Tories struggling to find a line on tax

After the platitudes in David Cameron’s speech yesterday, comes the bluntness of Ken Clarke in today’s Sunday Telegraph.  Interviewed by the paper, the shadow business secretary says that it would be a “folly” to rule out tax rises:

“It is something that every Conservative tries to avoid but I didn’t avoid it when I was getting us out of recession before. Coming out of a recession when you have such a severe deficit you can’t rule out putting up taxes.”

He’s right, of course.  The mammoth size of the deficit, and the lag before many spending reductions take effect, will mean that the Tories shouldn’t rule out tax rises.  More than that, in fact: they’ll certainly have to introduce them.  As we already know, plans are afoot to increase VAT to at least 20 percent.

All of which makes Cameron’s attack on a Labour government which would introduce “higher taxes” rather perplexing.