Here are two errors:
- Promising tax cuts, when you don't know how to pay for them, and being reduced to promising to "cut fraud and waste" to make your numbers add up. This was one of our many errors in 2001 and 2005. I'll call this the "Portillo error"
- Promising not to cut taxes. I'll call this the "Hammond error".
Both the Portillo and Hammond errors arise from coming at the problem in the wrong way. Why must we make any promises about taxes for many years ahead? Why are we talking about the matter in these terms at all? What we should be talking about is what we want the state to do and what not to do, how we want to change what the state does and how it does it, and from there having an indication as to the spending implications. Taxes are a residual of our policies, not the policies themselves.
Whilst we insist on focusing on the matter the Portillo/Hammond way around, whether urging tax cuts or no tax cuts, the public will believe that our thoughts are finance-driven, that our public service reforms are about reducing expenditure rather than improving services, that we are rich people for whom the consideration is "How much tax can I avoid paying to help the poor and yet still get elected?" That is not a good place for us to be...
