The Guardian view on Tory MPs and tax cuts: the desperate demanding the delusional | Editorial

The Conservative fixation on shrinking the state is fiscally reckless and detached from political reality

Just as every problem resembles a nail to someone equipped only with a hammer, the faintest glint of good economic news entices Conservative MPs to call for tax cuts. Earlier this week, new data showed that government borrowing in the second quarter of the year was 11.3bn lower than had previously been forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The windfall is explained by higher revenues. That in turn is largely a function of frozen income tax thresholds - a stealthy tax rise that scoops more people into the higher rate as their earnings increase.

Tory MPs have not hesitated to call for cuts. Most frame the argument in terms of economic stimulus - the conviction that growth will be restored as people spend money that would otherwise have been deducted from their pay. Iain Duncan Smith made an auxiliary motive explicit: If the economy is not growing we will lose the election," the former Tory leader said.