The TaxPayers’ Alliance dynamic tax model suggests the planned 6% increase in corporation tax from the current rate of 19% to 25% could cost £30.2 billion of lost GDP after a decade. Investment would be £11.9 billion higher after ten years if the rise was cancelled, highlighted by AstraZeneca’s announcement of a new manufacturing plant in low-tax Ireland rather than the UK.

The founder of the Conservative Growth Group of MPs, Ranil Jayawardena, says the modelling shows that scrapping the rise would “create jobs, encourage investment and help pay for itself.” Even more surprising are reports that former chancellors George Osborne, Philip Hammond and Kwasi Kwarteng all think the hike proposed for a little over a month’s time is a mistake.

Ahead of Jeremy Hunt’s first Spring Budget on March 15, the three former chancellors have separately chimed in. Hammond told the Telegraph “My view on corporation tax is always that it’s better to have lower than higher. I am quite disappointed that we will be increasing it to 25%.”

George Osborne highlighted the AstraZeneca decision when he told the BBC:

“The reason I reduced business taxes was to attract investment and attract research and attract companies like AstraZeneca, and if you put up taxes then you will potentially have the opposite effect. I reduced business tax because I thought that was a way of bringing investment in. That creates the revenues that allow you to fund your public services. That’s the approach I took and would be the approach I would take again.”

Kwasi Kwarteng says increasing corporation tax “doesn’t help our competitiveness”, adding: “We have got to look at ways to improve our attractiveness to foreign investors.”

The OBR’s forecast coming in as out by £30 billion versus the real world data released last week means there is room to reverse the corporation tax hike. Sunak and Hunt have no mandate to raise taxes and they are being rhetorically outflanked by Labour on tax-cutting. A ridiculous situation for Conservatives who claim to be low tax Tories…

Ex-Chancellor Philip Hammond has decided to face off the China-hawks amongst his former colleagues, calling for the UK-China relationship to “return to business as usual”. Despite the ongoing evidence of security threats, espionage and mass human rights violations.

Fresh from shilling for cryptocurrencies, Hammond writes that he was “only too happy” to pick up George Osborne’s pro-China agenda when taking over the keys to No. 11, despite admitting that the policy “grated on [him]” as Foreign Secretary in 2014.

He describes all the aforementioned concerns about China as “background noise” to the UK-China relationship over the past three years, and insists they’re still an essential trading partner.

“Political differences have never been and must not become an impediment to Britain’s strength. The UK’s history is one of trade-led diplomacy — a trade-first approach. We are, after all, the nation that sold boots to the Napoleonic armies while we were fighting them and ultimately defeating them. You cannot get more trade-first with that. And, quite honestly, if we only trade with people with whom we have no political differences, we can close half our ports tomorrow.”

“Political differences” is one way of putting it…

In a sign that Liz Truss’s war on Treasury orthodoxy has been completely lost, Guido hears that Jeremy Hunt, Scrooge-like, is now receiving visits from the ghosts of Treasury past. This morning, eyebrows were raised when George Osborne was spotted entering Downing Street. Far from George being the surprise pick for Rishi’s new ethics commissioner, Guido understands George had popped in for a meeting with Jeremy Hunt. Who better placed to give advice on a new austerity drive?

It doesn’t end there. Guido learns Hunt has been keen to talk to all his recent predecessors, including Philip Hammond and Sajid Javid – and, presumably, Rishi – as he scrambles to put together the November statement. Presumably Kwasi Kwarteng is not high up on Jeremy’s priority meetings list…