Britain does not suffer from too much ambition, but from too little encouragement – and that taxing aspiration will only make that worse, says Brandon Lewis

It’s difficult to remember a time when a sitting British government decided to trail a new Budget in the press for over 11 weeks. Yet here we are, with just under a month before the Autumn Budget arrives and the Treasury has blown innumerable tidbits of economic policy down the streets of Westminster like leaves floating in the autumn wind.

While admittedly a time-honored trick, Labour’s lead time here belies an absence of strategy and a lack of any preparatory groundwork. It reveals a party in perpetual response, leading with rhetoric rather than policy, and making crucial economic decisions on the fly.

We have heard about reduced contributions to tax-free cash ISAs, will-they-won’t-they tax raises on a narrow base, and higher levies on homes valued above a certain threshold. Leadership has leaned heavily........

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