Beneath the Labour tax tussle are both main parties’ ‘brand’ baggage

Good morning. Theresa May has become the latest Conservative MP to announce plans to stand down at the next election. For all her premiership was overwhelmed by the pressures of negotiating Brexit, she has, I think it’s fair to say, generally been an exemplar of how to conduct yourself after leaving that office.

As home secretary she was a contradictory figure: she significantly expanded the reach and scope of Labour’s hostile environment policy, but on policing, she was the most reforming home secretary of modern times.

I continue to think that negotiating the backstop was a terrific diplomatic achievement and we’ll increasingly look back at the decision of various MPs to wreck it as a mistake.

But in the present day, her exit adds a note of gravitas to the sense that this era of Conservative politics is coming to an end. She was a key player in the party’s return to office having first been elected in 1997 and leaves it with the party on course for a similar defeat unless something changes.

One thing that could change it is a row over tax and spend. Some thoughts on that below.

Fixing a hole

Most polls will tell you that, given a choice, people think the government should prioritise fixing the public services over cutting taxes. Ask most pollsters about what they think these numbers are actually telling us, and they’ll you it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Both the Conservative leadership and their Labour opposites think so too. Everything that Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves say and do on tax and spend is predicated on the assumption that, sure, people like the idea of prioritising the public services more in theory, but in practice, at an…