Credit to Rachel Reeves: while some chancellors opt to take part in the Sunday shows ahead of a fiscal event, the Chancellor has decided to do the media round the Sunday after her first Budget. Rather than spending the entire interview refusing to say what will be announced in the week ahead (the information is considered to be market-sensitive), she is instead having to answer difficult questions about what she announced on Wednesday.
It wasn’t an easy morning, as Labour’s Budget narrative continues to get tested to breaking point. Reeves was played a video on Sky News this morning of her comments back in June, when she said no tax increases would be necessary, apart from what was specified in the party’s election manifesto. How then, Trevor Phillips asked, could she explain hiking taxes by £40 billion just four months later? On the BBC, Laura Kuenssberg pressed Reeves on whether an employers’ National Insurance hike was being considered before the election.
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