It used to be said that, in their myopia, British voters wanted European levels of public service provision on American levels of taxation. But the recent direction of travel has been towards American levels of public service provision on European levels of taxation. The risk is that tax, as an idea and institution, becomes unmoored in Britain from any lingering social democratic optimism, instead becoming another symptom of national decline.
Against this background, Britain has entered an election year in an unusual position: outside Scotland and Wales, whose devolved governments have limited room for fiscal manoeuvre, all the major political parties are arguing that taxes have risen too high. This isn’t quite the same thing as promising tax cuts, although Jeremy Hunt has made it clear that his spring budget on 6 March will include some of those.
