Tax U-turn wins Truss some time but damage to credibility remains
So it turns out the lady was for turning, after all. Just hours after Liz Truss declared on national television that she would stand by her controversial plan to scrap the 45p top tax rate, she dumped it.
The decision came in crisis talks with her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, late on Sunday night, after the prime minister spent the evening touring fringe events at the Tory party conference.
It was clear to anybody with even an ounce of political foresight that the U-turn was inevitable. Rebellious Tory MPs, led by former cabinet ministers Michael Gove, had made it clear they would vote against the 45p rate cut, undeterred by threats to strip them of the whip.
They warned of the “un-Conservative” risk of using borrowed money to fund tax cuts and the broader fiscal turbulence unleashed by the uncertainty around the mini-budget. The Tories, they feared, had permanently broken the link with economic competence.
But it was the politics that caused the deepest unease. At a time when people are struggling with the costs of living, and the government is planning further public spending cuts, focusing on welfare, it was seen as electoral suicide to cut taxes for the rich. A succession of bad polls for the Tories bore that view out.
As a humiliated Kwarteng toured the radio stations on Monday morning, he insisted the government had “listened” to the country – until it was pointed out that he’d spent the last 10 days ignoring them. And even after dumping the policy, he still refused to apologise for the damage already caused.
Every government ends up dropping policies, he said. That may be true, but George Osborne’s U-turn on the pasty tax, Nick Clegg’s on tuition fees, and Boris Johnson’s decision to row back on free school meals were,
Read more on theguardian.com
