Politics can often seem superficial. In the Commons and in the TV studios MPs often fling around partisan and exaggerated claims, character and appearance count, and the debate often fixates on relatively narrow problems or gaffes.
But, ultimately, what matters is who is winning the big arguments. And this morning, on the Today programme, in a remarkable interview, a key plank in the Conservative party worldview just gave way. A senior Tory said taxes should go up so that more money can be spent on public services.
And it was not just any old Tory. It was Sir Oliver Letwin, one of the party’s leading thinkers, a member of Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit in Number 10 in the 1980s and, in David Cameron’s administration, the minister in charge of co-ordinating all government policy. Letwin did not have a high profile as a minister, but that was not because he was not important; it was because he could not be trusted to go on the radio without blurting out an awkward truth. On the basis of his performance this morning, you can see why.
Effectively this morning Letwin was conceding that Labour has won the argument for higher taxation. Here are the key quotes
[Getting back to balanced budgets] is compatible with easing up a little, not a great splurge, but easing up a little on spending on key public services if one is prepared to bite the bullet of carefully judged and carefully presented tax increases …
I think there is a recognition that, while some taxes are extremely difficult to live with for some people, other taxes, if you get it right, can be raised in a careful way without provoking massive problems for families …
The principle that we’ve worked on over the past many years now, since 2010, has been that the better off should bear the bigger part of whatever strains the economy suffers. And that is what’s happened over the past few years, despite much rhetoric to the contrary. And that will need to go on being the case. There’s no doubt that those of us who are lucky enough to have higher incomes will have to bear, in one way or another, a larger share of the cost of any increases in public service expenditure. But I’m not at all pretending that you can restrict the chancellor to only dealing with whatever Mr Corbyn or somebody else defines as the very rich.
Then, asked whether he was saying that taxes should go up generally, not just for higher-rate tax payers, he replied:
It may well be that, in one way or another, a large number of people will have to pay a little more tax if we are going to maintain the trend towards reduced deficits, and yet spend a bit more on the crucial public services that do need more spent on them.
It is worth pointing out that Letwin has not gone the full Jeremy Corbyn. He said he still believed it was important to reduce the deficit. (Labour is more relaxed about maintaining borrowing.) Letwin explained that he favoured some increase in taxation because he accepted that more money should be spend on public services, and he did not want that to come from extra borrowing.
There is another key difference. Labour said their plans for higher taxes at the election would only result in big businesses and the richest 5% paying more. Letwin was making the case for many people paying higher personal taxes.
Letwin’s interview coincided with a report from the British social attitudes survey showing that support for higher taxes and spending is now higher than at any time since 2004. And austerity will be at the heart of the debate when MPs vote on the Labour amendment on the Queen’s speech tonight.
I will post more from Letwin’s interview, and reaction to it, shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, gives a speech to the Rusi land warfare conference.
10am: Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish culture secretary, gives a speech on Scotland-EU relations in Glasgow.
12pm: Theresa May faces Jeremy Corbyn at the first PMQs of the new parliament.
7pm: MPs vote on the Labour amendment to the Queen’s speech.
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary after PMQs and another in the afternoon.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
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