Strikes, waiting lists, lack of funding, not enough GP appointments, dentists appointments, or mental health services – they’re all issues that never seem to be out of the news.
Experts have been sounding the alarm that the NHS is in crisis for years now, so what will whoever wins the general election and makes up the next government, do to improve the situation for our much-loved health care system?
The Standard’s Health Reporter, Daniel Keane, shares his insight.
In this first special episode, we’ll examine the critical of issue the pound in our pocket and which of the parties can be trusted to steward the economy.
While both the Conservatives and Labour have unanswered questions about funding specifics for spending plans.
Plus, Sir Keir Starmer’s careful wording over tax plans, City of London mood for Labour and what is Rishi Sunak’s political legacy?
From the newsroom, join Mark Blunden in conversation with Evening Standard business editor Jonathan Prynn.
Here’s an automated transcript of episode one:
From London, this is The Standard podcast, and I’m Mark Blunden.
The countdown to polling day is on, and in a special mini-series of The Standard podcast, ahead of the 4th of July, we’re taking a deeper look at three of the hot topics on the 2024 general election campaign trail that’s tax and the economy, the NHS and immigration.
In this first special episode, we’ll examine the most critical of issues, the pound in your pocket and which of the parties can be trusted to steward the economy.
While the Conservatives are promising to cut tax, there’s concerns about public spending.
And while Labour has pledged not to push up some taxes, the party has yet to reveal further detail in other areas.
But with all their investments and building plans, where is the money coming from without putting up taxes? And what about those stealth taxes we keep hearing about?
To discover more, let’s cross to the newsroom, where I’m joined by Evening Standard business editor, Jonathan Prynn.
Jonathan, what are the battleground economy issues this time around?
I think there’s probably two that stand out. Tax, obviously, has been front and centre of, particularly the Conservatives, campaigning.
They’re trying to pin big tax rises on the Labour Party, which of course the Labour Party strenuously deny.
And growth is probably the other one.
Both parties realise that without growth, none of their promises will come to pass because the economy won’t be able to afford it.
I’d say tax was probably central for the Tories and growth probably more central for Labour.
How much detail do we have?
I mean, not enough. To be fair to the Conservatives, they have made one specific pledge, which is to cut national insurance rate again by another 2p.
And I think they’re saying they want to abolish it altogether over the next Parliament. So that is something that they can pin their hat to.
Then Labour, it’s a little bit more vague.
They said they won’t increase rates of income tax and national insurance.
And there are some increases in tax, such as they’re going to reform the whole non-dom situation.
And, obviously, VAT on private schools is effectively a tax increase for them and for the parents that send their children to them.
But there’s not a lot of detail in what they’ll be doing on taxation.
And there’s been a lot of talk about these stealth taxes. What exactly is a stealth tax? And also is this taking in potential council tax reform as well?
It’s a taxation measure that goes up and increases the amount you pay to the government in tax.
But without it ever really being announced, it’s just something that happens under the radar.
And the first time you’re aware of it is when your tax bill goes up in your pay packet.
And I guess the sort of classic example of that would be the income tax thresholds, which were frozen by, I can’t remember which conservative chancellor, but several chancellors ago at a certain level.
And as people get pay rises, they crash through these thresholds and crash into ever higher income tax rates.
So that would be a sort of classic example.
And probably in all likelihood, given the state of the public finances, both the Labour and conservative will keep those thresholds for a while.
And those are a very, very insidious stealth tax on millions of people.
What do you think could be coming down the road with council tax reform?
Because it’s been a while since that has been calculated.
It’s one of those cans that is endlessly kicked down the road because it’s immensely complicated. It’s very hard to get it right so that it’s done fairly. And it will mean some very big increases for a lot of people who won’t like it.
So I suspect it will be kicked further down the road.
I mean, bear in mind that it was reform of local taxation in the form of the poll tax that kind of started things going badly wrong for Margaret Thatcher.
