Hunt offered no rabbit out of the hat but Labour still got the hint - analysis by Christopher Hope
'Hopefully Labour got the hint that the next General Election will not be in May,' writes Christopher Hope
PA
Perhaps today, in the wake of the Spring Budget, Labour has finally got the message that the General Election is now almost certainly in the Autumn.
The talk for the past fortnight or so from Labour frontbenchers in successive interviews on GB News has been that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Chancellor Jeremy Hunt were preparing for a General Election on May 2.
And it could still happen - I remember well how Theresa May's team denied that the 2017 general election was imminent right up until the PM headed to the Palace to dissolve Parliament.
But seven years later, the political outlook in 2024 is different, with the Tories 20 points behind the Labour in the polls. In 2017, the Conservatives were 20 points ahead.
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And if Sunak and Hunt were trying to prep the UK for a May General Election, the Budget was a funny way to go about it.
One veteran Tory MP described the Budget as "so-so". Another shrugged their shoulders. A third Tory - a former senior Cabinet minister - said that what the party needed as a Budget was to catch attention and show voters why the party deserved their support.
Yes, Hunt has cut tax in the Budget, with the second successive two per cent cut in National Insurance for nearly 30 million people in three months meaning that it has now fallen by a third since the beginning of January.
Yet polls published in the hours after the Budget show that voters have just shrugged their shoulders at this largesse (they are on average now £900 better off). It was the same response after the Autumn statement last year, when the first two per cent cut was announced.
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The Budget was rolled out on March 6
PAToday Hunt offered no rabbit out of the hat, no big offer on income tax to capture the headlines. No wonder one Labour shadow Cabinet minister told me today: "I am now convinced that we will not be having a general election in May."
We will know for sure that there will be no May 2 election if one has not been called by March 26. But today's Budget has as good as confirmed that there will not be one.
For me, more likely is a fiscal statement in September, when I expect Sunak and Hunt will flash the cash for voters, perhaps by cutting 1p off income tax (as Sunak promised he would do in 2024 when he was Chancellor at the Spring 2022 Budget) in the few weeks before the expected November general election.
By then, the Chancellor will be able to use economic figures from the end of the rolling five-year forecast period in 2029/30 to justify more fiscal headroom to pay for tax cuts, while falling interest rates may further create more cash for pre-election tax giveaways.
It is a high-risk strategy. The problem with waiting until weeks before a general election for a big fiscal moment to impress voters is that by then the electorate will have completely given up on the Conservatives, and will be ready to vote Labour in their millions.
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