“Make no mistake, this is a major moment for the government – and quite the twist on the usual cheery breakfast telly,” said Sam Blewett in Politico. With less than a month to go until her Budget announcement, Chancellor Rachel Reeves made a televised speech with the aim of “setting the context” for what is to come on 26 November.
Reeves refused to confirm whether the Labour government would reverse its manifesto pledge not to raise income tax, stoking speculation that her blueprint for balancing the books could come at the cost of public opinion.
What did the commentators say?
The chancellor’s claim that “each of us must do our bit” was the “clearest indication yet that broad-based tax rises are coming”, said James Heale in The Spectator. Her 25-minute address had “echoes of Mrs Thatcher’s famous TINA: There Is No Alternative” speech. The question is whether Reeves “has a solution to stop this vicious cycle from repeating again in another 12 months’ time”.
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The prolonged trailing of the sacrifices to be made in the Budget could well be a tactical ploy, said Politico: “setting expectations so low that the budget doesn’t sting as much as people fear”. This “by no means typical” televised speech proves that “senior strategists are trying to handle this make-or-break fiscal statement with the utmost caution”.
Reeves’ expected pledge to prioritise the NHS in the Budget is a “gamble” to leverage national support, said Kate Devlin in The Independent. She is banking on the fact that the public sees the health service “as a kind of religion”, and looking to fulfil the commitment of reducing waiting times – one of the consistent themes of the Starmer government – to curry favour. She hopes that those who are “hit” by reported National Insurance rises “will prefer to be able to see their GP than have some extra money in their pockets”. Whether this will pay off, “time will tell”.
“Households will not be fooled” by Reeves’s tax “wheeze”, said Adam Smith in The Telegraph. Labour is already in a situation that “no amount of communications spin will be able to fix”. The heart of the matter is that, if the rumours are true, “the government will have increased income tax after repeatedly promising not to”. No. 11 will be “kidding themselves” if they believe the public will think otherwise.
What next?
Reeves will claim that Trump’s tariffs, increased defence spending, and a dire fiscal inheritance from the Conservatives, have all affected her decisions, said George Eaton in The New Statesman. This cannot work forever: by next autumn, Labour will have been in office for more than two years and “memories” of their “economic inheritance will be even less fresh than they are today”.
While the “politics of raising tax remain fraught”, another potential pitfall for the Labour government is the “perception of inaction”. Reeves can only gamble that the road she chooses for the country “leads somewhere better”.
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