It is becoming increasingly clear, should we need reminding, that the great British public don’t necessarily respond well to the truth. The truth, for example, that our national debt must be brought under control and that necessarily entails some form of (further) burden on them, whether through tax rises or cuts in public services. However, as the Tories found out to their cost, albeit perhaps temporary, talking about the age of austerity and hinting at tax rises, kind of honest though it was, got them nowhere in the polls. In fact, the hypothetical shovel that dug them out of their rut was their decision to oppose Labour’s proposed National Insurance rise. Now, Labour should have seen this coming of course, but the events of the last few days  have demonstrated that even the spin wizards themselves haven’t yet mastered the dark art. Or, to put it another way, the public are really, realy fickle.

The support for the Tories’ plans from 68 (at the time of writing) business leaders probably took even the party by surprise, but it was a major boost from which I doubt Labour’s narrative of fiscal responsibility will recover. To support one of the two positions on offer from Labour or the Tories is to take that oft-forgotten position of an ideological stance. Either you think businesses should be incentivised to employ and the public should get an extra £150 pa but at the expense of public spending, or that the disincentive to employ imposed on businesses and the £150 pa taken off us would be more sensibly invested by the government in the public finances and services.

But I don’t think the public see it like that. I think they see a government, that has repeatedly upped taxes for the last 13 years, proposing to take yet more money from them in order to rescue an economy that they must be at least partly responsible for screwing up, and then on top of that they’re going to decrease your chances of getting a job by taxing your potential employer for employing you. Any counterargument to that, no matter how technically accurate or fiscally responsible or even honest it might be, runs into the problem of cognitive dissonance that the simplicity of the Tories’ narrative simply does not have. It is much easier to see the problems with Labour’s proposal than it is to see the benefits, because they are so much more abstract.

What to learn from this then? Not only that simplicity sells but that the principle behind any proposed taxes is as, if not more, important than their potential impact (especially when there’s an imminent election). The Lib Dems are shouting from the rooftops as of this morning about the Tories’ “VAT bombshell” which currently exists only in the minds of those who believe in economics by inference. Their argument is that the Tories’ proposed tax cuts leave a black hole equivalent to a 3% rise in VAT. I must say I wasn’t aware the Tories had proposed tax cuts; rather they have proposed not to raise taxes, which is not the same thing. I might have missed something. But as discussed, the facts are not the most important part of the debate. For what it’s worth I doubt this particular narrative will stick, largely because those from the Lib Dems rarely do. However, I also think they’re probably right and that a rise in VAT is unavoidable, and if people start to think the Tories think that…. Well, we shall see.

Meanwhile, most of the West Country is still partying after the cider tax was quietly dropped, but the Digital Economy Bill was passed by an embarrassingly empty parliament after what looks like some pretty blatant lobbying that really deserved some headlines.

Image: GETTY/EPA/GETTY