Rachel Reeves likes to pop on a bit of Beyoncé and go for a run to cope with the stresses and strains of being chancellor, she told Centrica boss, Chris O’Shea, during a CBI event at the Labour conference.
While the reception from many of the executives was warm, the intensity of the debate in Liverpool suggested Reeves should keep the trainers and tunes to hand.
In a series of interviews on Monday, she moved to dispel any remaining doubt that taxes were set to go up once again in November’s budget after last year’s historic £40bn increase.
Asked whether she stood by her promise to the CBI last autumn that she was “not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes”, Reeves conceded: “Well, look, I think everyone can see in the last year that the world has changed, and we’re not immune to that change.”
What remains in play is how the government will go about raising the extra revenue necessary to meet Reeves’s fiscal rules.
News that Labour hopes to lift the two-child benefits cap in the budget – at a cost of £3.5bn if implemented in full – only compounds the challenge.
Asked about the policy at a conference event with comedian Matt Forde on Tuesday, Reeves stressed the strained state of the public f
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