This morning’s papers have been briefed that the government is mulling a shock tax raid that would see more high earners slapped with the top rate.

The £150,000 threshold at which the additional rate kicks in could be lowered and even that top rate of 45p raised. NB: Guido suspects that is a false flag – so that when it does not happen we are grateful.

It is just the latest in a cavalcade of broken promises, false undertakings, and caving in to vested interests or opposition pushback.

• Backed fracking, now backing a ban.
• Channel 4 privatisation supported, now dropped.
• Moving British embassy to Jerusalem, dropped.
• “Temporarily scrapping VAT on energy bills this winter” – this seems to have been abandoned.
• “Scrapping all EU laws that hold the economy back before the next election” – not possible we are now told.
• The target of reviewing or repealing all post-Brexit EU law during his first 100 days as prime minister will not even be attempted.
• The promise to charge people £10 each time they miss appointments with GPs has been scrapped after it was criticised by the British Medical Association.
• Plan announced in July to cut the 5% VAT on household energy bills has been dropped
• Promise to cut the basic rate of income tax to 16p by the end of the next parliament looks wildly unlikely.

The former chancellor knew the economic picture when he was campaigning. In the summer he made a big thing of “levelling with the British people” and not “telling fairytales”.

To be clear: He is making a political choice to drop things that are not fiscal imperatives and he is making a political choice to raise taxes. What happened to cutting spending? The former chancellor didn’t say that was impossible a few months ago. Who was really telling fairytales this summer?