Bill Carmichael: Self-employed will not forget Tory tax lies

There is no other plausible explanation for Chancellor Philip Hammond’s decision this week to tear up the Government’s solemn manifesto commitment not to increase taxes and hammer some of the most hard-working and productive members of society.

Treasury spin-doctors have spent the time since Wednesday’s Budget speech desperately trying to claim that promises have not been broken because the pledges made less than two years ago didn’t include the self-employed.

What utter guff! Just how stupid do they think we are?

The promise on National Insurance, income tax and VAT was as plain as day – no increases during the lifetime of this parliament until at least 2020. No ifs, no buts.

The pledge was repeated no fewer than four times in the Conservative manifesto, was plastered all over Tory campaign literature and repeated ad nauseam by David Cameron and other senior Tories.

There was no mention at any point of any exemptions or qualifications. The message was crystal clear – no tax increases if the Tories win. Many – including no doubt many self-employed people – were persuaded to vote Conservative as a result.

Now they discover they have been lied to and cheated – and I suspect many of them won’t forget it.

At the time of the last election Theresa May and many of her senior colleagues were adamant that increases to National Insurance – which they accused Labour of secretly planning – would amount to a “tax on jobs” and would damage growth and increase unemployment.

They were dead right on that – so why have they changed their minds?

Some of us have warned that Labour’s weakness is bad for democracy – and the events of this week appear to have proved us right.

What invariably happens is that in the absence of any effective opposition, the government over-reaches itself until it does something so monumentally stupid that it takes the breath away.

So we end up with “Laughing Phil” Hammond, cracking jokes in the House of Commons like a third-rate end-of-pier comedian, so puffed up with smug self-satisfaction that he thinks he can say – and do –anything without any effective challenge.

In one way he is right – Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s microwave-ready Budget response was so utterly feeble that he failed even to notice the yawning open goal over the self-employed, still less tap the ball in.

But a challenge will come – not from Parliament, but from the people. Small business owners – the people hit hardest by this £2bn tax raid – are the backbone of the Conservative Party.

I suspect the phones in the offices of Tory MPs have been ringing off the hook this week with supporters saying something along the lines of “What the bloody hell do you think you are playing at?”

If, as a result of this pressure, enough Conservative MPs say they are not prepared to break the promises on tax they made to their voters in 2015, then you can expect that smile to be wiped off “Laughing Phil”’s face pretty quickly.

Events like this bring out the cynic in me. I am tempted to say they show political parties are all the same. Conservative, Labour – it makes little difference. They all want to increase taxes and spend the money on their pet projects (and themselves, of course) and they are all prepared to lie and cheat in order to do so.

If ever a party pledged to actually reduce taxes, instead of increasing them, and then went on to actually keep those promises, it would win by a landslide and be in power for generations.

Instead we have all our major political parties competing each other to see who can tax and spend the most.

As for the Conservatives – they 
should heed the warning bells ringing 
in their ears with deafening volume. If they continue to treat their natural supporters with contempt, if they exploit them as passive cash cows, if they think they can be lied to without any consequences – they are heading for big trouble.

And once your supporters abandon you, you’ll have a hell of a time getting them back. Just ask Labour.