Reeves’s U-turn on income tax is needless and wrong

Rachel Reeves marched the country to the top of the hill last week... and now she has marched us down again.

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In her unusual early-morning address in Downing Street, she prepared the nation for a broken promise on income tax. It seemed to be an important moment, when she and the prime minister recognised the need to act decisively to finish the botched job that she started last year of repairing the nation’s finances.

They decided to grasp the nettle and hike up income tax. This would allow them to raise a significant sum of money, enough to cover the downgrade in the productivity forecast and to provide a responsible buffer against bad news, instead of the wafer-thin headroom that was left last year. And it would do so in a way that was fair, spreading the burden among all taxpayers, according to ability to pay, according to The Independent.