Tax cut? You must be joking – it’s a tax rise (but most of it will happen under Labour)

Pre-election Budgets are great occasions for double-speak, but Jeremy Hunt has outdone himself this time, writes John Rentoul

Hunt showed that he knew his history as he made his autumn statement (PA)

Now is not the time to cut taxes, so we should congratulate Jeremy Hunt on not cutting them. Indeed, taxes need to go up to pay for better public services, so we should praise the chancellor for increasing the tax burden over the next few years.

But we should also admire his cheek in claiming to be cutting taxes at the same time. Pre-election Budgets are great occasions for double-speak, but Hunt has outdone himself this time. Having said since Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous tax cuts a year ago that we couldn’t have tax cuts because they are inflationary, Hunt has announced tax cuts even though they are inflationary, claiming that it is all right because inflation is coming down (even if it would come down faster without an inflationary tax cut).

Rishi Sunak and Hunt know their history. They know that income tax cuts before elections helped Margaret Thatcher establish the Conservative reputation as the party that is more careful with taxpayers’ money. They also know their more recent history, which is that Ken Clarke, when he was chancellor in 1996, cut a penny off the basic rate of income tax and boasted of creating a “Rolls-Royce economy”. Just as they did today, Tory backbenchers cheered and shouted “More”.