Earn less than £85,000? You might be better off under Corbyn

Recent elections have followed the same format: the Conservatives positioning themselves as the party of low taxes while Labour feels obliged to make its own commitments in order to try to neutralise the issue. This year is different. One of the notable omissions from the Conservative manifesto is any firm promise not to jack up the rate of income tax or national insurance.

As expected, the Conservative manifesto does not repeat David Cameron’s ‘five year tax lock’ which committed the Conservatives not to raise the rates of income tax, national insurance and VAT during the lifetime of the Parliament just ended. Reducing taxes on businesses and individuals has been reduced to a mere ‘firm intention’. That would free a Conservative Chancellor – whom May refused to confirm would be Phillip Hammond should the Tories win the election – to jack up rates of national insurance, as he tried to in this year’s budget until it was pointed out to him that it would break Cameron’s promise of a ‘tax lock’.