Downing Street has been preparing MPs for going back on its manifesto pledge and raising income tax
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If Keir Starmer’s election campaign was carrying a ming vase across an ice rink, then this budget – according to one minister – is like “wrestling a squirrel across a minefield”.
It is an allusion to the biggest risk for Rachel Reeves, not the markets or big business, but Labour MPs. It was those MPs who were the key audience for the chancellor’s highly unusual speech preparing the ground for possible income tax rises.
Downing Street insiders are talking openly about an imminent rise in income tax. “You don’t exactly have to be a genius to have worked out we’re doing it,” one said.
