Well we know about the non-dom issue, which according to Jeremy Hunt was Tory policy from way back. What Labour policies have they stolen?
Yesterday's budget was all about trying to wreck Labour's ability to sort out the economy. We are used to Chancellors running political budgets in an election year but no-one, until Hunt yesterday, has ever done it with such venomous intent towards their successor. I mentioned above, two policies that are embedded into Labour's pledges and which Hunt 'stole'. One was in order to anticipate a Labour Government and that was to abolish non-dom tax status. Yes, this has been discussed in Tory circles in the past. However, when Labour proposed this very same measure two years ago, the Conservatives scoffed that it was an anti-competitive gimmick. Now the Tories have stolen the idea in order to make life difficult for Labour, without actually proposing a new system for non-domiciled taxpayers to put in its place.
Hunt also went out of his way to laud the need for regional regeneration - another policy embedded in Labour's pledges. Here he spoke of
“historic underinvestment in our nations and regions”. Well that would certainly include the last 14 years of Tory neglect. Only, in Hunt's world the regions he highlighted for urgent levelling up include new devolution deals for Surrey and Buckinghamshire. He also promised £242m that he said would build up to 8,000 homes in Barking Riverside and Canary Wharf – as well as attracting life sciences firms to the east London financial district. Yep, urgent assistance for the forgotten, deindustrialised regions of Britain. Strangely, other areas he name-checked as being due to benefit from £100m of levelling up funding sit in constituencies that will be key battlegrounds in the upcoming general election. Odd that.
No, at every turn of the budget speech Hunt's intention was to make life difficult for an incoming Labour Government. If it wasn't for the fact that this will, in turn, make life more difficult for the poor, the vulnerable and for struggling families, such peevishness could simply be shrugged off. But this is about governing for the country. So it can't.