In the much-maligned (not by me, a child of) ’70s, we were one of the world’s most egalitarian countries, right up there with the best of the Scandeweigians. Now, to our, hopefully not eternal, shame, we have the biggest divide between rich and poor in the whole of Europe. How that happened is could be the subject of several volumes, but is actually not rocket science. It was all down to the following, glorious decade, Mrs T’s ’80s. I’d say. And, yes, I voted for her. To my eternal shame.
“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.