It will put more money in people’s pockets. It will improve the incentives to work. And it will put down a marker that the party does still believe taxes can occasionally be cut. The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is not the world’s finest speech-maker, but he will probably attempt a few rhetorical flourishes when he cuts 2 per cent off the rate of National Insurance in his Budget later today. The trouble is, it is going to prove a damp squib, and not least because it has been widely trailed in advance. In reality, a modest reduction in National Insurance is not going to save the Conservative party from defeat at the looming election. It is too late for that now.
In reality, a cut in NI is largely irrelevant to the mess the UK economy is in
Today is not going to be the kind of big, giveaway Budget that some MPs might have hoped for.
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