Rachel Reeves to fulfil 50-year tax dream in Budget – Labour loves it | Personal Finance | Finance
Rachel Reeves acts as if she is being forced to act reluctantly by events beyond her control. This is all the Tories’ fault. Donald TrumpNigel Farage, Vladimir Putin, Liz Truss… everyone except our real Chancellor. Don’t believe it. Like the last budget, this Budget also belongs to him. There are his fingerprints all over it.
Reeves and Prime Minister Keir Starmer devastated the recovering economy as soon as they started talking about the need for huge tax increases immediately after the election. Something they strangely forgot to mention during the campaign. Households and businesses were afraid, and they were right. Last October’s budget was even worse than feared.
Reeves slapped a tax increase of more than £40 billion, the biggest bust since the early 1990s. Much of the pain has been borne by employers, thanks to a £25bn “business tax”.
More than 270,000 jobs have disappeared since Labor came to power. Growth has come to a halt. Yes, the Conservatives have made a mess. Trump’s tariffs are not helping. And Liz Truss was complete bullshit.
But the real culprit here is Reeves. And now he’s coming back for more.
The Chancellor is preparing at least £30 billion worth of extra taxes while refusing to cut spending meaningfully. He acts like he’s upset about it but I don’t believe it. He had the support of the Labor Party. Now he’s living the dream.
Nobody joins Labor because they think the state is bloated and needs to be cut. This is Tory austerity, the thing they despise most. They don’t want this on their conscience.
MPs and members sign up because they think the government doesn’t pay enough taxes, borrow enough, or spend enough.
And Reeves thinks about all of this, too. Unless, of course, the party plans to write “Conservative” instead of “Labor” on the application form. But even that couldn’t be this far into the forest, right?
The only reason he looks so exhausted today is because he knows voters will personally blame him for the attack and may drop him like a rock to vent Starmer’s anger.
Reeves is expected to increase income tax by 2p for every pound we earn. He’ll blame the usual suspects, but he needn’t bother. He is simply doing what a Labor Chancellor was designed to do.
On November 26, Labour’s 50-year-old fantasy is about to come true. Even though they do not have such authority.
It is half a century since any Chancellor dared to raise income tax. Labour’s Denis Healey was the man who raised the basic rate from 33p to 35p as part of a mission to tax the rich “till the caterpillars squeak”.
There is plenty of this spirit on the left today; activists talk about wealth taxes and diluting the rich. Reeves is about to repeat Healey’s trick, albeit from today’s low 20p starting point.
And Labor will love it. The left never forgave Margaret Thatcher for cutting personal tax rates and now they are finally getting their revenge. A basic rate tax increase is what they’ve been dreaming of for years.
Taxpayers will hate this. Breaking the manifesto commitment will trigger nationwide outrage. Labor can only remain impotent for a generation.
But backbenchers will be on cloud nine. They have waited for this moment for a long time. And the woman who will deliver it is Rachel Reeves.
But here’s a change. They won’t thank him for it. Because no matter how much tax pain they accumulate, it will never be enough for them. That means Labor will almost certainly be back for more.
