William Hall is a Conservative Campaigner and a Regional Chairman of the Conservative Party.
There is a striking paradox at the heart of British politics.
The case for a smaller state has rarely been stronger, yet the political argument and public opinion has not caught up with the economic reality. Taxes are exceptionally burdensome, national debt is at £3 trillion, and public services too often struggle to deliver the results taxpayers expect.
The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that government spending will reach £1.368 trillion in 2025–26, against receipts of £1.235 trillion. That is a deficit of £133 billion. Debt interest alone is expected to cost around £110 billion. These are not abstract figures: they represent resources unavailable for public services, investment or tax reductions.
The Conservative Party is successfully cutting through with a case for a fundamental rebalancing of our economy: lower taxes, restrained spending, greater personal responsibility and a focused state. But that requires more than a manifesto or a promise to cut taxes. It requires winning an argument about the country we have become, and the country we want to be.
Before 2010, the financial crisis set a clear, well understood need to reduce the state. Britain was borrowing too much, the deficit was unsustainable, and difficult decisions could not be postponed. George Osborne could present fiscal consolidation as a response to an identifiable emergency. This month, a YouGov poll found more than 50 per cent of people wanted either more spending or a steady state.
Despite this public sentiment, the pressures today are entrenched. Weak productivity, an ageing population and rising debt interest threaten to place ever greater demands on taxpayers. Yet these pressures have not produced a widespread conviction that the state cannot continue expanding indefinitely.
Instead, voters see struggling public services and conclude that government needs more money. They experience the failures of the state without necessarily connecting them to its scale, incentives or methods of delivery.
There is a deep, creeping illness in the state of Britain but it remains largely ignored.
Lord Ashcroft’s 2023 research for ConservativeHome illustrates the challenge.
Seventy-two per cent agreed that Britain was broken and needed major change. Yet only 23 per cent thought the country would be better off if government cut both spending and taxes. Three-quarters thought public services had deteriorated over the preceding decade, while nearly half believed spending on them had fallen.
The lesson is uncomfortable but important: dissatisfaction with the status quo does not automatically translate into support for a smaller state. Many voters believe government is doing too little, rather than attempting too much.
Spending restraint is difficult to sell when voters have not first been persuaded that existing arrangements are unaffordable or ineffective. Conservatives should challenge that first principle assumption through a national debate, setting the economic and philosophical frame for our economic policies.
The answer is not to pretend that every spending reduction is painless, or that efficiency savings can solve every problem. The choices will be difficult.
But the positive case matters just as much. Every pound taken in tax is a pound that an individual or business cannot spend, save or invest. High taxes can weaken incentives to work, build a business and take risks. An expanding state can crowd out the enterprise on which higher living standards ultimately depend.
For younger workers, the consequences are particularly tangible. Frozen income tax thresholds pull more earnings into taxation as wages rise. Fiscal drag is an act of economic violence against young people that work hard and build successful careers.
Those trying to save for a home, build financial security or start a family can find that additional effort brings less additional freedom than expected. A generation told to take responsibility should be able to enjoy the rewards of doing so.
Kemi Badenoch is right to put economic growth, lower taxes and spending restraint at the centre of the Conservative offer. But the party must connect these ambitions to a pressing need, another emergency that places our program of reform not as a philosophical choice but as an urgent, required medication.
Above all, we must not fall into the trap of treating public opinion as a fixed constraint. If voters do not believe the economic situation requires a smaller state, it is our job to explain why it does. We must connect the national accounts to household budgets, debt interest to the opportunities of the next generation, and spending decisions to the quality of public services.
Before 2010, a crisis made the need for fiscal consolidation difficult to ignore. Today, the danger is that economic decline becomes normalised and an ever-larger state is presented as the only possible response.
We have a compelling case. But a compelling case is not the same as a won argument. Until Conservatives persuade the country that government must focus on fewer things and do them better, promises of lower taxes will remain vulnerable to demands for ever more spending.
Winning that argument is not a communications exercise to be completed before the next election. It is the essential political work that must come first.
