Both Labour and the Conservatives are likely to campaign on promises to improve growth, reduce the tax burden and improve public services. But growth forecasts are bleak. The so-called headroom the government has used to reduce some of the tax increases it has previously imposed is based on implausibly tight spending plans for public services. 

Whoever wins the election will face extremely difficult decisions. Current spending plans are a fantasy that would deal a body blow to already fragile public services. Both parties claim that service reform will deliver better performance. But while there is much room for improvement in services, almost all reform will require upfront investment. The next government will therefore need to cut services or raise more revenue to fund improvements, or a combination of both.

It might not be electorally advantageous to commit to either of those now. But elections are about getting a mandate for difficult decisions. In 2010, the Conservatives used their campaign to secure a mandate for major cuts to public spending. The cuts implied by current plans are not as big as in 2010, but if carried out would see unprotected services (prisons, schools, local government) suffer the biggest cuts since austerity began. Those cuts would fall on services that have faced more than a decade of spending restraint, rather than the decade of spending increases that preceded the coalition. Services will find it extremely difficult to absorb cuts without toppling over. 

It is unsurprising that the Conservative Party, in government for the last 13 years, wants to talk up its own record, but the limited progress to which it can point (the recruitment of 20,000 police officers, increased school spending and progress towards the UK’s 2050 net zero target) is belied by broader data on the appalling state of public services – documented in painful detail in the Institute for Government’s annual Performance Tracker. ⁴ Produced in association with CIPFA.  It also contrasts with the experience of many voters, who are unable to get a GP or NHS dentist appointment, have children who cannot to be taught in RAAC-affected classrooms and whose local libraries and other communities have closed as local authorities struggle to stay afloat.

Meanwhile, there seems to be an unacknowledged inconsistency at the heart of Labour’s policy – between its plans to invest in green industries, improve public services and cut debt – all without raising taxes. This has seen Labour's £28bn green spending pledge placed front and centre of Conservative attacks on "fiscal indiscipline", with Rishi Sunak's party seizing a chance to put pressure on Keir Starmer. The Labour leader recently claimed that if he becomes prime minister the ‘first lever we will pull is the growth lever’. If there was a growth lever that could be pulled so easily, the Conservatives would have done that now. Re-energising UK productivity after years of stagnation is going to take prolonged, concentrated effort, not a tug on a lever. Paul Johnson, the head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (and co-presenter along with Anand Menon of UK in a Changing Europe of our new Expert Factor podcast), has said that neither Labour or the Tories are being open about the implausibility of their spending plans when looking at the prospects for the UK economy. 

Political campaigns throughout history have been shaped around simple slogans and memorable messages. And politicians have always made selective use of data and evidence to convey the messages they want the public to hear. But the current gap between political rhetoric and reality is dangerous, and not just for the electoral prospects of the governing party. The inconsistency fuels the public’s perception that politicians are dishonest and political campaigns are designed to mislead. According to the 2023 Ipsos Veracity Index, the proportions of people who say they trust politicians and government ministers to tell the truth has fallen to just nine per cent – its lowest level since the survey began in 1983 and lower even than in the aftermath of the 2009 MPs’ expenses scandal. It will do nothing for public trust in government or politics if parties promise lower taxes and better public services, but fail to deliver either.

Politicians need to reflect on the rhetoric they deploy this year in order to win votes, and its potential consequences for voters’ perceptions of politics. It will be in the interests of whoever wins the election for the public to recognise the serious headwinds that will hamper their ability to deliver. Telling the public that trade-offs between tax, spend and public sector debt do not exist is unsustainable even in the medium-term.