After the news that the UK economy is most likely already in recession, the hare and tortoise debate of a few months ago looks set to return to Tory politics with a vengeance. In today’s Telegraph, Lord Forsyth and John Redwood say that the Tories need to think about an alternative to “sharing the proceeds of growth”, and that that alternative should be based around spending cuts. Here are the relevant passages:
“Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and John Redwood, who chaired Mr Cameron’s policy commissions on the economy, suggested it was no longer adequate for the party to promise to ‘share the proceeds of growth’ between public services and tax cuts now that the economy is at a standstill. They called for a bold commitment to cut public expenditure and taxation in order to stimulate recovery.
Lord Forsyth, the chairman of the Tory tax commission, said it was the ‘end of the road’ for big increases in spending and the Tories needed to ‘cut our cloth’…
…He told The Sunday Telegraph: ‘The problem is that the higher the burden of taxation, the less opportunity there is for growth.
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