Ailbhe Rea: Rachel Reeves Boxes Herself In on Tax, Again
Rachel Reeves, UK chancellor of the exchequer, left, and Alastair King, lord mayor of the City of London, at the annual Financial and Professional Services Dinner at Mansion House in the City of London, UK, on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024.
Photographer: Isabel Infantes/ReutersBack in opposition, Rachel Reeves was warned by Labour officials that if she ruled out increasing the three main revenue-raisers, so tight were the public finances that she would be storing up an enormous political headache for herself in government.
But to Reeves, the trade-off was simple. She had seen Labour snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in 1992 when John Major attacked ‘Labour’s tax bombshell’, and she had been in Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet on the crushing election night of 2015, when they realised that, despite polling to the contrary, Labour had lost again. Being boxed in on tax after winning an election? “That would be a nice problem to have,” I’m told she said to colleagues.