A blessed relief

The more headbanging elements of the Tory blogosphere is getting it's knickers in a twist that the Conservative leadership is failing to advocate tax cuts with sufficient vigour.

The distressing thing is that it suggests a failure to learn from the previous two elections which largely revolved around discussing the validity of our billions and billions of cuts/savings (depending who you were). Which rather distracted people from why we wanted to cut taxes in the first place.

I agree we need to tax cuts in due course as Margaret Thatcher herself advocated to the Conservative Party Conference in 1975 ;

We must get private enterprise back on the road to recovery, not merely to give
people more of their own money to spend as they choose, but to have more money
to help the old and the sick and the handicapped.
The way to recovery is through profits. Good profits today, leading to high investment, well-paid jobs and a better standard of living tomorrow.

Accept she didn't did she? Thatcher in 1975 knew that tax cuts can't be sold as an end in themselves. If we are to make tax cuts attractive we must only ever talk about them in context. It's about China and India, keeping the economy growing and helping (and it pains me to use this phrase) hard working families. If we take them out of context we become weird selfish Tories to people again - which personally I would rather avoid....