The commitments

Yesterday I hinted that Sunak would at least temporarily reinstate the triple lock on the increase in pensioners incomes—purely for self-serving political interests. Today I was reading that a Labour frontbencher, the baby-faced Wes Streeting was saying that if the Tories abandoned the triple lock, it should lead to a general election, since it was a Tory manifesto pledge in 2019. It makes for a good attack line, only slightly (ha!) demolished by Labour’s refusal to commit to the triple lock if it itself were elected. Lisa Nandy, the shadow ‘levelling up’ secretary of state used the old, worn out formula: we’ll have to wait and see what the public finances are like come the election before we can say what we’ll do. This is a reliable, tried and tested response. And it is totally disingenuous. It suggests that His Majesty’s opposition can have no pre-election positions on anything that requires fixing with public money. Of course we hear the mantra that that the promises Labour does commit to will be fully costed. Apparently, every item of expenditure will be subject to the scrutiny of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Of course it will. It’s not dissimilar to the line taken by John Smith in 1992, when he had Labour publish a full budget before that year’s general election. It was subsequently seen as a big mistake. Perhaps it just went over people’s heads. Today, when it comes to promises, it’s best to keep them vague. So now, whilst Streeting bangs on about the potential failure of the Tories to honour their manifesto commitment on a big budget item, he’ll  have little to say about Labour’s own commitment. With good reason. There is no commitment.