George Osborne was famous in Westminster when Chancellor for laying large ‘elephant traps’ for Labour using Treasury policy. He was also famous for telling everyone all about how the trap worked and where it was, before falling into it himself.
When Philip Hammond came into the Treasury, it was largely accepted that the days of silly elephant traps were over. But this week the new Chancellor ended up locating one of the last of the Osborne elephant traps which had been lying dormant in the political jungle – and he located it by falling straight into it. The ‘tax lock’, which the Tories announced in the 2015 election campaign to put pressure on Labour over sneaky national insurance and other tax rises, ended up trapping the Tories themselves.
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