TORY CREDIBILITY UNDER PRESSURE

The pressure is growing on the Tories' tax and spending plans. David Cameron's Today interview this morning was very revealing, both for what he said and what he didn't say.

David Cameron has today confirmed his intention to make a very expensive tax cut costing £30 billion over a five year parliament in cancelling the National Insurance Contributions increase.

But he has claimed that he cannot know how to pay for it until after the election:

"The changes we want to make in terms of the first year savings along the lines of what Peter Gershon is talking about in the Financial Times are things that we want to agree with the Treasury, through the Treasury in government and we believe they are doable and deliverable. But the exact balance between things like procurement, recruitment and IT should be decided calmly and reasonably with the Treasury if we're elected on May 6th."
David Cameron, BBC Radio 4 Today, 09 April 2010

He contradicted George Osborne by admitting that efficiency savings won't be enough to pay for this:

Evan Davis: You're the one, you're the one who says you can afford to cut taxes. My point is this, is that by Year 5, even if we accept you can find efficiency savings in Year 1, by Year 5 you're making difficult decisions on public spending, not efficiency savings, and if you cut taxes relative to Labour in Year 5, it must simply be the case that your core public spending is lower than Labour's would be?
David Cameron: Of course.
Evan Davis: Not efficiency savings, core public spending would be lower, taxes would be lower, that is what you get if you vote Conservative.
David Cameron: Yes, absolutely. I think you've put it very clearly. We are saying that you need to go faster on public spending than Labour. Absolutely, I accept that.
David Cameron, BBC Radio 4 Today, 09 April 2010


It is now clear from the interview on Today - and he was unable to deny this - that additional heavy cuts will have to be made in public sector spending, with tens of thousands of jobs being lost not just in the public sector but in the private sector as well where they depend on government contracts.


David Cameron needs to come clean on what his plans are.


We said yesterday the Conservative economic strategy was based on a house of cards and increasingly the cards are looking very wobbly.