Rishi Sunak denies being ‘tetchy’ as he promises Tories ‘gear change’ on tax – UK politics live

Good morning. Rishi Sunak has given a Christmas interview to the Spectator, the rightwing magazine widely read by Conservatives, and there are two good lines – one personal, and relatively trivial, and another not particularly surprising, but of huge relevance to the election campaign next year.

Katy Balls was interviewing Sunak and she asked him about a word that comes up increasingly frequently when journalists are trying to describe his demeanour in public, particularly when he is being challenged. Sunak insisted he was not “tetchy”; he was just “passionate”. Balls wrote:

He has been accused of being ‘tetchy’ – most recently during his diplomatic spat with the Greek Prime Minister over the Elgin Marbles. What does he think of the allegation? ‘I don’t understand that,’ he replies. He points to his leadership campaign. ‘That wasn’t an easy time for me, I was taking a lot of criticism and flak. But I just fought hard for what I believed in – every day, seven days a week for six weeks. I’m the same person now, I am fighting for the things I believe in. There’s nothing tetchy. But I am passionate. When things are not working the way I want them to work, of course I’m going to be frustrated.’

But the main point line was about taxation, and how the Conservatives will campaign in the election expected next year. We all know that Sunak intends to go into that election trying to depict the Conservatives as, unlike Labour, a tax-cutting party (even though the tax burden is on course to hit a post-war high). But there were two points that were newish.

First, he promised a “gear shift” in the Tories’ approach to taxation (which implies promising even larger tax cuts than expected – which critics would see as evidence of electoral desperation).

And, second, he was explicit about using welfare cuts to fund them.

On tax, Sunak told Balls:

I have always said I’m a Thatcherite in the truest sense. As Nigel Lawson and Margaret Thatcher said: cut inflation, cut taxes. That’s what we’ve done! We have delivered more tax cuts in one fiscal event than at any point since the 1980s.

When Balls made the obvious point about the tax burden being particularly high, Sunak replied:

That’s a really glass-half-empty way to look at it. You’ve got to differentiate. Look, why is the tax burden as high as it is? It’s because we had a once-in-a-century pandemic and we had a war in Ukraine, both of which necessitated an enormous response from the government …

The choice at the next election is between me and Keir Starmer. A Labour party that wants to borrow £28 billion a year is not going to control welfare or public spending. A Conservative party is going to do those things – and cut your taxes instead.

Balls says, as chancellor, Sunak was surprised to find that a third of all UK households are in receipt of some kind of benefit. He told her he thought more reform was needed.

Over the last decade we haven’t reformed those rules [to qualify for welfare]. Three times as many people today are being told that they don’t have to work because of ill-health than were a decade ago. I don’t believe our country has got three times sicker …

[Some changes] take time because they are very large system changes – you are dealing with a very complex system… Our priority, going forward, is to control spending and welfare so that we can cut taxes. We are in a position to be able to do all that because we have got inflation down. The economy has turned a corner and that means that there can be a gear shift in how we approach taxes.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: NHS England publishes its latest performance figures.

Morning: The Commons standards committee is expected to publish its report into allegations against the Conservative MP Scott Benton.

Morning: Rishi Sunak visits a school in north London.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

3pm: David Cameron gives evidence to the Lords European affairs committee.

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