The truth about Tory spending policy

Fraser Nelson's blogging on the Spectator Coffee House site has been unmissable - particularly on details of welfare policy. I've been really impressed.

But, as you might expect, I didn't much like his latest offering on Tory spending policy.

First he argued that

Cameron is doing nothing original in aping Brown’s spending plans. This pledge was made by Portillo in 2001 and Letwin in 2004. If the electorate didn't want it then, why should they this time? Or, to borrow a Cameroon analogy, if voters didn't want ham and cheese in the last two elections why would they go for more ham and more cheese now?

But this is quite wrong.

Both the Portillo in 2001 and Letwin in 2004 words are handily linked by Fraser to documents. If you follow the links you will see that, contrary to the above paragraph, neither Portillo or Letwin promised to match Labour's spending totals. They promised to match them on schools and hospitals, a very different pledge.

And this discovery reverses the impact of Fraser's paragraph.

Later in the same post he says this:

Then, he’s [Osborne] free to do something the Conservatives in Opposition have not dared do since 1979: give the public more of their money back.

In 1979 the Conservative Party did not offer tax cuts (which they feared might undermine stability). They offered cuts in direct tax, paid for through increases in indirect tax. And that is what they delivered.

The total tax bill went up in the first budget as VAT went up.

George Osborne made his matching pledge rapidly because he needed to be prepared for an election that most thought would come within weeks.

The election didn't come. So most of the period covered by Osborne's pledge is a period during which Labour is in power.

Osborne doesn't need to make another pledge about the spending path of a Tory government for quite a while. It is ridiculous to ask him not to match Labour in future when we don't know what their spending path will be.

Comments

[Simon]

I've just about given up on Fraser. Its the same old tune time and again. He claimed Sunday's ICM poll showed it was essential for Dave to offer a bolder approach to tax and spend. That very poll showed such an approach would put off swing voters. It wouldn't be so bad if he got his facts right but he often does not. Any sensible Tory who lived through the last two elections knows that Dave is following the right course.

[Serf]

It is ridiculous to ask him not to match Labour in future when we don't know what their spending path will be.

Not precisely no, but I'm sure that drunken sailor and shore leave would be a round about approximation