Kenneth Clarke has warned George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, against “getting too adventurous” in plans for public spending cuts before the next general election.
The Times has obtained a tape recording of comments made by Mr Clarke, the Shadow Business Secretary, on Tuesday night that reflect unease among senior Conservatives over opinion polls which show that Labour has eaten into their lead in recent weeks.
Mr Clarke told a private meeting of the centrist Bow Group at the Commons that some voters could be scared away from the Tory party if it was too specific about tax and spending plans. “You could then wind up with a very messy outcome,” he said.
The former Chancellor, who returned to a largely youthful Conservative front bench this year to lend it greater weight and experience, praised Mr Osborne for having been “very bold” in giving examples of the austerity measures that would be taken by a Conservative government. These included promises to raise the pension age to 66, remove tax credits for the better-off and freeze public sector pay for most workers. At the party conference Mr Osborne made great play of saying that he wanted to be straight with the people about making “honest choices in the world in which we live”.
On Tuesday, however, Mr Clarke said: “I think it is very difficult to have a sensible argument. You are running enormous risks — we have not had an election like this before.” Although emphasising that most people knew that the level of public debt was “disgraceful and unsustainable”, he said: “The population is only keen on tough measures so long as they don’t affect them and their families.”
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Predicting that Labour would portray the Tories as wanting “to do the nasty stuff — you know, take away unnecessarily”, Mr Clarke said: “We will find some voters are seduced away by that if we are not careful, so there is a problem in the run-up to the election if we start getting too adventurous.”
The Treasury published detailed official analysis of 22 Conservative tax and spending proposals yesterday in response to a Freedom of Information request. Although many of these related to out-of-date information, Labour claimed that others revealed policies that would cost the taxpayer more than £10 billion a year.
Liam Byrne, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: “No wonder Ken wants George Osborne to shut up. Every day we learn more about how the Tories cannot afford their tax and spending plans ... Ken Clarke must be weeping into his beer.”
A spokesman for Mr Osborne highlighted “inaccuracies and misrepresentations about our policy” in the FoI requests, but added that the Government would be embarrassed by an admission from the Treasury that increasing tax credits for couples “would help the poorest in our society”.
Mr Clarke, in his speech to the Bow Group on Tuesday, said that although politicians should strive to be honest, there were significant dangers in providing too much detail in a febrile atmosphere of fluctuating opinion polls and nervousness about the opinions of newspaper proprietors.
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“I don’t think you can handle a public spending round as a kind of open debate through the media and the newspapers. I would not draw up a public spending round, any more than I would draw up a budget generally, against a background of open public debate.
“I’m afraid I believe in budget secrecy,” he said. “I think George has been very bold, and I wouldn’t personally go much farther in speculating about what he might have to do.”
Mr Clarke later departed from his own dictum by ruling out any prospect of a rise in business tax as a “complete no-no”. He also hinted at Tory disquiet about the prospect of a hung Parliament, saying that signs that the Liberal Democrat vote was picking up represented “our biggest danger”. He added: “I think we are probably going to be all right actually but I am not supposed to be complacent.”
His spokesman said last night: “Ken has stated all of this many times before in public.” Asked when and where Mr Clarke might have made such remarks, he replied: “That is the line. That is all we are going to say.”
Mr Osborne’s office declined to comment.