Andy Burnham would be forced to increase taxes to fund his stated economic plans, respected economists warned after the Labour leadership hopeful committed to matching Rachel Reeves’s borrowing controls.
Burnham on Monday night committed to backing the Chancellor’s fiscal rules in a bid to calm jitters on financial markets at the prospect of him winning the Makerfield by-election and taking over from Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister.
But he has refused to commit to Labour’s election manifesto pledges not to raise income tax, national insurance, VAT or corporation tax.
Shorts
Burnham had suggested that he could water down Reeves’s rules to fund more spending, for example by exempting rises in defence spending, and has previously argued that the Government should not be “in hock to the bond markets”, and should take more control over life’s “essentials” – a hint that water and energy companies could face nationalisation.
