7 June 2025, 20:21

By Andrew Marr

The view from number 11.

No-one else will do it this week. So, with lobbying for more money coming from all sides; with Labour MPs angry and impatient; and with Westminster folk gleefully rubbing their hands at the prospect of an almighty political crash coming with Wednesday’s spending review… let’s try the experiment of seeing things from the point of view of the (deeply unpopular) Treasury.

Rachel Reeves is a skinflint who should be bolder.

Let’s think about that. She announced £40 billion worth of tax rises in the autumn, the biggest rise in a single year since 1993. She has partially U-turned on her winter fuel policy and found more money for defence. Meanwhile the official Office of Budget Responsibility said she was already raising Britain’s tax burden to its highest ever recorded level.

Not bold enough?

The political and social costs of those tax rises were substantial, from loudly furious farmers faced with inheritance tax burdens, through to all those companies who stopped........

© LBC