This is John Batcheter, conversation with my colleague Joseph Sternberg,

editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, he writes the political economics column,

he's in London, about the election call, general election called by

Rishizi Sunak the Prime Minister for July 4th,

Labor well ahead in the polls, 20 points ahead in the polls.

Joe informs us is doing its best not to be not to be clear about what it will do when in power

about taxes about anything policy matters to housing

avoiding the labor mistakes in the past of being all things

to all people and making promises on the basis of money is going to collect.

Joe is very witty about taxes. Can't do more damage than

the Tories did. Here's Joe Sternberg on Labors avoiding of clarity before it's right now presumed massive election on July 4. More of this later.

It depends and in fact it's a little difficult to pin down labor right now

precisely because they have been trying to remake themselves in the centrist

direction at the same time that they're trying to avoid committing to too many specific policies.

So certainly on tax policy, they are promising they are not going to increase taxes at

all when they come in.

Now partly they can do that because the conservatives already

have raised taxes so high. Labor wouldn't need to increase taxes anymore in order to have money

available for their own spending priorities.

But on other issues, for example, housing, they're promising that they're finally going to unstick all of the zoning regulations that make it so difficult to build new housing.

If they can do that, it would be a major victory because this is progress that eluded the conservatives

for the entire 14 years the Tories have been in power.

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