Hull East voter 'condom tax' confusion goes viral on social media

A Hull East voter who thought Labour are campaigning to tax condoms rather than non-doms has gone viral on social media.

The Guardian's Daniel Boffey has featured the constituency in its general election coverage. During an interview with Labour's candidate for Hull East, Karl Turner, he shared an anecdote about a voter who said they would not vote for Labour because of their policy on condoms.

After confusion for Karl Turner and his team, it was cleared up that the man had misheard TV coverage of Labour's policy to ban non-dom tax status, as a policy to ban condoms. The anecdote has caused much hilarity on social media.

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"We met a guy who said he was going to vote Labour but wouldn’t now because he had just heard that we were taxing condoms," said Karl Turner in The Guardian article. He queried that the man had said condoms. The voter, confirmed and pointing to a TV, said he heard Labour is taxing condoms. Karl Turner's parliamentary assistant, Terence, worked out where the voter had got the idea from.

"We’re taxing non-doms, not condoms," it was clarified to the voter. "Oh, like the prime minister's wife?" reacted the voter. He then called out: "Margaret, they're taxing non-doms, not condoms."

Sky News's Sophy Ridge, who has hosted shows in Grimsby during this election campaign, said on X, formerly Twitter, it was an "incredible anecdote". "Best story of the campaign. Gold star. Nothing is going to beat it," commented on the social media site The News Agents' Jon Sopel. "Love this! It’s been a toxic election so this moment of air and giggles is needed," said another X user.

The article also covers Hull East voter views on the general election and the low turnout levels the city's constituencies had last time. Labour policy is to abolish non-dom tax status, which allows individuals who have their permanent home outside of the UK to not pay tax on foreign income.

The Conservative government had plans before the election to also dramatically reduce the tax privileges available to non-doms, though from April 2025 and with transitional tax reliefs. In the general election, the Conservatives' main tax focus is on cutting 2p off National Insurance employee tax and abolishing the main National Insurance rate for the self-employed.

Stay tuned with Hull Live for a round-up of Hull East constituency candidates and their priorities soon.