil-service impartiality to the limit by engaging Treasury officials to sell the message that Labour would raise taxes.

But he did it in a reasonable tone of voice, protesting repeatedly that he was being “transparent” and “completely open”. He said that he had asked his civil servants to take a cautious approach to costing Labour’s promises, taking the lowest of a range of estimates of the cost and not including promises – such as Labour’s plan to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent of national income – that did not have a target date.

Even so, much to his feigned surprise and distress, he had to report that Labour’s plans would cost £10bn a year more than they would raise, and therefore that “taxes would go up under a future Labour government”.