So, you know, it is a really tricky one.
And I suspect it won’t be an early priority whoever wins the election.
People have benefited from enormous increases in the value of their properties.
And that’s not been reflected in how much they pay in council tax.
You know, you’ve got these bands that really sort of outdate with current valuations.
Coming up: What’s Rishi Sunak’s economic legacy?
Why not hit follow on this podcast in the meantime?
What’s your take on how Sir Keir Starmer, has he been quite smart with his language when discussing tax rises in interviews?
Well, he’s strenuously denied the conservative claim that he’s going to put taxes up by £2,000.
And they’ve done what appear to be quite detailed costings in the manifesto, which suggests that they’ll be raising more money through the sorts of measures I just mentioned than they will be paying out in extra sort of public spending pledges.
So I think they have been pretty smart.
The question is, will those measures actually raise anything like the money that they’re hoping for?
It all depends on the economy doing well as well.
And that’s a huge open question still.
In terms of Rishi Sunak’s legacy, how would you rate his stewardship of the economy as Chancellor and as Prime Minister?
I mean, he came in as Chancellor, obviously, at an incredibly difficult time.
And he was the creator of the furlough scheme and various other measures that helped the economy just about sort of survive through the pandemic period, which was a massive existential threat to the British economy.
So, I think he was a decent Chancellor in very difficult circumstances.
I think his record, his record since he came in, again, in very difficult circumstances, is probably more mixed.
He stabilised the economy after the disaster of the Liz Trusts mini budget.
So the economy has at least been stable and not sort of crashing.
But equally, he hasn’t been able to deliver the growth that he would have hoped for. economy has been growing at a very, very slow rate.
However, inflation finally has come down.
So, there are some ticks, but I think overall, it’s not a particularly impressive legacy.
And in terms of those large problems, COVID, inflation, global factors here, victim of circumstance, or do you feel he could have taken some key measures, made some key policy decisions to improve things?
Clearly, he is victim of circumstance, the worst pandemic since Spanish flu and the worst inflation spike since the 1970s.
And as I say, inflation, having risen very, very rapidly, has now come down and is back on its target rate, 2%.
I think where he can be more criticized is just there’s been so little success in galvanizing the economy and getting people, just getting businesses and getting the private sector fired up, not enough reform, not enough attention there, planning growth.
There’s just a lack of energy in the economy.
And I think that’s probably the biggest claim against him.
We always talk about mood in the city.
Any sort of changes in terms of that mood among your city contacts about this potential change of management, confidence levels in Starmer and Rachel Reeves?
You know, five years ago, the city was terrified, frankly, about the prospects of Jeremy Corbyn coming to power, absolutely terrified.
And that couldn’t be further from the truth now.
They’ve, Starmer and Reeves, done an absolutely incredible job in taking the toxicity out of the Labour brand.
There’s absolutely no question that the city is pretty relaxed about and obviously accepting that it’s probably going to happen, almost certainly going to happen.
But they’ve done an extraordinary job.
I think Rachel Reeves in particular has seen as a really safe pair of hands in which to hand over the custodianship of the British economy.
Potentially, this is a bit of a tangent, but I wondered with your knowledge of these matters, where would you rank Sunak’s money management skills compared to previous other chancellors and PMs?
Where will he sort of fit in?
I don’t think he’ll be remembered particularly fondly by the city and by the financial markets.
As I say, he and Hunt came in as a kind of what they called the dullness dividend, to try and just put a fire blanket over the blaze that had been set alight by Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng. And from that point of view, he’s done the job.
The economy did stabilise.
The markets did sort of normalise.
But I don’t think there’s any sense that there’s a legacy of hope or rapid growth or putting us on a path to economic success.
His historic role was just to stop things getting worse, basically.
There’s much more general election coverage in the Evening Standard newspaper and online at standard.co.uk.
We’re back tomorrow at 4pm.
