THE Tories got a drubbing in the local elections — but it would be a mistake to believe that the next election is a foregone conclusion.

They can read opinion polls too, and the loss of over 1,000 council seats will still be hurting.

As a result, it would be a mistake to assume that they will carry on just as before in all respects; they will have to offer something to voters.

Otherwise, theirs will be the fate that Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak will all be among the briefest prime ministers in British history.

That something is likely to be an economic offer. They have convinced themselves that their toxic mix of authoritarianism, denial of civil liberties and racism is popular with key voters. This is despite all polling evidence to the contrary.

But they are not about to reverse course on what is effectively a divide-and-rule policy where the state and the government abrogate greater powers to themselves.

Instead, they are likely to offer a giveaway to voters. In recent days there has been much talk of tax cuts.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has publicly warned the government against cutting taxes by arguing that they will stoke inflation and rapidly increase government debt. To go public, the IMF is clearly party to some knowledge about government thinking.

This was followed shortly afterwards by a report in the Times that a group of Tory MPs is calling on Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to cut taxes for millennials, not least because the traditional shift towards the Tories as people get older is not happening.

It is probably significant that Tory MPs are already focusing on who tax cuts should be directed towards, rather than whether they should take place at all.

This all seems rather strange as a government mantra has been that there is “no money left” for some time — but we should not expect consistency from the Tories.

Instead, Labour must prepare to answer this policy with key arguments of its own.

The Tories will do it because it is their only hope of winning. It has also worked before.

In 2014 David Cameron and George Osborne had one-off tax increases and a boost to government spending.

How effective Labour’s opposition to this blatant pre-election bribery was can be gauged from the fact that we suffered a big defeat, and Ed Miliband was forced to step down as leader.

Naturally, the Tories resumed their vicious austerity straight after the 2015 general election victory. But the political damage was done, even if the economic cost in human misery was only in its infancy.

This is the playbook that Sunak and Hunt will be trying to re-enact.

This is already a vicious austerity government. On its website, this government boasts “£27 billion in business tax cut takes effect as this financial year begins.”

This is at the same time that public services are in crisis because of persistent underfunding and millions of workers are suffering deep cuts to their real pay (after taking account of inflation).

Austerity transfers incomes and wealth from poor to rich, from workers to big business and the banks. Like their predecessors, the current Prime Minister and Chancellor fully intend to resume a vicious austerity programme if they are elected. So the stakes are very high.

The most propitious time for them would surely be just a few months away, perhaps in an Autumn Spending Review. Hopefully, Labour is already working on its response.

The first point to make is that this is bribing people with their own money. In some sense, this is always true, as workers are the real wealth creators in society. But it also has a more immediate meaning in the current context.

Inflation and extreme profiteering have both been allowed to let rip. We have seen government consumption without investment, increasing the supply of money, no proper curbs on energy and food prices, no effective windfall taxes and landlords free to raise rents without any controls.

All of this is a product of a laissez-faire approach which suddenly and dramatically is turned on its head when it comes to pay, especially public-sector pay.

On this key issue of living standards, the government is supremely interventionist and acts against the interests of the overwhelming majority.

This is exacerbated by what the economists’ jargon refers to as “fiscal drag,” as tax thresholds and allowances have not at all kept pace with inflation. This is yet another government imposition on ordinary people.

At the same time, inflation is boosting government revenues. This is taking place through inheritance tax, the rise in higher incomes and the surge in profits.

Even the minimal taxes levied in these areas will yield big increases in revenues when inflation has been rampant. As a result, public borrowing was £13.2bn lower in the financial year ended in March than the Office for Budget Responsibility had forecast.

The money the Tories are considering using as another pre-election bribe comes from you, from ordinary people who have seen their services decimated, their real pay cut and their taxes rise in effective terms.

The beneficiaries are holders of government debt, banks, energy companies and big business in general.

But it is not enough to explain how the government is abusing the ordinary public for its own electoral ends. There must be a positive alternative that Labour offers.

That alternative must be based on the twin pillars of redistribution and investment. We have the grotesque situation where, perfectly legally, Amazon in this country has paid no corporation tax for two consecutive years.

This is at the same time as foodbank use has soared and disabled people are increasingly being denied their benefits.

A thorough and far-reaching reform of the tax system is required to ensure that those individuals and companies who have done so well during this crisis pay their full share.

Just one example: returning only to Thatcherite levels of corporate taxes and business rates would yield tens of billions of pounds in additional revenues.

We could also stop subsidising banks and energy companies with the same result.

We should also be investing in public services and the green economy which create well-paid jobs and adds to prosperity without inflation.

It is ridiculous that electric car production is in its infancy in this country because the government has not invested either in battery production or in the charging network.

These types of investments pay for themselves and so there is no impediment to borrowing to fund them.

The Tory Party is ruthless and completely unscrupulous, as their track record shows. We must match iron with steel, and offer a genuinely transformative agenda of our own.

Diane Abbott is Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington and served as shadow home secretary from 2016 to 2020.