The Voters Panel: Why is Jeremy Hunt preparing to cut taxes and rein in public spending?
Why is Jeremy Hunt preparing to cut taxes and rein in public spending growth when polls suggest the public – by a clear margin – think this is the wrong way round?
Sky News’ Voters Panel, an online community of 2019 Conservative voters, holds the answer.
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For two weeks, Sky News has convened dozens of voters who supported Boris Johnson in 2019 to probe more deeply than possible with an opinion poll into what motivates their views on politics in this election year.
This is seen by Conservatives and Labour as a key electoral battleground. These people matter.
So while it is true the overall British population swings one way – national YouGov polling finds 55% of voters overall say spare cash should go to public services against only 30% wanting tax cuts – our group, our key electoral demographic, sees things differently.
Of these voters, 23 people expressed a clear view that they did want tax cuts. Meanwhile, 15 said that they did not want tax cuts, mostly because of a desire to put more into public services.
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When our Voters Panel was forced to choose one or other – tax cuts or more money into public spending – they picked tax cuts by the ratio of three to two – nine wanted to put more money into public spending, while 17 wanted tax cuts.
When asked to justify why they picked one over the other, the panel was clear.
Holly said: “I think cuts to personal income tax would be the most needed and most beneficial for people.
“The cost of living crisis and rising inflation has squeezed everyone, this would be a good way to bring balance back.”
Mark said: “I feel taxes are high enough. Cut taxes and give people, especially the most vulnerable, a chance to have extra money in their pockets.”
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Some, like Rob, thought higher public spending was an actively bad idea.
“More public spending doesn’t deliver better services. It just creates more waste and more middle and upper managers,” he said.
Others adopted the language of the right of the Tory party, with Terry wanting less spent on public services, because it [the party] needs to be more realistic and end spending on “woke management posts or inflated management teams”.
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20% of Tories would vote Reform
While a clutch rejected more public spending, mostly for the NHS, some thought more money needed to go into police.
However, even among those who want higher spending, there is a fear it might be wasted.
Kelly, who backs budget increases, said: “I fear that we will only benefit from it if they are spending it correctly. Which I don’t think they are.”
This is not the only reason Tory strategists will plump for tax cuts over spending rises.
Any announcement by the chancellor of a personal taxation cut will be instantly noticed by millions of people for whom it will take effect before long.
Meanwhile should Mr Hunt decide to announce future public spending rises of even two percentage points, few would understand what that means in practice and there is next to no chance anyone would feel the difference by the time election day arrives.
This choice, it seems, is more simple than it might look.
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Reform UK overtakes Conservative membership – Nigel Farage calls it ‘historic’, Kemi Badenoch says numbers are ‘fake’
Reform UK now has more members than the Conservative Party and is “the real opposition” according to Nigel Farage, while Kemi Badenoch has called his numbers “fake”.
According to a digital counter on the party’s website, Reform UK had gone past 131,690 members – the amount the Conservative Party declared before its leadership election in the autumn – just before midday on Boxing Day.
Mr Farage, party leader and MP for Clacton-on-Sea, hailed the “historic moment” and said on X: “The youngest political party in British politics has just overtaken the oldest political party in the world. Reform UK are now the real opposition.”
But Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused the party of issuing misleading figures: “Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel?. It’s not real. It’s a fake… [the website has been] coded to tick up automatically.”
Posting on X, she added that the Tories had “gained thousands of new members since the leadership election”.
Reform UK also shared a video of the membership tracker being projected on to the Conservative Party headquarters in London overnight.
Zia Yusuf, party chairman, also said “history has been made today” and that the Tories’ “centuries-long stranglehold on the centre-right of British politics” has “finally been broken”.
Mr Farage hit back at Ms Badenoch, who strongly contested Reform UK’s figures. He claimed to have proof and posted a screenshot of an online register reportedly showing ‘active memberships’.
“We understand you are bitter, upset and angry that we are now the second biggest party in British politics, and that the Conservative brand is dying under your leadership. However, this not an excuse to accuse us of committing fraud,” he wrote on X.
Mr Yusuf added to the debate by appearing to goad Ms Badenoch about an audit: “We will gladly invite a Big 4 audit firm to verify our membership numbers on the basis that you do the same.”
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Nigel Farage said Reform UK is ‘now the real opposition’ after the ‘historic moment’. Pic: Reuters
The Conservative party membership figure – shared after Kemi Badenoch was announced as the new leader on 2 November – was the lowest on record and a drop from the 2022 leadership contest, when there were around 172,000 members.
In response, a Conservative Party spokesman said: “Reform has delivered a Labour Government that has cruelly cut winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners, put the future of family farming and food security at risk, and launched a devastating raid on jobs which will leave working people paying the price.
“A vote for Reform this coming May is a vote for a Labour council – only the Conservatives can stop this.”
According to research from the House of Commons Library, there is no uniformly recognised definition of party membership and no established method or body to monitor the number of members each political group has.
Reform UK was also originally set up as a limited company, but Mr Farage said he would change the party’s structure to be member-owned in September.
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It comes after Mr Farage offered to help Lord Mandelson, the new ambassador to the US, negotiate with president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration.
A long-time associate of Mr Trump, he has been seen at several Republican events during and after the presidential election.
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