Labour already know what public finance horrors await them

Over the weekend, a leaked document revealed by the Guardian outlined different tax hikes the Labour party could impose, including changes to capital gains tax and inheritance tax. It’s evidence of what has long been suspected: that what’s been left out of the party’s manifesto (almost every tax) remains on the table.

How might Labour justify not being more upfront about this ahead of the election? As I have noted on Coffee House before, Labour has gone to great lengths to insist all its plans are costed by tax increases that have already been announced. The lack of specificity in the manifesto, we’ve been told, is evidence that the party isn’t planning to go much further. So how would the party sell a pivot to the public, were it to start announcing more revenue-raising plans – especially if it were to do so within a year, or even a few months, of an election where the strong implication is that this was never the plan?

Cue Nick Thomas-Symonds, a shadow Cabinet Office minister who, when asked whether any of the parties were being totally honest about the tough financial decisions that will need to be made in the next Parliament, told Times Radio: ‘We’ve…been open, always, that we may open the books and discover the situation is even worse than it is at the moment.