Much is being made of Francis Maude's interviw in the Telegraph this morning.Once again the Tories are under the taxation spotlight.
"The idea that offering tax cuts is an instant route to electoral success is utter rubbish, If the voters think we are taking risks with economic stability and the public services that will be very bad for us."
And adds
The Tories need to reassure the voters that the NHS and schools would be safe with them. "There's almost certainly a lot of waste and we will address that... People want to see the money they spend as taxpayers delivering a better health service
Not what the old guard will want to here but Iain Dale takes further
The debate now needs to be shifted onto the unsustainable levels of public spending. This is not a subject on which the Conservatives need to be defensive. The 1979 election was won in part because people realised the government was spending more than it could afford, and Margaret Thatcher promised to do something about it
Less charitable is Donald Blarney who says of Maude
he repeats the falsehood that the last two elections were lost simply because the Tories promised tax cuts and therefore the electoral calculation is simple: promising tax cuts = inevitable electoral defeat. Putting aside the fact that Maude missed out mentioning the tax cuts promised in 1997 (which are also blamed on the party's landslide defeat that year too), the very notion that a promise of tax cuts per se renders the Tories unelectable is the most arrant piece of dishonest nonsense.
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