William Hall is a Conservative Campaigner and a Regional Chairman of the Conservative Party.
There is a striking paradox at the heart of British politics.
The case for a smaller state has rarely been stronger, yet the political argument and public opinion has not caught up with the economic reality. Taxes are exceptionally burdensome, national debt is at £3 trillion, and public services too often struggle to deliver the results taxpayers expect.
The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that government spending will reach £1.368 trillion in 2025–26, against receipts of £1.235 trillion. That is a deficit of £133 billion. Debt interest alone is expected to cost around £110 billion. These are not abstract figures: they represent resources unavailable for public services, investment or tax reductions.
The Conservative Party is successfully cutting through with a case for a fundamental rebalancing of our economy: lower taxes, restrained spending, greater personal responsibility and a focused state. But that requires more than a manifesto or a promise to cut taxes. It requires winning an argument about the country we have become, and the country we want to be.
Before 2010, the financial crisis set a clear, well understood need to reduce the state. Britain was borrowing too much, the deficit was unsustainable, and difficult decisions could not be postponed. George Osborne could present fiscal consolidation as a response to an identifiable emergency. This month, a YouGov poll found more than 50 per cent of people wanted either more spending or a steady state.
Despite this public sentiment, the pressures today are entrenched. Weak productivity, an ageing population and rising debt interest threaten to place ever greater demands on taxpayers. Yet these pressures have not produced a widespread conviction that the state cannot continue expanding indefinitely.
Instead, voters see struggling public services and conclude that government needs more money. They experience the failures of the state without necessarily connecting them to its scale, incentives or methods of delivery.
There is a deep, creeping illness in the state of Britain but it remains largely ignored.
Lord Ashcroft’s 2023 research for ConservativeHome illustrates the challenge.
Seventy-two per cent agreed that Britain was broken and needed major change. Yet only 23 per cent thought the country would be better off if government cut both spending and taxes. Three-quarters thought public services had deteriorated over the preceding decade, while nearly half believed spending on them had fallen.
The lesson is uncomfortable but important: dissatisfaction with the status quo does not automatically translate into support for a smaller state. Many voters believe government is doing too little, rather than attempting too much.
Spending restraint is difficult to sell when voters have not first been persuaded that existing arrangements are unaffordable or ineffective. Conservatives should challenge that first principle assumption through a national debate, setting the economic and philosophical frame for our economic policies.
The answer is not to pretend that every spending reduction is painless, or that efficiency savings can solve every problem. The choices will be difficult.
But the positive case matters just as much. Every pound taken in tax is a pound that an individual or business cannot spend, save or invest. High taxes can weaken incentives to work, build a business and take risks. An expanding state can crowd out the enterprise on which higher living standards ultimately depend.
For younger workers, the consequences are particularly tangible. Frozen income tax thresholds pull more earnings into taxation as wages rise. Fiscal drag is an act of economic violence against young people that work hard and build successful careers.
Those trying to save for a home, build financial security or start a family can find that additional effort brings less additional freedom than expected. A generation told to take responsibility should be able to enjoy the rewards of doing so.
Kemi Badenoch is right to put economic growth, lower taxes and spending restraint at the centre of the Conservative offer. But the party must connect these ambitions to a pressing need, another emergency that places our program of reform not as a philosophical choice but as an urgent, required medication.
Above all, we must not fall into the trap of treating public opinion as a fixed constraint. If voters do not believe the economic situation requires a smaller state, it is our job to explain why it does. We must connect the national accounts to household budgets, debt interest to the opportunities of the next generation, and spending decisions to the quality of public services.
Before 2010, a crisis made the need for fiscal consolidation difficult to ignore. Today, the danger is that economic decline becomes normalised and an ever-larger state is presented as the only possible response.
We have a compelling case. But a compelling case is not the same as a won argument. Until Conservatives persuade the country that government must focus on fewer things and do them better, promises of lower taxes will remain vulnerable to demands for ever more spending.
Winning that argument is not a communications exercise to be completed before the next election. It is the essential political work that must come first.