Tories challenge chancellor to rule out tax rises in budget – UK politics live

The Conservatives want to brand Burnham’s administration as a ‘traditional tax and spend socialist government’ Chris Bryant, the Northern Ireland secretary, has described Kemi Badenoch as “an embarrassment” over her attack on Paul Nowak’s appointment to the Bank of England’s court. Good morning. With less than six weeks so go until the budget, economics is rising up the agenda at Westminster. The Bank of England is announcing its latest interest rate decision later – Graeme Wearden will have all the details on his business live blog – and Andrew Griffith is giving his first major speech since being appointed as shadow chancellor just over two weeks ago. The taxes or the fear of taxes … are driving really big taxpayers to leave our country for overseas, taking hundreds of millions of pounds of tax revenues that will pay for public services … The thing that they (the government) could do right now is take off the table the fears of ordinary small businesses, the self-employed, who are getting up now, going to work, and allow them to get on with their lives with confidence that the taxes are not going to go up. Only one party has ever rescued the country from trade union control. We’r