Tory MPs are already obsessing over the next election – but they have bigger issues in the present

It is not what the tax schedule looks like but the damaging headlines over NHS pay that the Conservatives need to concentrate on, writes Andrew Grice

Boris Johnson has fires to fight over NHS pay (PA)

Only 15 months after the general election, MPs are already obsessing about the date of the next one. Many Tories interpret Rishi Sunak’s decision to delay corporation tax rises to 2023 as a signal the contest will be held in April or May that year before the increases bite fully.

I’ve spoken to some Tories who have convinced themselves the company profits tax hike will not be needed because the chancellor’s huge tax breaks for firms who invest will spur a boom that starts to fill Treasury coffers. That is wishful thinking. Sunak will need the £17bn-a-year revenue from the corporation tax rise because he is determined to start repairing public finances battered by the coronavirus pandemic.

But the Conservative super-optimists dream of a spring 2023 election on the back of even higher growth than the whopping 7.3 per cent forecast for 2022 – and before the sluggish growth rates of 1.7 per cent, 1.6 per cent and 1.7 per cent predicted for the following three years.