Promises to cut taxes may not be the electoral bombshell some Tories hope

Labour has more work to do if it wants to turn Tory voters, an exclusive focus group run by Public First indicates. Recent comments by Rachel Reeves that Labour would “tax fairly, spend wisely” were met with general positivity by the group this week – but participants felt the commitment “too vague”. “This statement could have been at any moment in time,” one said. “It doesn’t really give me any facts or figures or what they’re gonna do or why they don’t feel like the Conservative Party is doing the right thing.”

Now, it should be noted that a focus group is a small collection of people brought together at one point in time to share their thoughts on topics of interest  – and we should be careful about making any inferences from their comments on the wider population. But such groups can provide interesting insights for the Labour Party.

And this conclusion is not surprising or necessarily damning. As Keir Starmer said himself the Labour Party is “starting from scratch” on its policy offer after having “put to one side” the 2019 election manifesto. (Not a remark that went down well with everyone in the Labour family.) His first conference as leader was largely devoted to rule changes and the next party conference in September will focus on policy. The party knows it needs do more in terms of fleshing out its offer to the electorate.

A tad more concerning might be that the line Labour has been using – that the Tories are the ‘party of low growth’ – does not seem to be cutting through. One participant offered the view that the UK has experienced “pretty strong growth” until the pandemic. Another argued the economy does not need to be “rebooted”, as Reeves had said, but “put back on track a little bit”.

One thing not going down well with this group of Tory voters were what Labour has described as the “unfunded fantasy economics” seen from Conservative leadership candidates. Liz Truss just recently vowed: “My tax cuts will decrease inflation.” But these promises of tax cuts were met with heavy scepticism – with participants expressing doubt as to whether they were realistic and where the money would come from. It turns out just ladling on tax-cut promises is not perhaps the electoral bombshell some Tories hope. One person thought it would simply be “nicer if they took from the people who it didn’t matter”. Tax the rich, help the poor.

You can read my full write-up of the session here. This focus group forms part of a series that LabourList is holding in a different seats across the country, following on from our first one in Wakefield, as we look towards the next general election.

Also on LabourList, we have Open Labour chair Tessa Milligan reflecting on the publication of the Forde report and what it means for the party. “We cannot remain on a factional seesaw that sees power swing from one faction to another,” she writes. Islington Council leader Kaya Comer-Schwartz says discussion of Forde has “missed the real impact this report” on Black and other ethnic minority members of our party. And Katie has a quick write-up of the contenders vying to be the Labour candidate in the Cities of London and Westminster constituency.