Rayner couldn’t explain what Labour meant by “working people” at Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions today. Helpfully, Science Minister Chris Bryant has just come up with a new line on what it means: those badly affected during the cost of living crisis. Bryant clarified on Politics Live just now:

“[Working people] has become a shorthand in political circles for the people who were particularly disadvantaged in the cost of living crisis…that suddenly meant that people had to find an extra £300 a month for their mortgages so those are the people that we didn’t want to hit, so we wanted to say in the general election we don’t want to take more tax from you and that’s what we said.”

Last week, Labour MP Dan Tomlinson claimed that a rise in employer NICs would constitute a new tax on “working people” because someone who owns and runs a business is obviously a “working person.” On Monday, Care Minister Stephen Kinnock was asked whether six-figure earners were working people, to which he refused to answer six times, then conceding that Labour hadn’t worked out what a “working person” was yet. Labour continue to waffle and contradict each other over what “working people” means. Opening the door to tax hikes for all..