A budget to save Britain’s finances? More like Operation Save Our Skins | Aditya Chakrabortty
Only 20% of tax rises will go towards making people better off. The vast majority will be spent meeting Labour’s fiscal rules and paying for U-turnsImagine it: you are the...
By Aditya Chakrabortty · The Guardian Opinion
Only 20% of tax rises will go towards making people better off. The vast majority will be spent meeting Labour’s fiscal rules and paying for U-turns Imagine it: you are the chancellor of a government in mortal peril. Poll ratings are down the U-bend; backbenchers are mutinous and colleagues are circling around the prime minister, readying themselves to land the fatal blow. You have a budget, which may be your last chance to avert the inevitable. What do you do? If you’re Rachel Reeves, you use it to buy time . Time for Keir Starmer and you to carry on in office for a while longer, so perhaps your luck will change. Extra time for this unfortunate, empty, placeholder of a PM costs more than olive oil, but the chancellor still splashed out. This afternoon, she delivered a budget that was a £26bn attempt to buy her government some time. Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here . Continue reading...