"It is a metaphor with connotations of a gentle game of cricket, and pleasant summer afternoons. Today Rachel Reeves is engaged in a classic piece of pitch rolling. But her task is more daunting. She won't be flattening the odd bump; she has to shift some colossal PR obstacles, which is more a task for a fleet of JCB diggers."
"That means tax rises, which are never an easy sell. But it also means going back on the promise she made to the CBI last year when she said she would not need to raise taxes again on the scale she did in autumn 2024. And there seems to be a very real chance that she will also decide to raise income tax, which would be a direct breach of a promise Labour made in its election manifesto."
There is huge interest in Westminster and financial markets in Rachel Reeves's forthcoming speech. Political pitch rolling is occurring to prepare the public for difficult announcements. A reported fiscal gap as high as £30bn will require measures including tax rises. Those measures would reverse a prior CBI assurance that taxes would not need to be raised on the scale seen in autumn 2024. The chancellor may consider raising income tax, which would breach a Labour manifesto pledge. Analysts at Goldman Sachs predict credible deficit measures and pre-budget signals could reduce 10-year government bond yields by up to 0.2 percentage points for a decade, given modest impacts on growth and inflation.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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