The Director of the Popular Conservatives, a movement within the Conservative Party, has said that the overall tax burden is at its highest rate since the 1940s, despite Jeremy Hunt’s claims that people’s personal tax burden since 1975.

Mark Littlewood said the country had become a ‘high tax, high spend economy after 14 years of Conservative government’ and warned the party ‘may not have a road back’.

Speaking on GB News, Mark Littlewood said:

“If you’re listening to an economist, or a politician, always read the fine print. And it’s the important fine print in what Jeremy Hunt said. I believe he’s technically correct. He mentions personal taxes, so he’s measuring your National Insurance and your income tax contributions.

“If you’re an average earner, given everything he’s done, that might be down a bit. But that’s not what the average owner thinks about; they think about their overall take home pay.

“So if you smoke tobacco, you’ll be paying a lot more in tax in a different fashion. If your council tax is going up. You’re paying a lot more in tax in a different fashion.

“I wouldn’t think most people in this room care specifically about what their personal taxes are they care about that overall tax bill.

“And the fact is, unfortunately I have to confess, after 14 years of Conservative government, it’s at its highest since the 1940s.

“I don’t think it will be much succour to people in this room and in other constituencies to be told, on a technicality, that their personal taxes are down when the overall tax burden is up. And that’s the fact of the matter.

“Not putting taxes up is what governments now pat themselves on the back for. Great news – your taxes haven’t gone up.

“But I think there’s a good number of people in this room and elsewhere want to see their taxes go down. And this is also in the context where the economy is flatlining.

“If we were all getting richer, I don’t know five, six percent a year, seeing our wages go up every year, seeing prices fall in the shops. Well, at that point, you might not struggle too much if your tax bills another £100. But because there hasn’t been growth in the economy, people are really, really feeling that pinch.

“We’ve drifted into becoming a high tax, high spend, heavily regulated social democratic economy after 14 years of Conservative government. That’s quite a disappointment. And I don’t think he did enough today to U-turn from that.

“I do read the opinion polls; the Conservative Party is not popular at all. Is there a road back? I don’t know.

“But the only road back is that you need to be honest with people and you need to start to get government off their back. And you need to start doing the right thing by ordinary, hardworking Brits. And it’s difficult to discern that thread running through government policy over recent years.”

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