Broken promises Will public be forgiving if improvements follow?

In April 1975 the Labour chancellor, Denis Healey, sought to grip runaway inflation and rising unemployment - an economic crisis triggered by a shock rise in global oil prices - by raising the basic rate of income tax.

- Eleni Courea Political correspondent

Now Rachel Reeves, faced with her own set of difficult economic circumstances including a multibillion-pound budget shortfall, is contemplating the same remedybecoming the first chancellor since Healey to hike the basic rate of income tax.

It would be a nuclear option at any time, let alone in circumstances where Labour won power a year ago on a cast-iron promise not to raise tax, national insurance or VAT.

In an unusual speech delivered yesterday just as the financial markets opened, and three weeks before the budget is to be announced, the UK chancellor began to roll the pitch for doing just that.

Final decisions have yet to be taken, but proponents of a major tax rise argue that it will be less politically damaging than a smorgasbord of minor measures.

There is some evidence to support this view, though on the face of it polling consistently shows raising the basic rate of income tax, national insurance or VAT would be highly unpopular.