Budget 2024: will Labour’s £40bn tax hike backfire?

After months of speculation, leaks, and endless criticism, Rachel Reeves has finally delivered Labour’s first budget in 14 years and it had £70 billion more in spending, £40 billion more in tax along with a lot more borrowing and a lot more debt. So, will it define this government? Will it deliver growth and fix public services? Is it what people voted for?

In this week’s episode of the Political Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by KPMG's chief economist Yael Selfin, Jonathan Ashworth, chief executive of Keir Starmer's favoured think tank, Labour Together, and Matthew Lesh of the Institute of Economic Affairs, the think tank most closely associated with the last prime minister to go for growth - Liz Truss.

Produced by Silvia Maresca, Calum Fraser, Rob Thomson, Ka Yee Mak.

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[markscott]

As long as the IEA have their voice platformed on network news channels they will be afforded credibility they do NOT deserve. Stop booking them on these panel discussions.

[aliruane]

And why do we always get sketchy IEA stooges?

[Marenqo]

Elephant in the room: University funding. For some reason it is forgotten that universities and the high education sector in Britain is one of the only Industries left worth noting, yet there is nothing on it

[Normality_Remembered]

I'm a lifelong tory voter (former). I voted Labour this last election because Tories broke our country and we are falling apart. Its "obvious" that the public services needed more money and that something had to be done. I would actually not have restricted myself in the run up to the election to not increasing income tax as I feel that a 1% rise wouldnt really be noticed by most people and yet it would fix many of the issues we have. We shouldnt be rushing to the bottom, to be paying nothing as this is simply unsustainable. As a small business owner I dont think this is as bad for me personally, or for working people, as it could have been. Yes, employers will pay more in NI, but retail will get reductions in Business Rates to help them on the high streets, and property taxes havent been hammered too hard for the private rental sector. The people who will be paying will be the larger companies who have had it pretty easy forr 20 years. On the face of it it looks not too bad for people.

[SFRZRD]

I’m getting sick of this guys face. He was voted out!

[Keezer]

Really? Potentially not the same service?? Definitely not!!! In Scandinavia, people don’t have to wait for over 2 years for a hip replacement!!!

NHS should be the best health system in europe according to the Brexit campaign.

[HafizYazeedi]

Sunake will have to pay more Tax on his 23% Tax he paid last year.

[chrysalis]

The guy in the middle from the IEA criticising the budget when they were responsible for the Truss budget that crashed our economy - you couldn't make it up.

[secchu]

Funny. Guy in the middle talking growth. His party celebrating 2% growth. The lettuce was a growth pm and crashed the pound

[MrBerry]

This budget didn't target the wealthy, it targeted the average employee worker - lower stamp duty allowance removed, freeze on personal tax thresholds and the really big one IHT allowance frozen for another 2 years and pensions now in IHT, plus another big one increased NI for employers will lead to reduced wage growth and redundancies - a grotesque budget

[extraspicywasabi]

lol, the OBR can't find the supposed £22bn missing

[rayvinloony]

I thought wearing a poppy meant you were patriotic?

[metalhead]

The guy from the IEA looks exactly as you'd expect someone from a dark money think tank would....

[Gashinshoutan]

A Labour budget=huge tax hike, huge borrowing, low growth.

[Domenic-gxlc]

Labour seems to be e clueless this budget is a disastrous failure and marks the Starmer leadership

[mboyle]

hate the previews at the start and always try to skip past them. I'd rather watch the full thing in context rather than getting spoiler/snippets of the perceived "best bits"

[carltontweedle]

Taxes good on those that can and should pay, but hit those with the least is a tory way of letting the rich get more money.

[michaelmoran]

Thought Labour was gonna be the party for everyone, what a joke.

[steveharding]

You can’t have the IEA on the panel and expect to be credible. You need to be better than this.

[chrisbremner]

More unproductive government spending, how is this good ?