Low Excitement Spring Budget Has Tory MPs Waiting For An Autumn Election

A Spring Budget short of eye-catching announcements has left Conservative MPs in the belief that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt are planning more tax cuts in the Autumn before finally calling a general election.

"This was not a pre-election Budget," a senior Tory told PoliticsHome. 

That was the feeling shared by many Conservative MPs following the Chancellor's highly-anticipated House of Commons statement on Wednesday afternoon.

The Spring Budget was widely seen as a major moment for Sunak's Conservative government as Downing Street and Tory strategists try to narrow the Labour Party's long-running, double-digit leads in the opinion polls, and with the 2024 general election on the horizon.

However, Conservative MPs who spoke to PoliticsHome following Hunt's despatch box statement said that in the end, it was a fairly tepid affair.

The headline policy of cutting National Contributions by two per cent had already been leaked to the press, meaning it did not at all come as news to the Tory rank and file, while the rest of the Spring Budget didn't pack the sort of punch that they would expect from the precursor to a general election.

"I don't think there's anything really exciting here... It's not going to turn the dial and the Tories aren’t gonna jump 10 points overnight," said the same senior Conservative MP.

Meanwhile, one current minister acknowledged that there was not enough in Hunt's statement today to shift the dial for the Conservative party as it faces the prospect of defeat to Keir Starmer's Labour when the country next goes to the polls. 

"There’s stuff in the Budget you can use on the doorstep but people judge it on feel and zeitgeist — and you can’t get away from that," they told PoliticsHome.

If