Oh, the suspense. It seems that we will have to wait until next week to discover the details of the £20 billion ‘black hole’ which chancellor Rachel Reeves has supposedly discovered in the public finances. Don’t get too excited, though. The revelation will be no greater a surprise than the ending of James Cameron’s blockbuster film Titanic (spoiler alert: a large ship hits an iceberg and sinks). As Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out before the election and has done so again: the state of the UK government’s finances are not exactly a secret – they are already open to anyone who cares to examine them. You do not need a Treasury pass to access them.
The conceit that the government has uncovered a black hole since taking office is nothing more than a wheeze to justify planned tax rises
The conceit that the government has uncovered a black hole since taking office is nothing more than a wheeze to justify planned tax rises which Labour did not want to share with us in its manifesto.
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