The true cost of Boris

Earlier this week, the Conservative party sent an appeal to its registered supporters asking them to become members. ‘We’re delivering what you voted for in 2019,’ it read. ‘So why not help us keep going?’ Unfortunately for Boris Johnson, there are now several answers to that question.

Two years ago, the Tories were re-elected on a promise to protect the public from the ever-rising cost of government. One of Johnson’s five pledges, personally signed by him, was not to raise taxation on ‘hard-working people’ and to stop any ‘jobs tax’. He has since changed his mind. In April, the Tory government will take a further 2.5 per cent of the salaries of those workers via National Insurance (i.e. a jobs tax). Half will be paid by employees, half by employers — but all of it will come out of people’s pockets, including those of the working poor.

As Lord Frost, the Brexit minister, pointed out in a magnificent speech to the Margaret Thatcher conference this week, this is the wrong road: high taxes make everyone poorer.