I bet if you asked most members of the cabinet what we can and can’t do at the moment, they’d be as confused as most of us. When in doubt, they fall back on the old chestnut of ‘common sense’ which, according to my wife, only women have anyway, and not all of them. Still more confusing is that we are allowing rugby scrums to buy, not bread or even toilet rolls but trainers at the Nike shop and designer swimwear in Bicester Village. And around 200 a day are still dying here. In New Zealand they’ve two new cases (both Brits, of course), not deaths, and have called in the army! So what’s the difference? Ah. They have a woman in charge. With common sense.
“Rachel Reeves may be forced to raise taxes”
Why did she/they (in the old sense) think that tinkering around with IHT and CGT would be enough to sort out the NHS; and the potholes; and…and the list goes on. My guess is that they asked the Treasury for a list of anything not involving income tax that they could get away with lightly, although they should already have learned from the winter fuel stuff that all publicity is not good publicity.