The Conservatives have rubbed salt into Labour’s wounds this morning, after the party was left humiliated last night with a major U-turn.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party had repeatedly refused to rule out a hike in VAT since the general election was called.
However Tory warnings last night that Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves were planning to fill the £38billion black hole in his spending plans with a rise in the levy forced a hastily written pledge from the party.
This morning a Conservative spokesman told voters: “If this is how they make major tax policy decisions in opposition, imagine how chaotic they would be in government.”
They explained: “Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Darren Jones have repeatedly refused to rule out raising VAT throughout this campaign and have now only caved in due to a CCHQ press release.
“They have pulled their shadow home secretary off the morning media round and deployed Darren Jones to tell everyone that “nothing has changed.
“If they were not planning to increase VAT, they would have ruled it out on the many occasions they have been asked to do so by the media.
“The reality is everyone knows this is a major policy u-turn and the second time they have junked economic policy due to CCHQ press releases. If this is how they make major tax policy decisions in opposition, imagine how chaotic they would be in government.”
The Tories have now succeeded in backing Labour into a corner, with the opposition having to say they will fill the £38 billion chasm with economic growth.
However leading economists insist that will not make Labour’s sums add up.
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The Tories believed Labour was planning a VAT bombshell after analysing the interviews given by Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves since the election was called.
Although the Labour leader and shadow chancellor had ruled out raising income tax or national insurance, they studiously avoided questions about VAT.
They used the same formulation of words that rules out raising income tax and national insurance for the next parliament while sidestepping the VAT questions.
Labour’s shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones will now field questions on the daily morning media round, rather than Yvette Cooper who had hoped to spend the day talking about crime and antisocial behaviour.
Yesterday Mr Jones said: “Mr Jones said: “Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, was very clear yesterday, that all of our policies are fully funded and fully costed".
“The way we raise the money to pay for those policies – those first six steps that an incoming Labour government will implement – is through the closure to the loopholes that we have set out, so private school VAT, private equity bonus tax, closing the non-dom loopholes, the energy profits levy on windfall in the oil and gas industry, and investing to tackle tax avoidance in the system.”
“None of our policies requires any further funding and that’s why there is a commitment to not raising taxes in the manifesto in this election.”
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