Skip to main content
Hunt gambles on tax as services crumble
Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt leaves 11 Downing Street, London, with his ministerial box before delivering his Budget in the Houses of Parliament, March 6, 2024

PUBLIC services are at still greater risk as Chancellor Jeremy Hunt gambled the Tories’ election hopes on a last-ditch tax-cutting Budget.

Mr Hunt announced a 2 per cent cut in National Insurance in a bid to put more money in workers’ pockets before Britain goes to the polls later this year.

But the price will be a major squeeze in public spending in the next parliament, with many department budgets likely to fall in real terms.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump shake hands at a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House, February 27, 2025
Trump's Tariffs / 8 May 2025
8 May 2025
BACK TO THE DARK AGES: A child mill worker in the US, 1908
Eyes Left / 30 April 2025
30 April 2025

Incredibly, US Republican states are systematically dismantling child labour protections, with children transformed back into the cheap, disposable workers of the Dickens era, reports ANDREW MURRAY

US President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd as he depart
Eyes Left / 16 April 2025
16 April 2025
ANDREW MURRAY casts an eye over past upheavals and asks whether the left can find a fire escape before the world goes up in flames
Similar stories
Protesters on Whitehall in London, as Chancellor of the Exch
Britain / 26 March 2025
26 March 2025
Features / 3 November 2024
3 November 2024
In the first of two articles, ROBERT GRIFFITHS argues that despite a parliamentary majority, Labour’s timid Budget fails to seize a historic opportunity and lacks the ambition needed to address Britain’s deep social and economic crises
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaks to the media in Downi
Britain / 15 October 2024
15 October 2024
Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt leaving Downing Stre
Britain / 17 June 2024
17 June 2024