Darren Jones Can’t Say What a ‘Modest Income’ Is – Guido Fawkes

LISTEN: Darren Jones Can’t Say What a ‘Modest Income’ Is

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Yesterday, transport secretary Heidi Alexander danced around the idea of a wealth tax in the Autumn Budget, refusing to rule it out and instead trotting out the line that the Government had pledged not to raise taxes on “people on modest incomes.” Yet another creative rebrand from Downing Street for “working people”…

Treasury minister Darren Jones was on the morning round to offer precisely zero clarity on what that meant. Speaking to Times Radio, he said:

“I’m not going to define what a modest income is. But what I will tell you is what our manifesto said, which is that we’re going to protect working people by not increasing the headline rates of income tax, VAT or national insurance.”

Jones also left the door open to scrapping the two-child benefit cap – a move the IFS says would cost around £3.6 billion a year. Labour stretching the definition of “working people” to breaking point ahead of some very non-modest tax rises this autumn…