Empty power-lust is a dispiriting spectacle. The array of contenders jostling for the hollow crown are a motley ship of fools or knaves, striving to outbid each other with fantasy policies and vast tax cuts that never count the cost.
Downright chancers and jaw-dropping improbables stand alongside obscenely rich frontrunners with dubious tax records. None look likely to win back “red wall” seats, according to heavily negative polling in the Times: the better their name recognition, the more they are disliked, while only Keir Starmer has a positive score (with eight points).
But real voters are not their target, as they woo their own MPs and 200,000 mainly male, white, elderly, southern members. Whoever wins, the result will plunge us into yet deeper austerity in this tax-cutting arms race egged on by the Tory press. Even “moderates” are at it: Tom Tugendhat says “taxes, bluntly, are too high” while Jeremy Hunt puts a £39bn tax cut on the table. Former non-dom Sajid Javid, an Ayn Rand fan, has bid highest so far with a tax cut between £47bn and £52bn, or 2% of GDP, the Financial Times calculates.
Rishi Sunak focuses on paying down debt rather than immediate tax cuts, rejecting the “comforting fairytales” of his competitors. He’s right that tax cuts won’t yield more to the Treasury through supposed growth: it’s the same unicorn economics as of the infamous Laffer curve, purporting to show taxing the rich less brings in more. It doesn’t. No candidate explains why all those countries pulling away from us have higher taxes and better growth. The Resolution Foundation shows that the typical French household income rose by 34% in the decade to 2018 and Germany’s was up by 23%, while lower-taxed UK households fell back by 2%.
Cutting income tax does nothing for the poor who pay none, while VAT cuts boost spending among those who are better off, fuelling inflation. Cutting corporation tax in a race-to-the-bottom denies all countries vital revenue. Why reward businesses paying out high dividends to their shareholders while holding back on investment, which has tumbled 9.2% below pre-Covid levels? Only state spending can stop millions more falling into grievous penury.
These would-be leaders never say which services they will sacrifice for their tax cuts: NHS, schools, courts, councils, care, defence, rail, benefits or children’s services? But they will be asked. Paul Johnson, the IFS director, warns candidates “need to be clear about consequences” as cuts “certainly mean big real terms cuts in public pay.” They may idly boast of standing up to strikers, but nothing can stop the haemorrhaging of nurses and teachers to jobs with better pay elsewhere, when pay review bodies award way below a predicted 11% inflation.
Here’s the mystery. Why do any of them want it, at this worst possible time? Boris Johnson blabbed that the Queen wondered the same thing on his first audience with her. Leaving aside the smearing and stiletto-knifing in this nasty contest, the paradox is that any Tory seeking this poisoned plastic cup is almost by definition unsuited to the task. Either they don’t understand what a dreadful state the country is in with every function of government dilapidated because of their own policies, or they don’t much care. Power for what purpose? Being world king matters more.
Sunak, in his glibly grinning Ready for Rishi video, does warn that ahead lie “challenges the most serious for a generation”. But this Brexiter is one of those responsible for British household income growth having fallen behind all Europe bar Cyprus and Greece. On his watch Britain is now the most unequal country in all Europe, bar Bulgaria, as he cut back on universal credit and put nothing serious into levelling up. Javid knows the crippled state in which he left the NHS. Despite her patriotic “I vow to thee my country” promo video, Penny Mordaunt, the trade minister, knows the truth of our forlorn trade prospects, with an 8.3% trade deficit – the worst since 1955. Liz Truss knows her bill tearing up the Northern Ireland protocol is heading for an outright collision with the EU. But they all compete for the champion Brexiter cup.
Most of them eagerly served their disgraced leader, even as two ethics advisers resigned, but now they ooze with unctuous pledges of “honesty” and “integrity”. No toe-curling videos promoting them as changed characters can wipe the stain away. Expect more shame to emerge as those departing Number 10 have Johnson stories to tell. Wait for his honours list. Wait for his own vengeful revelations about his successors.
The battleground echoes with a medley of favourite old Tory tunes, but these may not get the voters singing along. Suella Braverman will “make Rwanda work”, but how? Grant Shapps promises “Singapore” deregulation but never spells out on what: animal welfare, food safety, working rights, more sewage into rivers? Mordaunt clamours for increased defence spending, but from where? Abolish the net zero target some say – what a bleak future when none of them promote climate pledges. All these themes that tickle Tory members may not fly beyond the Carlton club. Jeremy Corbyn’s manifestos made more economic sense than these wild tax-and-spend cutters – they are the extremists now.
Imagine the victor’s dilemma, waking up at the helm of this sinking ship. Each face round the cabinet table heads a failing service to be cut yet deeper, either under tax cuts and/or under Sunak’s needless debt repayments. A new leader can claim no “clean break” or “fresh start” when these Tories voted in every budget for 12 pernicious austerity years that stripped the public realm bare.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
