Starmer may be guilty of semantics, but the Tories know perfectly well that hiking employer national insurance is not a breach of Labour’s manifesto pledge because it’s in their own campaign document, asserts Mirror columnist Kevin Maguire
THE only big fat juicy lie if Labour in the Budget raises national insurance contributions paid by employers is the Conservative’s barefaced whopper that Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves would break a manifesto promise because they ruled it out before the election.
The Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer never did and here’s the proof even dishonest Tories know it.
Which political party distributed a 12-page document during the campaign with the following statement: “Labour define ‘no tax rises for working people’ as only ruling out raising employee national insurance, income tax and VAT, not other taxes.”?
Why it was the same Conservatives now telling naked fibs about employers, of course.
Sevenoaks Tory MP Laura Trott, then Treasury Chief Secretary and now doing the job in Opposition, launched the document on June 12. The same Laura Trott suddenly pretending it’s, “Obvious to all, that hiking employer national insurance is a clear break of Labour’s manifesto.”
No it isn’t, least of all to her.
The truth is also a victim of the usually reliable head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson, wrongly asserting an employer’s rise would be a “straightforward breach” of Labour’s manifesto. It wouldn’t. Labour could be accused of wriggling or sneakiness but lying is a lie.
