Matthew Dancona

What are the political risks and rewards of tax cuts?

As Tory Diary notes over at ConservativeHome, Fraser is making the running on the tax cut issue. His Spectator columns and Coffee House posts have pointed UK political strategists in the direction of Obama’s tax-cutting proposals and their centrality to the President-elect’s campaign. The FT’s story on Saturday made it unambiguously clear that Brown was cooking up a pre-emptive strike – and so it has proved, with details to follow tomorrow.

Over at Comment Central, my old friend and associate Danny Finkelstein has been leading the counter-charge, beating up poor Nick Clegg as a proxy for the growing number of Tories arguing for a shift of position. I think the phrase “punk tax cuts” is brilliant and should enter the blogger’s lexicon. It also reflects Danny’s personal experience of what it is like to be a Tory arguing for tax cuts and the peculiar toxicity of tax cutting proposals when they are put forward by the Conservative Party.

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