Following the coalition’s decision to guarantee funding for Bookstart (having pledged to end state support), the Telegraph’s Benedict Brogan notes that David Cameron is becoming a master of the political U-turn.
He cites ten examples, including free milk, school sports, the non-abolition of the 1922 Committee and the “cast-iron guarantee” to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Yet even Brogan’s list doesn’t begin to cover Cameron’s policy reversals. Here are three of the biggest U-turns that he forgot to include.
1. VAT rise
There are just eight days to go until VAT rises from 17.5 per cent to an all-time high of 20 per cent but, as recently as the election campaign, Cameron was still insisting that the Tories would not raise the tax.
Here’s what he told Jeremy Paxman in an interview on 23 April:
We have absolutely no plans to raise VAT. Our first Budget is all about recognising we need to get spending under control rather than putting up tax.
Before that, in April 2009, Cameron promised he would not raise a tax that “hits the poorest the hardest”. He said:
You could try, as you say, to put it on VAT, sales tax, but again if you look at the effect of sales tax, it’s very regressive, it hits the poorest the hardest. It does, I absolutely promise you. Any sales tax, anything that goes on purchases that you make in shops tends to . . . if you look at it, where VAT goes now it doesn’t go on food obviously but it goes very, very widely and VAT is a more regressive tax than income tax or council tax.
2. Child benefit cuts
The coalition’s surprise decision to abolish universal child benefit attracted the anger of several Lib Dem ministers. And with good reason. During a pre-election Cameron Direct event, the Tory leader issued this “read my lips” pledge:
I’m not going to flannel you, I’m going to give it to you straight. I like the child benefit, I wouldn’t change child benefit, I wouldn’t means-test it, I don’t think that is a good idea.
But with the Treasury warning that the plan to end the benefit for all higher-rate taxpayers is “unenforceable“, Cameron may yet be forced to perform another U-turn.
3. No cuts to front-line services
On the weekend before the general election, Cameron memorably told Andrew Marr that a Conservative government would not cut any front-line services. He said:
What I can tell you is, any cabinet minister, if I win the election, who comes to me and says: “Here are my plans” and they involve front-line reductions, they’ll be sent straight back to their department to go away and think again. After 13 years of Labour, there is a lot of wasteful spending, a lot of money that doesn’t reach the front line.
But with front-line police facing cuts, an 80 per cent reduction in the university teaching budget and, today, new warnings of NHS cuts, Cameron’s claim has quickly unravelled.
Content from our partners
Related
