The Tory rebellion over the tax hike on the self-employed isn’t abating, it is intensifying as I say in The Sun this morning. As one Cabinet Minister tells me, Tory MPs ‘left the Budget feeling a little bit concerned. They’ve seen the papers, and thought this isn’t good. After the emails and constituency stuff, there’ll be even more nervous’. One Tory backbencher, who is a good judge of the mood of the parliamentary party, says ‘People are not happy at all. Somethings’ got to change’.
But Philip Hammond is digging in. He is ‘absolutely determined not to retreat on this’ according to one Cabinet ally of his. He has, I’m told, been ‘surprised by the extent of the backlash’. Indeed, on Wednesday night he went out of his way to reassure Tory MPs that they could defend the policy safe in the knowledge that the government wasn’t going to back down.
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