How to win elections No 1: Offer tax cuts

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The local elections were billed by some as a referendum on the “cuts”:

It is good to see that there are some principled anti-cuts prospective candidates standing in some wards, giving a voice to those fed up with the usual excuses, scapegoating and cuts policies presented by other parties. We have all had enough of the tweedle dee and tweedle dum approach of local and national elections. Hopefully, with wide support from local trade unionists, activists and residents, it can be shown that there is an alternative and we do not have to accept this rubbish that cuts are inevitable, the budget has to be reduced and we are all in this together. 

Seems to me that the UK Uncut agenda was completely rejected – even in that heartland of statist centralism, Scotland. Indeed, the Scots voted a tax cutting party into government:

The specific actions we would take to meet these targets are:

1) Lower corporation tax to 20% (currently 30%) to attract corporate HQ activity to Scotland and to make indigenous businesses more competitive

2) Lower business rates to below the English level (currently significantly higher than in England) 

Plus of course a freeze on council tax.

Yet again it’s shown that promising tax cuts gets votes.

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