04/04/2013 00:00
TW
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by RAY FLEMING
YESTERDAY'S ICM poll showed the Conservatives with a nine point lead over Labour but both parties down two points and the Liberal Democrats up by three. The poll was taken after last Monday's “Chancellors” debate on Channel 4 and the easy conclusion would be that Vince Cable's performance was persuasive enough to give his party the boost in the polls. If only politics were as simple as that. For instance, will the first poll to take into account Thursday's open support by business leaders for the Conservatives intention to reverse Labour's planned increase in national insurance contributions reflect what David Cameron called “a significant moment in the election”? Or will respondents share the doubts of Labour and Liberal Democrats that the loss of 12bn pounds in tax can be compensated by “extra public spending efficiencies over the next year” as George Osborne claims?

“Public spending efficiencies” is a more comfortable phrase than “front line cuts” but they often amount to the same thing. Furthermore efficiencies, especially in the public services, can take much longer to yield real savings than is often assumed. There is obviously room for a difference of opinion on whether an increase in NIC is a “tax on jobs” but in proposing it in the first place Labour must have taken that into account. The Conservatives do not know how the hole created by dropping it will be filled -- except by unspecified efficiency savings. That's not good enough.