Iain Anderson raged about the Tory promises on BBC Question TimeA BBC Question Time panellist slammed the Conservatives’ economic promises to the public on Thursday evening.
Iain Anderson, a business and communications adviser, used to work for Boris Johnson but he switched his allegiance to Labour last October.
He told the audience: “Their sums don’t add up anymore. They absolutely don’t add up anymore.
“There’s a £12 billion gap in those sums, and nobody can properly explain where the money is going to come from.”
Prime minister Rishi Sunak’s manifesto has promised to save the taxpayer £12 billion by the end of the next parliament cutting welfare and cracking down on benefit fraud.
However, some have compared this substantial promise to Liz Truss’s economics.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent think tank, also warned that reductions in spending are harder than many realise.
Question Time host Fiona Bruce asked: “And you think Labour’s sums add up? Because there are other people don’t.”
When Labour’s plan for the country came out, the IFS said: “Labour’s manifesto offers no indication that there is a plan for where the money would come from to finance this.”
But Anderson stood by Labour on Question Time.
He said: “I know that beyond this general election, with fiscal credibility – not chopping and changing policies, with not nine business secretaries, seven chancellors, five prime ministers and a partridge in a damn pear tree in our politics – we can get our country moving again.
“And I’m convinced that with the stability and an approach to government which is about integrity and frankly not about mates’ rates to friends, the economic sun can come towards us, Labour has to move quickly, but I’m convinced it can.”
“Their sums don’t add up anymore… There's a £12 billion gap in those sums”
— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) June 13, 2024
Businessman Iain Anderson says Conservative economic policy is not financially viable and is more focussed on giving “mates rates to friends” while Labour would “get our country moving again”#bbcqtpic.twitter.com/LS1XqvzYKe
Anderson’s criticism comes after Sunak triggered outrage by claiming the Labour Party would raise every household’s taxes by £2,094.
However, the Conservatives used a questionable method to devise that total.
When applied to the Tories’ own pledges, the Tory-supporting magazine the Spectator concluded that the party would raise the taxes for every household by more than £3,000.
