Jeremy Hunt has taken the opportunity to force Reeves to answer questions on Labour’s crony appointment of Ian Corfield. The banker gave £20,000 to Labour politicians, including Reeves, and somehow scored a directorship in the Treasury. All before Corfield rowed back and stepped away from the job…
Hunt needled Reeves at Treasury Questions in the Commons: “Can she tell the House whether she told the Treasury permanent secretary that Ian Corfield had made a donation to her before she got him appointed as a director in the Treasury, yes or no?” Reeves replied that the donation “was declared over a year ago in the proper way and we answered all the question in the right way.” Not quite the spirit of the rules…
Hunt points out paragraph 7.1 of the Ministerial Code, which makes clear that “Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise.” Reeves hit back by attacking “the partying
at Downing Street” under the Tories. Not the deftest deflection…
As Rachel Reeves announced the government would be removing the winter fuel payment upsetting millions of pensioners, a measure punishing owners of traditional holiday lets in rural and coastal communities slipped by without as much notice. The abolition of the furnished holiday lettings tax regime was first announced by Jeremy Hunt in the pre-election budget – he claimed it was being abused by ultra-wealthy second home owners. But the plans were blasted by the operators of modest businesses and other small business lets, which are the bedrock of the UK staycation industry…
Now Labour has confirmed plans will still go ahead and HMT expects to raise £245 million a year in revenue from the change. Labour’s revival of the policy will surprise nobody – except those who thought they might offer a different set of fiscal policies to the Conservatives. Perhaps the Tories should focus on finding a new leader who believes in cutting tax, rather than just giving Labour a free pass to remove tax-breaks…
Rachel “I can’t become Chancellor then claim things are worse than they looked” Reeves is on the airwaves this morning defending her decision to spend billions on jacking up the pay of the unproductive public sector because things are worse than they looked. Nothing screams “sound money” like junior doctors get rewarded for striking all while NHS productivity was 6.6% lower in 2022 than in 2020…
Haughty Reeves came out and called Jeremy Hunt a liar in a soft-touch interview on Sky News thanks to the fact that one of the entirely predictable “independent” pay review recommendations wasn’t public during an election campaign in which Labour spent its time promising not to raise taxes on “working people“. A definition Labour was forced, obviously, into applying to people who have savings…
Now Reeves’ line is “this is not the end of the difficult decisions”. Long-planned growth-killing tax hikes here we come…
Jeremy Hunt has this morning refused to rule out new taxes if the Tories win. Nick Ferrari asked: “You can say the following words: ‘Read my lips, no new taxes’ for the whole of the next Parliament, Chancellor?” Hunt’s response wasn’t the most inspirational…
“I can’t predict exactly what’s going to happen on every single tax but if you look at my record as Chancellor I have started to bring down the overall tax burden… I’m not going to write every single budget of the next Parliament but I can tell you that our direction of travel will be to bring taxes down.”
Guido’s not sure Hunt should be encouraging voters to look at his record:
Maybe Hunt could pledge to reduce some of them instead of hinting at new ones…
Well-respected Treasury media SpAd Cameron Brown officially left the role on 18th April. 32 days later there is still no replacement…
Jeremy Hunt’s SpAd team is down to only three, which is slim compared to some departments – the Home Office has accrued a whopping seven after taking on two new hires in January. The empty role is an important one, especially as the government Treasury team prepares election battle calculations, which require wrangling with hacks to receive positive coverage. The dominant view among fatigued government staff is that it would be folly to serve in the gruelling role for mere weeks or months before the “boss loses his job“. One SpAd quips: “Jeremy thought he didn’t need one…”
Downing Street could transfer a capable media SpAd to the role – will no-one take the job? For the latest updates on the SpAd exodus you know where to go…
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has taken to the stage to defend the Tories’ record and bash “Labour’s tax rises“. In a negative campaign, Hunt warned that Labour were playing “playground politics” and are taking the public for fools over the cost of the pandemic – before drawing a line in the sand over numbers. If Guido were in the room, he would remind the Chancellor that it was the Tories who decided to shut down the economy whilst handing out the cash for two years…
Hunt hit out at Labour’s unfunded policies which, according to “independent official costings“, will cost a total of £59 billion over the next four years, with the gap between what they will spend and what they will raise from their announced tax rises standing at £38 billion, or £2,100 per working household. Guido asked Labour to send the costings over for Starmer’s “fully costed and funded” six pledges, announced yesterday, and received no comment. Tax-raising Hunt is on the attack – the pot and kettle will now argue over which is blacker…
Read Hunt’s “scorecard” below:
