Taxing Balance |
Rachel Reeves’s latest Budget attempts something British chancellors before her rarely managed with conviction: mixing fiscal restraint with visible social compassion. The outcome is a package that is neither radical nor timid, but one that leans heavily on the expectation that voters will tolerate incremental pain today for the promise of stability tomorrow. Whether that calculation survives the political storm already gathering around it remains to be seen. At the heart of the Budget lies a decision that Ms Reeves herself had previously criticised ~ freezing income tax and National Insurance thresholds.
Extending this freeze to 2031 all but guarantees that millions will drift into higher tax brackets, a phenomenon politely couched in the language of “asking everyone to make a contribution.” The honesty in her admission that working people will pay more is refreshing, but it does little to soften the reality that fiscal drag has become the government’s........