David Cameron fails to deal with his credibility deficit

In January this year the Labour Party published a list of the promises the Tories had made.
 
It exposed for the first time in clear detail the amount of extra money – from additional tax rises or spending cuts – that they would need to pay for all their promises. That is before they did anything on reducing the deficit.

It plunged the Conservative Party into disarray - David Cameron wobbled on his flagship policy of tax breaks for married couples and his party also broke key promises on policies such as NHS single rooms and extra prison places.
 
But it seems the Tories haven’t learnt anything from this level of scrutiny. In recent weeks, an increasingly panicked and desperate Tory party have returned to a number of their expensive commitments, without setting out clear, credible savings to pay for them.
 
The most outstanding example of this was their promised cut in National Insurance – without being able to point to a single penny in the bank of specific extra savings to meet this pledge. It marked David Cameron’s decision to surrender all credibility on the deficit.

Today, Labour have gone back to this document and updated it and it shows that the Conservatives still have more than a £22bn credibility deficit in their tax and spending plans. This gap in their funding is before they have made any moves to cut the deficit earlier than Labour.

In addition to this, matching our deficit target even one year faster would mean having to find a further £26bn of cuts to public services or extra taxes.

Read the full document outlining the Conservative Party’s credibility deficit

Alistair Darling MP, Labour’s Chancellor of the Exchequer said:

“In January, we brought together for the first time all the promises David Cameron and George Osborne had made.

“The challenge to them in January was to eliminate the entire ‘credibility gap’ in their plans – before they could say anything meaningful about going further and tackling the deficit at all. The challenge was to eliminate their entire credibility gap. They failed.

“Today we have looked at this again, it leaves the Conservatives with a ‘credibility deficit’ of £22bn. It means they are now forced to find £22bn in extra spending cuts or tax rises to deal with this, even before they have made any moves to cut the deficit faster than we are.

“So the challenge to David Cameron today is – stand up and tell people: which of these are promises you’ll stand by – and identify the real cuts or tax increases that you’ll do to afford them or be clear to people which further promises you are breaking today

“If he fails to do so, the Tories will have no credibility left.”

Peter Mandelson, Labour’s Business Secretary said:

“In the coming weeks we are going to focus relentlessly on these Tory plans. On the fact that money doesn’t grow on trees. Tax cuts cannot be plucked out of thin air. And that, if you want to protect frontline services – as we do – they have to be paid for.

“The credibility of David Cameron and George Osborne is an important issue – for the public, for the markets and internationally.

“But even more important are the costs to the British people. The list of Conservative tax and spending promises that we have outlined today all have to be paid for by the public.”