When considering how to vote, ‘once bitten, twice shy’ can be a problem

AS THE CONFERENCE recess has ended and MPs are meant to consider the real world rather than the one where policies can be slogans suspiciously lacking in reassuring detail, the likelihood of an early general election is coming into sharper focus.

I have it on good authority from my Labour contacts that nationally the party is mobilising; preparations, such as candidate selection in the seats it does not hold (and is unlikely to win) are now commencing – a necessity if the government is to be ready to go at the drop of Andy’s cap.

At the very least, it allows him to take a decision knowing he is ready to go – or see out the full term, but without a personal mandate.

Then there are the reports that the prime minister is seeking to abolish the need for proof of identity to vote in time for next May’s council elections, when any early general election would most likely take place. Why this is believed to be advantageous to Labour is a question that only elicits cynical guffaws and raised eyebrows – because, quite simply, the party would rather our democratic elections were open to abuse.

Proxies for the dead can laugh all the way to the polls

Collect a parcel from the Post Office, show your bus pass, have a blue badge for parking? All require photo ID – yet Burnham would seemingly remove that simple proof of legitimacy. Only in Britain will you need to prove you are old enough to access the internet, demonstrating proof of age, but to decide on who creates your laws, sets your taxes and extends welfare benefits will require no identity at all. Proxies for the dead can laugh all the way to the polls.

John Healey’s first Budget now looms at the end of this month – with the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimating that the Government now faces a shortfall of £35 billion to balance the books.

Then, after illusory rabbits are pulled out of hats, there is, would you believe it, another week’s parliamentary recess. Maybe Labour MPs will need it to recover after hearing from their own Chancellor about the state of our public finances?

This is the backdrop against which the leading opposition parties must prepare for battle, with Reform and the Conservatives still vying for who will be best placed when the starting gun is actually fired. Nigel Farage and his still-growing Reform Party have made most of the running over the last two years, so much so that all the other parties trained their attacks on him and his team, more than on the Labour government.

For two years in a row the Conservatives have had disastrous English council elections, and they have lost their place as the lead opposition in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd. This put the leadership of Kemi Badenoch under sustained pressure, but her aggressive performances at prime minister’s questions against the technocratic Keir Starmer have allowed her to assert herself and get a grip on her party.

Badenoch’s judgement at times still appears rash and lacking in self-awareness

While Tory party polling remains stubbornly below its 2024 general election low of 23.7 per cent, Badenoch has enjoyed positive personal ratings that have helped keep the party in the race. That is not to say she is a prime minister in waiting. Badenoch’s judgement at times still appears rash and lacking in self-awareness.

Badenoch’s support earlier in the year for a former neo-nazi who did jail time toc become a prospective Tory council candidate was one such example – and in her speech at the Tory conference she praised the late Jeffrey Archer – a convicted perjurer – only to then go on and attack Reform MPs by implying criminality. Yet not one of her targets has been arrested or faced any charges. Shameless double standards are not the sole prerogative of Keir Starmer.

While offering conference attendees tax cuts can be red meat politics for Conservatives, the promises regularly falter under closer inspection. Last year it was abolishing stamp duty (later qualified to apply only on the first property and to exclude trading in equities, which badly needed the help). This year it was abolishing inheritance tax (later qualified to mean merely raising the nil-rate threshold on the family home).

The Badenoch approach actually makes abolition even less likely because it will leave the tax on the books and subject to expansion by a future government. If it is to be abolished – and it most definitely should be – then it should go in its entirety. Overnight, billionaires and their large tax bills will return from the shores of Dubai and other friendlier climes.

A pattern is developing of Badenoch grabbing headlines with bold, appetising policies only for the reading of her recipe’s contents to reveal a low-calorie, fat-free and less tasty rendition. She’s no Michelin-starred chef, she’s a purveyor of fast slogans that leave you still hungry afterwards. Some might call it populism-lite.

Badenoch’s modest raising of the IHT threshold doesn’t end Labour’s inclusion of pensions in taxable estates

Instead of simplifying the tax code, as promised by Badenoch, the qualifications and exemptions for her suggested tax cuts will actually add to it. For instance, Labour is bringing pensions into the purview of inheritance tax (IHT), but Badenoch’s modest raising of the IHT threshold doesn’t end Labour’s inclusion of pensions as a tax liability.

Indeed, raising the IHT nil-rate threshold on the family home will distort behaviour further by incentivising the retention of large houses rather than downsizing and releasing capital – because that capital would be liable to IHT whereas the property would escape it.

These types of tax changes seem designed to appeal to the relatively wealthy and property owners, fitting neatly into a strategy of winning back seats from the Liberal Democrats in the more prosperous shires in the south of England. Indeed, the strategy is even being talked about as targeting “Waitrose woman”. It hardly offers the meritocratic utility and ambition of an appeal to the masses, such as targeting “Mondeo man”.

It is difficult, therefore, to dismiss the possibility that Badenoch has settled for the Conservatives being a regional party rather than a national one.

She appears to be targeting pockets of support in, say, the South East doughnut around London and unionist redoubts in Scotland, while leaving Reform to fight Labour in the Red Wall seats across the North, where Badenoch’s candidates would be eviscerated.

the public has not yet found it possible to forget or forgive the Tories for their 14-year record of repeated betrayals

This ignores the fact that Reform’s support is much broader than the Red Wall, having eaten the breakfast, lunch and dinner of Tories in Essex, East Anglia and swathes of the Midlands. This is because the public has not yet found it possible to forget or forgive the Tories for their 14-year record of repeated betrayals (such as suggesting they would abolish inheritance tax).

Another example of Badenoch’s leadership narrative is that she is changing the party, apparently demoting those who failed in the past, such as Mel Stride, while ignoring her own failure, as a minister, to remove thousands of EU laws from the statute book. Now we learn she has brought back arch-wet Penny Mordaunt. What next, a place in the shadow cabinet for Ruth Davidson?

For now it’s no wonder the saying “you cannot trust the Tories” still resonates with so many voters who, having been bitten at least once, remain twice shy.

(A helpful link for those that don’t know the saying)

A shorter version of this article first appeared in The Scotsman on 12 October 2026.