“It’s a complete misreading of history, I don’t know why they bang on about it.
A Tory lord has described a ‘significant sizeable wing’ of his party as ‘completely and utterly insane’ over their obsession with tax cuts.
Lord Vaizey, who served as David Cameron’s culture secretary, made the comments after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt ruled out any tax cuts before the next election.
Hunt told The Financial Times: “If we were to pump billions of pounds of additional demand into the economy when inflation is already too high, that would mean fiscal policy working against monetary policy.”
Lord Vaizey said that cutting taxes would not make a material difference in working people’s lives. He told BBC Politics Live: “It is a significant and sizable wing that is completely and utterly insane.
“It is totally barmy, this complete obsession from a wing of the Conservative Party, that you should cut taxes.”
The former Tory minister went on to add: “What will help working people will be to reduce inflation, to hopefully at some point see a topping out of interest rates and interest rates starting to fall.
“It’s a complete misreading of history, I don’t know why they bang on about it.
“Margaret Thatcher raised taxes in her first term in order to stabilise the economy. Some people think that caused a lot of economic damage, but she did it and she only reduced taxes when she felt it was safe to do so.”
Yet another Tory who thinks his party colleagues are out of touch with reality.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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