There’s a huge hole in Theresa May’s spending pledge for the health service

There’s a huge hole in Theresa May’s spending pledge for the health service | Andrew Rawnsley Every other government department is already cut to the bone, so just where will that £20bn a year for the NHS come from?

One of the more sensible things that the Tories did during their otherwise terrible general election campaign last summer was not to make too many promises about tax. Though they never explicitly acknowledged that taxes might have to go up during this parliament, Theresa May and Philip Hammond signalled this could be so when they dropped many of the pledges inherited from David Thingy and George Whatnot. Anyone with a basic diploma in political semaphore could intuit that this meant that there was a strong possibility that taxes would rise.

Possibility has turned into racing certainty. That is one conclusion we can draw from Mrs May’s announcement that there will be £20bn extra per year for the NHS by 2023. Even the magic money tree can’t produce that kind of cash without some watering by the taxman. This is more than the chancellor wanted to sign off on before Jeremy Hunt, the wily survivor as health secretary, managed to persuade the prime minister that money would be the most popular 70th birthday present for the NHS. Continue reading... The Guardian