Hunt’s tax attack on Labour is sure to backfire

It should come as no surprise that Jeremy Hunt has signalled in a speech this morning that  he will try to make taxation a central theme of the coming election campaign. The tactic has certainly worked in the past. In 1992, fears that Neil Kinnock and his shadow chancellor John Smith would jack up taxes played a big role in a campaign from which John Major’s Conservatives – unexpectedly in many people’s eyes – emerged triumphantly. Five years later, Blair and Brown did not make the mistake of being cast as the high-tax alternative: they promised not to raise any income tax rate, or VAT.

Hunt’s claim is that Labour has made £58.9 billion worth of extra spending pledges over the next four years but has only allowed for £20.4 billion worth of tax rises.