I'm John Bachelor with my colleague Joseph Sternberg. He's in London. He writes political

economics for the Wall Street Journal editorial page. He's a member of the editorial board.

We're looking at a UK election right after the first round

of the French election.

It's going to be a bang, bang, bang week.

Right now, the polling indicates there's not much of a contest.

Labor is overwhelmingly favored perhaps because

you know the birthday cake grew very old for the Tories and

they're unhappy and they need reawakening. However,

labor is now so confident it's making promises and taxes are what get my attention because this is labor spelled with

a you. Joe tax rises ruled out income tax VAT and national insurance ruled R ruled out, is that a tactic that works

to say we won't raise taxes in the next five years?

Is that a practical statement from labor?

Well, John, you've asked two very different questions there.

So on the question of whether it works politically, the answer is yes.

I think that a big part of the recent labor is ahead right now is because the governing

Conservative Party has seemed so divided and inconsistent on economic issues in general.

And they also have increased the tax burden in the economy pretty significant.

Government revenue, the percentage of GDP is higher now after 14 years of Conservative Party

government than it's been at any time since the 1940s in the wake of the world war.

So I think that labor is figuring out that this is a vulnerability for the Conservatives

and is playing that politically very cleverly

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