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It has been a long time coming, but the warning by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) during the 2024 General Election that none of the main political parties were telling the truth about the truly fragile state of the economy, has finally hit home.The IFS said then that difficult decisions would have to be made and there would be losers – a message lost in translation by politicians trying to win an election.Now there are indeed losers, the winners of that 2024 election, namely Labour, for being dishonest about the deep trouble the public finances were in, and still are. It promised the earth, avoided any difficult decisions to address the country's endemic long-term challenges and did screeching U-turns the moment backbenchers looked rebellious.This has been compounded by unfounded promises to smash the gangs or build 1.5 million houses or have the fastest economic growth in the G7, none of which UK ministers are in a position to deliver and just makes them look helpless. Their most radical action has been to scrap two-tier council areas just when councils are most under financial pressure from galloping care costs and could do without this diversion.Ministers talk about public services being broken, usually to blame the previous government. They are not broken, just not working as they should. The public look at water companies polluting rivers, shoplifters running amok, criminal gangs fly tipping huge piles of rubbish with little response from regulators or police and the roads peppered with potholes.The public will accept straight talking and difficult decisions so long as there is a rationale and a strategy. In 2010, voters backed a coalition government in the full knowledge that spending cuts would have to occur in the aftermath of the fiscal crash. Despite austerity, and despite promising yet more cuts, the Conservatives still won in 2015.As a report from the low pay think-tank, the Resolution Foundation, last week commented: ‘Honesty, they say, must be the starting point for repairing any relationship.‘Today's rancorous relationship with voters can be traced back to the election campaign when Labour insisted it could transform growth and repair public services without huge tax rises. Despite announcing £70bn of annual tax rises by the end of the decade, public services continue to deteriorate. Day-to-day public spending is at a level where we should demand better services for the money being spent.'Ministers talk about public services being broken, usually to blame the previous government. They are not broken, just not working as they should. The public look at water companies polluting rivers, shoplifters running amok, criminal gangs fly tipping huge piles of rubbish with little response from regulators or police and the roads peppered with potholes.Nor are public services joined up despite years of trying, with Total Place 2.0 now back on the agenda.A friend remarked how he saw council community wardens in his inner London borough busily ticking off a smoker for dropping a cigarette end on the street while shoplifters raided a nearby store.Just as services are often run in silos, so is government policy. One of the consistent themes in vox pops is public dismay at the decay of the high street, with boarded up shopfronts or vape shops cresting a sense of abandonment.The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government's initiative Pride in Place is laudable, but it is countermanded by big rises in business rates and higher employer NI forcing many shops and pubs to close.So, should anyone be surprised that voters are fed up and susceptible to the siren voices of populists on the left and right?Having been fobbed off with empty General Election promises from the main parties that they could have growth, great public services and yet no tax rises, it is little surprise that voters should now try the fibs of the populists.The new administrations will still face the same problems as their predecessors, as an IFS report last week was headlined: New councillors, same old challenges.What is needed is straight talking from the Government and action, not wish lists. As the Resolution Foundation, said: ‘The evasions of the last election campaign aren't working for anyone anymore. The only remaining viable strategy is facing, then fixing, the state that we find ourselves in.'

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POLICY AND POLITICS

The public will accept straight talk from politicians so long as there is a rationale

By Michael Burton | 20 May 2026

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