Quote of the day 7th June 2025

 "There are degrees of Pie in the sky"

John Rentoul, chief political correspondent of the Independent and i newspapers.

He was responding to questions submitted at an Independent "Ask me anything" Q&A session.

The context was that readers were asking whether Reform leader Nigel Farage "promises the earth to an electorate credulous enough and desperate enough to believe it."

John Rentoul responded that

"There is an element of that in all democratic politics. I wrote repeatedly before last year’s election that neither Labour nor the Tories had plans for tax and spending that added up.

But there are degrees of pie in the sky. Since the Liz Truss experiment, both the main parties have accepted the need in principle for planned debt to be falling as a share of national income over the medium term. The Reform prospectus is so far away from that that Keir Starmer is wholly justified in mentioning Truss when criticising Reform as often as he can."

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