Thursday, June 06, 2024
The first casualty
In war, truth is the first casualty is a military maxim attributed to Aeschylus, the father of Greek tragedy (I admit I had to check the source). It is a maxim that already has relevance in the general election.
The Independent reports that the Treasury’s permanent secretary James Bowler has distanced his department from claims Rishi Sunak made to the nation in the ITV debate that Labour would have to increase taxes by more than £2,000 per household.
The paper adds that this was later followed by the Office for Statistics Regulation launching a probe into the figure, which was the centrepiece of the prime minister’s attack on the opposition in Tuesday night’s TV debate:
It sparked a barrage of condemnation from Labour’s shadow cabinet, with several of the party’s top politicians accusing the PM of deliberately lying to the public.
In response, a defiant Conservative leader and energy secretary Claire Coutinho doubled down, repeating the assertion.
In the first televised clash of the general election campaign, Mr Sunak had repeatedly pointed to analysis by Treasury civil servants he said showed a £38.5bn black hole in Sir Keir’s spending plans.
This would lead to each working household paying £2,094 more in tax under a Labour government, the PM said.
But Mr Sunak suffered a humiliating setback when the Treasury rubbished his claim.
His claims started to unravel on Wednesday morning when Ms Coutinho conceded on the Today programme that the £2,000 figure was spread over four years.
Soon after, in a dramatic and humiliating intervention for Mr Sunak, a letter emerged from Mr Bowler which he had written to the Labour Party to pour cold water on the claim.
Mr Bowler set out how the costings relied upon by Mr Sunak were nothing to do with impartial civil servants, and stressed that the Treasury was “not involved in the production or presentation of the Conservative Party’s document ‘Labour’s Tax Rises’ or the calculation of the total figure used”.
The figure “includes costs beyond those provided by the civil service and published online by HM Treasury”, he told shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones.
“I agree that any costings derived from other sources or produced by other organisations should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service,” Mr Bowler added.
In a scathing letter, he continued: “I have reminded ministers and advisers that this should be the case.”
Earlier, Paul Johnson, the director of the highly-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies, also hit out at the figure. He said: “The £2,000 per working household that the Conservatives are suggesting that Labour is committed to is not independently arrived at or verified. It has been calculated based on Conservative party assumptions about Labour’s spending plans.”
The £2,000 claim is now being looked at by the Office for Statistics Regulation.
It is not known precisely how long its investigation will take.
It would not be the first time the prime mister has been rebuked by the statistics regulator.
Last December, his claim that the government had reduced debt was challenged by the watchdog, whose chairman said the assertion “may have undermined trust in the government’s use of statistics”.
It can only go downhill from here.
The Independent reports that the Treasury’s permanent secretary James Bowler has distanced his department from claims Rishi Sunak made to the nation in the ITV debate that Labour would have to increase taxes by more than £2,000 per household.
The paper adds that this was later followed by the Office for Statistics Regulation launching a probe into the figure, which was the centrepiece of the prime minister’s attack on the opposition in Tuesday night’s TV debate:
It sparked a barrage of condemnation from Labour’s shadow cabinet, with several of the party’s top politicians accusing the PM of deliberately lying to the public.
In response, a defiant Conservative leader and energy secretary Claire Coutinho doubled down, repeating the assertion.
In the first televised clash of the general election campaign, Mr Sunak had repeatedly pointed to analysis by Treasury civil servants he said showed a £38.5bn black hole in Sir Keir’s spending plans.
This would lead to each working household paying £2,094 more in tax under a Labour government, the PM said.
But Mr Sunak suffered a humiliating setback when the Treasury rubbished his claim.
His claims started to unravel on Wednesday morning when Ms Coutinho conceded on the Today programme that the £2,000 figure was spread over four years.
Soon after, in a dramatic and humiliating intervention for Mr Sunak, a letter emerged from Mr Bowler which he had written to the Labour Party to pour cold water on the claim.
Mr Bowler set out how the costings relied upon by Mr Sunak were nothing to do with impartial civil servants, and stressed that the Treasury was “not involved in the production or presentation of the Conservative Party’s document ‘Labour’s Tax Rises’ or the calculation of the total figure used”.
The figure “includes costs beyond those provided by the civil service and published online by HM Treasury”, he told shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones.
“I agree that any costings derived from other sources or produced by other organisations should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service,” Mr Bowler added.
In a scathing letter, he continued: “I have reminded ministers and advisers that this should be the case.”
Earlier, Paul Johnson, the director of the highly-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies, also hit out at the figure. He said: “The £2,000 per working household that the Conservatives are suggesting that Labour is committed to is not independently arrived at or verified. It has been calculated based on Conservative party assumptions about Labour’s spending plans.”
The £2,000 claim is now being looked at by the Office for Statistics Regulation.
It is not known precisely how long its investigation will take.
It would not be the first time the prime mister has been rebuked by the statistics regulator.
Last December, his claim that the government had reduced debt was challenged by the watchdog, whose chairman said the assertion “may have undermined trust in the government’s use of statistics”.
It can only go downhill from here.
