DAN HODGES: What happens the next time Boris Johnson turns to voters and begs: ...

DAN HODGES: What happens the next time Boris Johnson turns to voters and begs: ...
DAN HODGES: What happens the next time Boris Johnson turns to voters and begs: ...

For the past few months, Ministers and Tory MPs have become increasingly concerned about Boris Johnson and his erratic political agenda. 

Hug-a-fish environmentalism. Confusion, contradiction and prevarication over Covid passports. An obsession with high-cost vanity projects such as an Irish Sea bridge.

As one Minister told me: ‘It’s all a bit Red Ed.’

Nick Clegg only got caught telling one massive lie to the electorate. But in the course of unleashing his £12 billion social care tax raid, Boris has told three of them

Nick Clegg only got caught telling one massive lie to the electorate. But in the course of unleashing his £12 billion social care tax raid, Boris has told three of them

Over the first three years of the tax rise, only £5.3 billion of the anticipated £36 billion will actually be directed towards social care

Over the first three years of the tax rise, only £5.3 billion of the anticipated £36 billion will actually be directed towards social care

This morning, after a week which saw the Prime Minister formally lay to rest the Conservatives’ reputation as the party of low taxation, those same MPs are no longer worried that Boris is the new Ed Miliband. 

Instead, they fear he has become the new Nick Clegg.

‘It’s a disaster,’ one despairing backbencher told me. ‘We’ve betrayed our own voters. This is Boris’s tuition fees moment.’

It isn’t. Nick Clegg only got caught telling one massive lie to the electorate. But in the course of unleashing his £12 billion social care tax raid, Boris has told three of them.

The first lie was the most blatant. ‘We will not raise the rate of income tax, VAT or National Insurance,’ he said at the time of his Election manifesto launch.

‘Read my lips, we will not be raising taxes,’ he told broadcaster Nick Ferrari.

‘If Jeremy Corbyn were allowed into Downing Street, he would whack up your taxes,’ he warned in his first party conference speech as leader. ‘Corbyn would put up taxes for everyone.’

Corbyn didn’t. But Boris just has.

The second lie was over the reason for the tax hike. It was time to fix the crisis in social care, the Prime Minister announced. ‘Governments have ducked this problem for decades. There can be no more dither and delay.’

But no sooner had his plans been unveiled than it became clear the dither and delay will continue. Over the first three years of the tax rise, only £5.3 billion of the anticipated £36 billion will actually be directed towards social care.

The bulk of the revenue will be funnelled towards NHS waiting lists. Nor is there any guarantee that after that period any additional funds for social care will be provided. When asked, Health Secretary Sajid Javid couldn’t even guarantee the new tax take of £30 billion would be sufficient to clear the NHS Covid backlog.

The third lie was over the justification for this manifesto-shredding tax hike. ‘A global pandemic was in no one’s manifesto,’ Boris pleaded. True. But the social care crisis hasn’t appeared overnight.

When the manifesto was drafted – long before Covid reared its ugly head – there was no suggestion within it that a magic money tree had been found to provide an additional £12 billion a year to end the iniquities of Britain’s broken social care system.

Of course, this isn’t necessarily fatal, as Keir Starmer is still incapable of effectively attacking the Tories’ crumbling right flank

Of course, this isn’t necessarily fatal, as Keir Starmer is still incapable of effectively attacking the Tories’ crumbling right flank

The idea that social care was on the brink of being fixed, only for the pesky virus to come along and ruin everything, is a fantasy. If Boris had simply stuck with waiting lists and announced ‘Covid has left us with millions of untreated patients. It wasn’t something we could possibly have foreseen when the manifesto was written. I’m going to have to raise taxes till the situation is resolved’, that would have been one thing. It may at least have enjoyed public understanding, if not support. And would possibly have been viewed as a legitimate response to a global crisis, rather than a flagrant manifesto breach.

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