Heard the one about Labour’s meat tax? The Conservatives really hope you have…

Leading lights of the Tory Party have spent their conference saying things that are demonstrably untrue – over and over again. Might this approach actually work, asks Tom Peck

Claire Coutinho, a ‘rising star’ of the Conservative Party, declared that Labour will introduce a ‘meat tax’ (PA)

Could anyone have predicted that the defining catchphrase of Conservative Party Conference 2023 would be: “That’s not a meat tax”?

It’s a really catchy one, too, and with all sorts of uses. There is almost nothing you can’t point at and say “That’s not a meat tax”. Try it right now if you like. Have a look around you and whatever leaps out, give it a little look of disbelief and say  “That’s not a meat tax”. Now do something else. After three or four goes, it starts to take on a real musical quality. That’s not a meat tax. That’s not a meat tax. That’s not a meat tax. Before you know it, you really can’t stop.

For all this, you have energy secretary Claire Coutinho to thank, a “rising star” of the Conservative Party apparently, though her ascent to the glittering firmament has been temporarily halted by her having made a truly cosmic wally of herself live on Sky News.