Whether the Conservatives consider the 2024 manifesto a success or not depends on their definition of success.
For some, it will be enough that Rishi Sunak has not blown up his election campaign in the same way Theresa May did with her promise to impose additional taxes on people to pay for social care in her 2017 manifesto.
Some will be pleased that, unlike Liz Truss, Mr Sunak has not sought to introduce unfunded tax cuts (even if there are some question marks over how reliable all his revenue figures are). And for those who want a moderately sensible set of tax reforms, which should encourage people to work more and improve the country’s productivity, this manifesto will have proved quite satisfactory.
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But for anyone looking for a game-changing moment of economic bravery, this wasn’t it.
That said, let’s discuss the main contours of this manifesto. The Conservatives plan to cut taxes by £17.2 billion. They also plan to increase spending by around £800 million. They plan to pay for this by cutting social spending by £12 billion and extracting an additional £6 billion from tax avoiders.
There are big doubts about whether this money can be raised as easily as the manifesto suggests. There are also some other question marks buried deeper in the Conservative manifesto. For example, this relatively small increase in spending is actually a net number, dependent on some fairly large spending cuts.
But in general terms, it is going too far to accuse this government of trying to inflict another Truss-style unfunded mini-budget on the UK. This is significantly less radical than that.
In fact, the problem for many conservatives will probably be that it is not radical enough.
The conservative manifesto
Because although cuts to Social Security will slow down the increase in the tax burden in the coming years, they will not prevent its increase, much less reduce it.
In fact, even after these cuts, the tax burden will be higher in 2028-29 (about 36.7% of GDP) than it is today (36.5% of GDP). The fact that it does not reach the level of 37.1% of GDP that it was aiming for, according to the government’s latest plans, may be a relief for those who do not like taxes. But this is not the seismic shift that some expected from this manifesto.
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The Conservatives admit that although cuts to Social Security will not entirely offset increases in taxes through the freezing of personal allowances, they say the burden will stabilize and possibly even fall slightly in the final year of the next parliament.
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But for those hoping for a broader statement from Mr Sunak today, this slightly more incremental policy package may come as a disappointment. But until we receive Labour’s manifesto later this week, it will be difficult to make clear comparisons between the main parties.
This story originally appeared on News.sky.com read the full story
