Sir Keir Starmer has given us an idea of who he wants to protect in the budget – but is Rachel Reeves on the same page?
Who counts as a working person will matter a lot next week when the new Labour government unveils what is being billed as a historic budget.
Sir Keir Starmer used the phrase “working people” repeatedly in the general election as he sought to reassure voters he wasn’t going to raise their taxes.
But as this bumper budget comes around, it’s clear that someone’s taxes are going to go up, despite the prime minister repeatedly refusing to acknowledge this in our interview at the Commonwealth leaders summit in Samoa on Thursday. The closest he got was telling me “we’re not going back to austerity” which means no to big spending cuts.
Treasury insiders tell me that the government has to find £40bn to plug gaps in the public finances, and that means tax rises and spending cuts are on the way.
Politics latest: Tories accuse government of ‘broken promises’ over budget rule change
So taxes are going up, and there are a couple of supplementary questions to this: Who is going to be hit by tax rises?
And, given pretty much all of us with a job might count ourselves as “working people”, are lots of you going to feel let down by the new Labour government should you find yourselves caught in tax rises?
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
PM questioned on tax rises
On Thursday, I did get a more contoured definition of who the prime minister really means when he talks about working people.
For a start, he was clear to me that someone who gets their income from assets, such as shares and property, as well as work, wouldn’t come within” Sir Keir’s definition of a working person.
This is a strong hit that rises in capital gains taxes could be on the way and also leans to a bigger point that Sir Keir thinks the wealthy – workers or not – should pay more tax.
Working people are, in his “mind’s eye”, the people who have a “sort of knot in the bottom of the stomach, which if push comes to shove and something happens to me and my family, I can’t just get a cheque book out, even though maybe [I’ve] got a bit of savings”.
“They are the people that, in a way, I came into politics to try and make sure they had secure jobs and didn’t have the anxiety of public services not working, and felt genuinely better off with better opportunities. That’s who I have in my mind’s eye.”
Who might those people be?
Is it a “white van man” hoping that fuel duty won’t go up, or a nurse worried that her council tax could go up?
Is it the millions of workers on the basic rate of income tax that could find themselves dragged into higher tax bands should the chancellor decide to extend the Conservatives’ freezing of tax bands?
The chancellor could raise £7bn a year from that if she extends that beyond 2028. But if she does that on Wednesday, millions of those workers in Sir Keir’s “mind’s eye” might feel let down by this government.
Read more from Sky News:
Apology for slave trade ‘not on the agenda’
Sale and supply of single-use vapes to be banned
In the election, it helped the prime minister to have a broad definition of a working person because it meant he could talk to lots of groups of voters.
But now, as we get to the nuts and bolts of who is going to shoulder the burden of plugging gaps in the public finances, the “difficult decisions” as he puts it, are going to bite.
We do now have, at least, a better sense of who he wants to protect in this budget from tax rises. But will his chancellor follow through?
Specialist search teams, police dogs and divers have been dispatched to find two sisters who vanished in Aberdeen three days ago.
Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both 32, were last seen on CCTV in the city’s Market Street at Victoria Bridge at about 2.12am on Tuesday.
The siblings were captured crossing the bridge and turning right onto a footpath next to the River Dee in the direction of Aberdeen Boat Club.
Henrietta Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Eliza Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Police Scotland has launched a major search and said it is carrying out “extensive inquires” in an effort to find the women.
Chief Inspector Darren Bruce said: “Local officers, led by specialist search advisors, are being assisted by resources including police dogs and our marine unit.”
Aberdeenshire Drone Services told Sky News it has offered to help in the search and is waiting to hear back from Police Scotland.
CCTV of the sisters. Pic: Police Scotland
Read more from Sky News:
Trump to be sentenced today over porn star hush money
‘It’s an apocalypse’ – families return to homes reduced to ruins by wildfires
The sisters, from Aberdeen city centre, are described as slim with long brown hair.
Police said the Torry side of Victoria Bridge where the sisters were last seen contains many commercial and industrial units, with searches taking place in the vicinity.
The force urged businesses in and around the South Esplanade and Menzies Road area to review CCTV footage recorded in the early hours of Tuesday in case it captured anything of significance.
Drivers with relevant dashcam footage are also urged to come forward.
CI Bruce added: “We are continuing to speak to people who know Eliza and Henrietta and we urge anyone who has seen them or who has any information regarding their whereabouts to please contact 101.”
Glasgow has been a city crying out for solutions to a devastating drugs epidemic that is ravaging people hooked on deadly narcotics.
We have spent time with vulnerable addicts in recent months and witnessed first-hand the dirty, dangerous street corners and back alleys where they would inject their £10 heroin hit, not knowing – or, in many cases, not caring – whether that would be the moment they die.
“Dying would be better than this life,” one man told me.
It was a grim insight into the daily reality of life in the capital of Europe’s drug death crisis.
Scotland has a stubborn addiction to substances spanning generations. Politicians of all persuasions have failed to properly get a grip of the emergency.
But there is a new concept in town.
From Monday, a taxpayer-funded unit is allowing addicts to bring their own heroin and cocaine and inject it while NHS medical teams supervise.
A dirty needle thrown less than 100 metres from the new injection centre
It may be a UK-first but it is a regular feature in some other major European cities that have claimed high success rates in saving lives.
Glasgow has looked on with envy at these other models.
One supermarket car park less than a hundred metres from this new facility is a perfect illustration of the problem. An area littered with dirty needles and paraphernalia. A minefield where one wrong step risks contracting a nasty disease.
Drugs paraphernalia in a supermarket car park in Glasgow, near the new facility
It is estimated hundreds of users inject heroin in public places in Glasgow every week. HIV has been rife.
The new building, which will be open from 9am until 9pm 365 days a year, includes bays where clean needles are provided as part of a persuasive tactic to lure addicts indoors in a controlled environment.
There is a welcome area where people will check in before being invited into one of eight bays. The room is clinical, covered in mirrors, with a row of small medical bins.
Clean needles are provided to lure addicts to inject in a controlled environment
There are eight bays users can inject in
We were shown the aftercare area where users will relax after their hit in the company of housing and social workers.
The idea is controversial and not cheap – £2.3m has been ring-fenced every year.
The aftercare area
Read more: ‘Dying would be better than my £1,000 a month heroin addiction’
Authorities in the city first floated a ‘safer drug consumption room’ in 2016. It failed to get off the ground as the UK Home Office under the Conservatives said they would not allow people to break the law to feed habits.
The usual wrangle between Edinburgh and London continued for years with Downing Street suggesting Scotland could, if it wanted, use its discretion to allow these injecting rooms to go ahead.
Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts
The stalemate ended when Scotland’s most senior prosecutor issued a landmark decision that it would not be in the public interest to arrest those using such a facility.
One expert has told me this new concept is unlikely to lead to an overall reduction in deaths across Scotland. Another described it as an expensive vanity project. Supporters clearly disagree.
The question is what does success look like?
The big test will be if there is a spike in crime around the building and how it will work alongside law enforcement given drug dealers know exactly where to find their clients now.
It is not disputed this is a radical approach – and other cities across Britain will be watching closely.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports9 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway