General Election 2024: Five things the main parties aren’t talking about this election

Published

1 year ago

July 1, 2024

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The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says there’s a conspiracy of silence this election – that all of the major political parties aren’t being honest enough about their fiscal plans this election.

And they have a point. Most obviously (and this is the main thing the IFS is complaining about) none of the major manifestos – from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative parties – have been clear about how they will fill an impending black hole in the government’s spending plans.

No need to go into all the gritty details, but the overarching point is that all government spending plans include some broad assumptions about how much spending (and for that matter, taxes and economic growth) will grow in the coming years. Economists call this the “baseline”.

But there’s a problem with this baseline: it assumes quite a slow increase in overall government spending in the next four years, an average of about 1 per cent a year after accounting for inflation. Which doesn’t sound too bad except that we all know from experience that NHS spending always grows more quickly than that, and that 1 per cent needs to accommodate all sorts of other promises, like increasing schools and defence spending and so on.

If all those bits of government are going to consume quite a lot of that extra money (far more than a 1 per cent increase, certainly) then other bits of government won’t get as much. In fact, the IFS reckons those other bits of government – from the Home Office to the legal system – will face annual cuts of 3.5 per cent. In other words, it’s austerity all over again.

But here’s the genius thing (for the politicians, at least). While they have to set a baseline, to make all their other sums add up, the dysfunctional nature of the way government sets its spending budgets means it only has to fill in the small print about which department gets what when it does a spending review. And that spending review isn’t due until after the election.

The upshot is all the parties can pretend they’ve signed up to the baseline even when it’s patently obvious that more money will be needed for those unprotected departments (or else it’s a return to austerity).

So yes, the IFS is right: the numbers in each manifesto, including Labour’s, are massively overshadowed by this other bigger conspiracy of silence.

But I would argue that actually the conspiracy of silence goes even deeper. Because it’s not just fiscal baselines we’re not talking about enough. Consider five other issues none of the major parties is confronting (when I say major parties, in this case I’m talking about the Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem manifestos – to some extent the Green and Reform manifestos are somewhat less guilty of these particular sins, even if they commit others).

Taxes going up

First, for all their promises not to raise any of the major tax rates (something Labour, the Conservatives and Lib Dems have all committed to) the reality is taxes are going up. We will all be paying more in taxes by the end of the parliament compared with today.

Indeed, we’ll all be paying more income tax. Except that we’ll be paying more of it because we’ll be paying tax on more of our income – that’s the inexorable logic of freezing the thresholds at which you start paying certain rates of tax (which is what this government has done – and none of the other parties say they’ll reverse).

Second, the main parties might say they believe in different things, but they all seem to believe in one particular offbeat religion: the magic tax avoidance money tree. All three of these manifestos assume they will make enormous sums – more, actually, than from any single other money-raising measure – from tightening up tax avoidance rules.

While it’s perfectly plausible that you could raise at least some money from clamping down on tax avoidance, it’s hardly a slam-dunk. That this is the centrepiece of each party’s money-raising efforts says a lot. And, another thing that’s often glossed over: raising more money this way will also raise the tax burden.

Third is another thing all the parties agree on and are desperate not to question: the fiscal rules. The government has a set of rules requiring it to keep borrowing and (more importantly given where the numbers are right now) total debt down to a certain level.

But here’s the thing. These rules are not god-given. They are not necessarily even all that good. The debt rule is utterly gameable. It hasn’t stopped the Conservatives raising the national debt to the highest level in decades. And it’s not altogether clear the particular measure of debt being used (net debt excluding Bank of England interventions) is even the right one.

Which raises another micro-conspiracy. Of all the parties at this election, the only one talking about whether the Bank of England should really be paying large sums in interest to banks as it winds up its quantitative easing programme is the Reform Party. This policy, first posited by a left-wing thinktank (the New Economics Foundation) is something many economists are discussing. It’s something the Labour Party will quite plausibly carry out to raise some extra money if it gets elected. But no one wants to discuss it. Odd.

Brexit impact

Anyway, the fourth issue everyone seems to have agreed not to discuss is, you’ve guessed it, Brexit. While the 2019 election was all about Brexit, this one, by contrast, has barely featured the B word. Perhaps you’re relieved. For a lot of people we’ve talked so much about Brexit over the past decade or so that, frankly, we need a bit of a break. That’s certainly what the main parties seem to have concluded.

But while the impact of leaving the European Union is often overstated (no, it’s not responsible for every one of our economic problems) it’s far from irrelevant to our economic plight. And where we go with our economic neighbours is a non-trivial issue in the future.

Anyway, this brings us to the fifth and final thing no one is talking about. The fact that pretty much all the guff spouted on the campaign trail is completely dwarfed by bigger international issues they seem reluctant or ill-equipped to discuss. Take the example of China and electric cars.

Just recently, both the US and European Union have announced large tariffs on the import of Chinese EVs. Now, in America’s case those tariffs are primarily performative (the country imports only a tiny quantity of Chinese EVs). But in Europe‘s case Chinese EVs are a very substantial part of the market – same for the UK.

Raising the question: what is the UK going to do? You could make a strong case for saying Britain should be emulating the EU and US, in an effort to protect the domestic car market. After all, failing to impose tariffs will mean this country will have a tidal wave of cars coming from China (especially since they can no longer go to the rest of the continent without facing tariffs) which will make it even harder for domestic carmakers to compete. And they’re already struggling to compete.

By the same token, imposing tariffs will mean the cost of those cheap Chinese-made cars (think: MGs, most Teslas and all those newfangled BYDs and so on) will go up. A lot. Is this really the right moment to impose those extra costs on consumers.

In short, this is quite a big issue. Yet it hasn’t come up as a big issue in this campaign. Which is madness. But then you could say the same thing about, say, the broader race for minerals, about net zero policy more widely and about how we’re going to go about tightening up sanctions on Russia to make them more effective.

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Parochial election

Elections are always parochial but given the scale of these big, international issues (and there are many more), this one feels especially parochial.

So in short: yes, there have been lots of gaps. Enormous gaps. The “conspiracy of silence” goes way, way beyond the stuff the IFS has talked about.

But ’twas ever thus.

Think back to the last time a political party actually confronted some long-standing issues no one wanted to talk about in their manifesto. I’m talking about the 2017 Conservative manifesto, which pledged to resolve the mess of social care in this country, once and for all.

It sought to confront a big social issue, intergenerational inequality, in so doing ensuring younger people wouldn’t have to subsidise the elderly.

The manifesto was an absolute, abject, electoral disaster. It was largely responsible for Theresa May‘s slide in the polls from a 20 point lead to a hung parliament.

And while most people don’t talk about that manifesto anymore, make no mistake: today’s political strategists won’t forget it in a hurry. Hence why this year’s campaign and this year’s major manifestos are so thin.

Elections are rarely won on policy proposals. But they are sometimes lost on them.

Politics

Peers back assisted dying bill – but battles lie ahead

Published

17 hours ago

September 19, 2025

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Peers back assisted dying bill - but battles lie ahead

The controversial assisted dying bill is still very much alive, having received a second reading in the House of Lords without a vote.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Day two of debate on the bill in the Lords was just as passionate and emotional as the first, a week earlier.

And now comes the hard part for supporters of Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, as opponents attempt to make major changes in the months ahead.

The Lords’ chamber was again packed for the debate, which this time began at 10am and lasted nearly six hours. In all, during 13 hours of debate over two days, nearly 200 peers spoke.

According to one estimate, over both days of the debate only around 50 peers spoke in favour of the bill and considerably more than 100 against, with only a handful neutral.

The bill proposes allowing terminally ill adults in England and Wales with fewer than six months to live to apply for an assisted death. Scotland’s parliament has already passed a similar law.

In a safeguard introduced in the Commons, an application would have to be approved by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior lawyer and psychiatrist.

The bill’s sponsor in the Lords, Charlie Falconer, said while peers have “a job of work to do”, elected MPs in the Commons should have the final decision on the bill, not unelected peers.

One of the most contentious moments in the first day of debate last Friday was a powerful speech by former Tory prime minister Theresa May, who said the legislation was a “licence to kill” bill.

That claim prompted angry attacks on the former PM when the debate resumed from Labour peers, who said it had left them dismayed and caused distress to many terminally ill people.

The former PM, daughter of a church of England vicar, had claimed in her speech that the proposed law was an “assisted suicide bill” and “effectively says suicide is OK”.

But opening the second day’s debate, Baroness Thornton, a lay preacher and health minister in Tony Blair’s government, said: “People have written to me in the last week, very distressed.

“They say things such as: ‘We are not suicidal – we want to live – but we are dying, and we do not have the choice or ability to change that. Assisted dying is not suicide’.”

Throughout the criticism of her strong opposition to the bill, the former PM sat rooted to her seat, not reacting visibly but looking furious as her critics attacked her.

There was opposition to the bill, too, from grandees of the Thatcher and Major cabinets. Lord Deben, formerly John Gummer and an ex-member of the Church of England synod, said the bill “empowers the state to kill”.

And Lord Chris Patten, former Tory chairman, Hong Kong governor and Oxford University chancellor, said it was an “unholy legislative mess” and could lead to death becoming the “default solution to perceived suffering”.

Day two of the debate also saw an unholy clash between Church of England bishops past and present, with former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey claiming opponents led by Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell were out of touch with public opinion.

While a large group of bishops sat in their full robes on their benches, Lord Carey suggested both the Church and the Lords would “risk our legitimacy by claiming that we know better than both the public” and the Commons.

“Do we really want to stand in the way of this bill?” he challenged peers. “It will pass, whether in this session or the next. It has commanding support from the British public and passed the elected House after an unprecedented period of scrutiny.”

But Archbishop Cottrell hit back, declaring he was confident he represented “views held by many, not just Christian leaders, but faith leaders across our nation in whom I’ve been in discussion and written to me”.

And he said the bill was wrong “because it ruptures relationships” and would “turbocharge” the agonising choices facing poor and vulnerable people.

One of the most powerful speeches came from former Tory MP Craig Mackinlay, awarded a peerage by Rishi Sunak after a dramatic Commons comeback after losing his arms and legs after a bout of sepsis.

He shocked peers by revealing that in Belgium, terminally ill children as young as nine had been euthanised. “I’m concerned we want to embed an option for death in the NHS when its modus operandi should be for life,” he said.

And appearing via video link, a self-confessed “severely disabled” Tory peer, Kevin Shinkwin, was listened to in a stunned silence as he said the legislation amounted to the “stuff of nightmares”.

He said it would give the state “a licence to kill the wrong type of people”, adding: “I’m the wrong type. This bill effectively puts a price on my head.”

After the debate, Labour peer and former MP Baroness Luciana Berger, an opponent of the bill, claimed a victory after peers accepted her proposal to introduce a special committee to examine the bill and report by 7 November.

“The introduction of a select committee is a victory for those of us that want proper scrutiny of how these new laws would work, the massive changes they could make to the NHS and how we treat people at the end of their lives,” she told Sky News.

“It’s essential that as we look at these new laws we get a chance to hear from those government ministers and professionals that would be in charge of creating and running any new assisted dying system.”

After the select committee reports, at least four sitting Fridays in the Lords have been set aside for all peers – a Committee of the whole house – to debate the bill and propose amendments.

Report stage and third reading will follow early next year, then the bill goes back to the Commons for debate on any Lords amendments. There’s then every chance of parliamentary ping pong between the two Houses.

Kim Leadbeater’s bill may have cleared an important hurdle in the Lords. But there’s still a long way to go – and no doubt a fierce battle ahead – before it becomes law.

Politics

UK and Ireland agree deal to address ‘unfinished business’ of the Troubles

Published

17 hours ago

September 19, 2025

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UK and Ireland agree deal to address 'unfinished business' of the Troubles

The UK and Irish governments have agreed a new framework to address the legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles.

The framework, announced by Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn and the Irish deputy prime minister, Simon Harris, at Hillsborough Castle on Friday, replaces the controversial Legacy Act, introduced by the Conservative government.

“I believe that this framework, underpinned by new co-operation from both our governments, represents the best way forward to finally make progress on the unfinished business of the Good Friday Agreement,” said Mr Benn.

He added that it would allow the families of victims killed during violence in Northern Ireland between the 1960s and 1990s, to “find the answers they have long been seeking”.

The proposed framework includes a dedicated Legacy Commission to investigate deaths during the Troubles, a resumption of inquests regarding cases from the conflict which were halted by the Legacy Act.

There will also be a separate truth recovery mechanism, the Independent Commission on Information Retrieval, jointly funded by London and Dublin.

“Dealing with the legacy of the Troubles is hard, and that is why it has been for so long the unfinished business of the Good Friday Agreement,” said Mr Benn.

Mr Harris described the framework as a “night and day improvement” on the previous act. Scrapping the Legacy Act, introduced in 2023, was a Labour government pledge.

What this means

A section of the Legacy Act offered immunity from prosecution for ex-soldiers and militants who cooperate with a new investigative body. This provision was ruled incompatible with human rights law.

The 2023 law was opposed by all political parties in Northern Ireland, including pro-British and Irish nationalist groups.

The Irish government, which brought a legal challenge against Britain at the European Court of Human Rights, also opposed it.

Both governments said the new plans will ensure it is possible to refer cases for potential prosecutions.

It will ‘take time’ to win families’ confidence

Irish Foreign Minister, Simon Harris, said in a statement that the framework could deliver on Ireland’s two tests of being human rights-compliant and securing the support of victims’ families, if implemented in good faith.

He added that winning the confidence of victims’ families would take time.

Dublin will revisit its legal challenge against Britain if the tests are met, it said.

Restoring strained relations

The UK’s Labour government had sought to reset relations with Ireland, after they were damaged by the process of Britain leaving the European Union.

The Conservative government had defended its previous approach, arguing prosecutions were unlikely to lead to convictions, and that it wanted to draw a line under the conflict.

A number of trials have collapsed in recent years, but the first former British soldier to be convicted of an offence since the peace deal was given a suspended sentenced in 2023.

Politics

Gary Gensler doubles down on crypto approach amid SEC sea change

Published

20 hours ago

September 19, 2025

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Gary Gensler doubles down on crypto approach amid SEC sea change

The former SEC chair and Paul Atkins, the current head of the agency, both made media appearance this week to address significant policies proposed by US President Donald Trump.