Tax cuts on the agenda but whatever happened to the clear blue wate

Tax cuts wins votes seems the theme of the morning as all three main parties have cottoned on the fact that this may be a way of winning the next election.

For the Labour party there are been rumours for a few days now that the treasury was thinking of this as a way to reflate the economy.

Cameron's Conservatives have now decided that this will have to be their policy now and the Lib Dems will contend that it always has been their's

It is worth reading Janet Daly in this morning's Telegraph who suggests that the inspiration ofr this has come from across the Atlantic

Even the Democrats - who have been at least as enthusiastic about "stimulus packages" (tax cuts) as Republicans - recognise that it is people having money to spend that generates economic growth. And that is a political lesson worth borrowing.

Yesterday's Telegraph gave the first hint of this change of policy

David Cameron is determined to get his party on to the front foot over tax after clear signs that the Government is planning its own reductions to be unveiled in the forthcoming Pre-Budget Report.
A senior party source said the new "funded" Tory tax cut, which could be announced within days, would be aimed at staving off unemployment. It would be a "recession-alleviating measure" and would be paid for by cutting government spending elsewhere, he added

Some good ideas but as with all Lib Dem initiatives-do the figures add up

Nick Clegg's about turn on tax and spend has not gone unnoticed.

The LibDems must be desperate. So depressing is their opinion poll performance at the moment that they are even resorting to talking common sense about tax and public spending. Not only is their leader Nick Clegg proposing tax cuts for the lower paid - a policy which any politician of social conscience should recognise as morally and politically compelling - but he even suggested on the Today programme this morning that the Government should be "tightening its belt".says Janet Daley on Telegraph.co.uk

Clegg earlier today launched "Make it happen" telling his audience that society after all was not broken and that being British we won't just give up on each other(Mmmmm.....sure we have got the right party here).

Stressing that he wanted to make Britain a fairer country,the party has pledged to reduce income tax from 20-16% the shortfall made up with green taxes and closing the loopholes.

Where he has tried to differentiate himself from the other parties is in a commitment to spend more on those in society that need it the most.

It is the scrapping of the 50p top tax rate and the extra 1p on tax that has determined this shift.

The question that must be asked though is too fold.Firstly will the Whitehall savings and closing of the loopholes make up the difference.Secondly will Green taxes just impinge on those that he is trying to help

The tax cut wars continue

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.

No tax cuts but let's promote the family-verdict on the Tories Spring Conference

As the Tory spring conference comes to an end in the North East,Philip Hammond, the shadow Treasury chief secretary is inteviewed by the Sunday Telegraph and rules out any wholesale tax cuts in a next Tory Administration.

"When the money's piled up in the pot, then you give it away in tax cuts. It only makes sense to look at this over an economic cycle. You can't look at it in a single year, or even necessarily in a four-year parliament

His comments re affirm pledges made by both David Cameron and George Osbourne over the weekend and again in an inteview with William Hague on this morning's Andrew Marr programme.

Iain Martin is a little to say the least disappointed pointing out

It took Britain just six years to win the Second World War. The lack of ambition on this subject is breathtaking.
There will be many a Tory activist, and more than a few members of the shadow cabinet, reading Hammond's words on tax and getting very angry

Generally though the spring conference seems to have gone well.The big theme was the family,Cameron following uo his appearance on ITN with a speach in which he affirms

My ambition is to make Britain more family-friendly. To make our country a better place to bring up children. Not just because it's the right thing to do, not just because my family is the most important thing in my life, but because families should be the most important thing in our country's life.

Something that will go down down in the Blue rinse brigade.

Although not in all quarters,

I'm not convinced about David Cameron's "family friendly" agenda that dominated his speech at the end of the conference.
Obviously he thinks it's a vote winner. But I thought it was rather odd that the Tory leader promised to spend £200 million on recruiting more health visitors and at the same time told his party they would have to get used to saying no more often than yes to spending pledges.

says Jon Craig

And over at the Sindy Cole Morton asks whether Cameron will regret placing tots in the frontline?

As he points out

Gordon Brown wouldn't feel comfortable with any of it. Both as a politician and a man he seems to have benefited enormously from having a wife and two children – although there has been suffering too, in the death of their first-born, Jennifer. Mr Brown has a son with cystic fibrosis but he has never allowed his family to be filmed or photographed, except for official portraits.