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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Homelessness minister Rushanara Ali has resigned after reportedly hiking the rent on a property she owns by hundreds of pounds – something described by one of her tenants as “extortion”.
That was just weeks after the previous tenants’ contract ended, The i Paper said.
Four tenants who rented a house in east London from Ms Ali were sent an email last November saying their lease would not be renewed, and which also gave them four months’ notice to leave, the newspaper reported.
The property was then re-listed with a £700 rent increase within weeks, the publication added.
In a letter to the prime minister, Ms Ali said that remaining in her role would be a “distraction from the ambitious work of this government”.
She added: “Further to recent reporting, I wanted to make it clear that at all times I have followed all relevant legal requirements.
“I believe I took my responsibilities and duties seriously, and the facts demonstrate this.”
Laura Jackson, one of Ms Ali’s former tenants, said she and three others collectively paid £3,300 in rent.
Weeks after she and her fellow tenants had left, the self-employed restaurant owner said she saw the house re-listed with a rent of around £4,000.
“It’s an absolute joke,” she said. “Trying to get that much money from renters is extortion.”
Sir Keir Starmer said Ms Ali’s work in government would leave a ‘lasting legacy’. Pic: PA
Ms Ali’s house, rented on a fixed-term contract, was put up for sale while the tenants were living there, and was only relisted as a rental because it had not sold, according to The i Paper.
The government’s Renters’ Rights Bill includes measures to ban landlords who end a tenancy to sell a property from re-listing it for six months.
The Bill, which is nearing its end stages of scrutiny in Parliament, will also abolish fixed-term tenancies and ensure landlords give four months’ notice if they want to sell their property.
Something Sir Keir’s increasingly unpopular government could have done without
Rushanara Ali’s swift and humiliating demise is a classic example of paying the price for the politician’s crime of “Do as I say, not as I do”.
She was Labour’s minister for homelessness, for goodness’ sake, yet she ejected tenants from her near-£1m town house then hiked the rent.
A more egregious case of ministerial double standards it would be difficult to imagine. She had to go and was no doubt told by 10 Downing Street to go quickly.
MP for the East End constituency of Bethnal Green and Stepney, Ms Ali was the very model of a modern Labour minister: a degree in PPE from Oxford University.
In her resignation letter to Sir Keir Starmer, she said she is quitting “with a heavy heart”. Really? She presumably didn’t have a heavy heart when she ejected her four tenants.
She’d previously spoken out against “private renters being exploited” and said the government would “empower people to challenge unreasonable rent increases”.
She was charging her four former tenants £3,300 a month. Yet after they moved out, she charged her new tenants £4,000, a rent increase of more than 20%.
In an area represented by the left-wing firebrand George Galloway from 2005 to 2010, Ms Ali had a majority of under 1,700 at the election last year.
Ominously for Labour, an independent candidate was second and the Greens third. No doubt Jeremy Corbyn’s new party will also stand next time.
In her resignation letter to the PM, Ms Ali said continuing in her ministerial role would be a distraction. Too right.
A distraction Sir Keir and his increasingly unpopular government could have done without.
Responding to her resignation, shadow housing secretary Sir James Cleverly said: “I said that her actions were total hypocrisy and that she should go if the accusations were shown to be true.”
A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said: “Rushanara Ali fundamentally misunderstood her role. Her job was to tackle homelessness, not to increase it.”
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Previously, a spokesperson for Ms Ali said the tenants “stayed for the entirety of their fixed term contract, and were informed they could stay beyond the expiration of the fixed term, while the property remained on the market, but this was not taken up, and they decided to leave the property”.
The prime minister thanked Ms Ali for her “diligent work” and for helping to “deliver this government’s ambitious agenda”.
Sir Keir Starmer said her work in putting in measures to repeal the Vagrancy Act would have a “significant impact”.
And he said she had been trying to encourage “more people to engage and participate in our democracy”, something that would leave a “lasting legacy”.
Politics
Rushanara Ali: Humiliating demise for Labour minister after a most egregious case of double standards
Rushanara Ali’s swift and humiliating demise is a classic example of paying the price for the politician’s crime of “do as I say, not as I do”.
She was Labour’s minister for homelessness, for goodness’ sake, yet she ejected tenants from her near-£1m town house and then hiked the rent.
Politics Hub: Minister’s resignation as it happened
A more egregious case of ministerial double standards it would be difficult to imagine. She had to go and was no doubt told by 10 Downing Street to go quickly.
Rushanara Ali reportedly hiked the rent on a property she owns. Pic: PA
‘A heavy heart’ – really?
MP for the East End constituency of Bethnal Green and Stepney, Ms Ali was the very model of a modern Labour minister: A degree in PPE from Oxford University.
In her resignation letter to Sir Keir Starmer, she said she is quitting “with a heavy heart”. Really? She presumably didn’t have a heavy heart when she ejected her four tenants.
She’d previously spoken out against “private renters being exploited” and said her government would “empower people to challenge unreasonable rent increases”.
The now former minister was charging her four former tenants £3,300 a month. Yet after they moved out, she charged her new tenants £4,000 – a rent increase of more than 20%.
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The report about the Labour MP first emerged in the i newspaper. Pic: UK Parliament
A fragile constituency for Labour?
In an area represented by the left-wing firebrand George Galloway from 2005 to 2010, Ms Ali had a majority of under 1,700 at the election last year.
Ominously for Labour, an independent candidate was second and the Greens third. No doubt Jeremy Corbyn’s new party will also stand next time.
In her resignation letter to the PM, Ms Ali said continuing in her ministerial role would be a distraction. Too right.
A distraction Sir Keir and his increasingly unpopular government could have done without.
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