Starmer refuses to repeat chancellor’s vow not to raise taxes again
Sir Keir Starmer has refused to repeat a promise made by the chancellor that the government will not raise any more borrowing or taxes.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch challenged the prime minister to double down on Rachel Reeves’ commitment at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference on Monday.
Politics Live: Starmer says ‘we had a massive petition’ already as he dismisses election calls
Ms Reeves told business leaders she is “not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes” as she defended measures announced in her budget.
Asked to repeat the pledge, Sir Keir told Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs): “I’m not going to write the next five years of budgets here at this despatch box.
“We said we wouldn’t hit the pay slips of working people. We passed the budget, we invested in the future, and kept that promise.”
Ms Reeves’ budget has faced sharp criticism from major UK businesses who have said the costly policy measures will force them to raise prices and cut jobs.
The chancellor announced £40bn worth of tax rises, with the lion’s share coming from a £25bn increase in employers’ National Insurance (NI) contributions.
Critics include the boss of biscuit giant McVitie’s, who warned it was “becoming harder to understand” the case for investing in the UK after the chancellor’s decisions.
Rachel Reeves is facing a backlash over her budget. Pic: PA
Ms Badenoch seized on those comments, saying that “while the prime minister has been hobnobbing in Brazil” – referring to his attendance at last week’s G20 Summit – “businesses have been struggling to digest his budget”.
Responding, Sir Keir accused her of “wanting all the benefits of the budget” without paying for it.
He claimed she had “racked up £6.7bn of unfunded commitments in just three weeks as leader of the opposition” and noted that she hasn’t said if the Conservatives would actually reverse the government’s NI rise.
“They really haven’t got a clue what they’re doing,” he added.
Read More:
Airports join budget backlash with warning of business rates ‘catastrophe’
Jobcentre reforms at heart of Labour’s plan to ‘get Britain working’
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
CBI chief on budget tax pressures
The employer NI rise was the most controversial element of Labour’s budget, as they had promised during the election campaign that national insurance wouldn’t go up, alongside income tax and VAT.
Ministers later said the NI pledge only applied to the employee element of the levy, noting their manifesto had specified taxes wouldn’t rise for “working people”.
The government has justified raising employer NI by saying the Tories left behind a £22bn black hole in the country’s finances, and investment into public services like the NHS is needed for long-term growth.
Reeves: ‘We’ve wiped the slate clean’
Ms Reeves was asked again on Wednesday how she can guarantee she will not need to put up taxes or increase borrowing again, given scepticism around the budget measures.
She did not go as far as what she said on Monday, following a line closer to what Sir Keir said at PMQs.
“I’m not going to write five years worth of budgets in the first few months as Chancellor of the Exchequer,” she told reporters.
“What I can now say is that we have wiped the slate clean on the economic and fiscal mismanagement of the previous government. We’ve put our public finances on a firm footing and we’ve properly funded our public services.
“And public services now need to live within the means that we’ve set them for the duration of this parliament.”
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, marks their 50th birthday amid a year of rising institutional and geopolitical adoption of the world’s first cryptocurrency.
The identity of Nakamoto remains one of the biggest mysteries in crypto, with speculation ranging from cryptographers like Adam Back and Nick Szabo to broader theories involving government intelligence agencies.
While Nakamoto’s identity remains anonymous, the Bitcoin (BTC) creator is believed to have turned 50 on April 5 based on details shared in the past.
According to archived data from his P2P Foundation profile, Nakamoto once claimed to be a 37-year-old man living in Japan and listed his birthdate as April 5, 1975.
Source: Web.archive.org
Nakamoto’s anonymity has played a vital role in maintaining the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network, which has no central authority or leadership.
The Bitcoin wallet associated with Nakamoto, which holds over 1 million BTC, has laid dormant for more than 16 years despite BTC rising from $0 to an all-time high above $109,000 in January.
Satoshi Nakamoto statue in Lugano, Switzerland. Source: Cointelegraph
Nakamoto’s 50th birthday comes nearly a month after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, marking the first major step toward integrating Bitcoin into the US financial system.
Related: Bitcoin at 16: From experiment to trillion-dollar asset
Nakamoto’s legacy: a “cornerstone of economic sovereignty”
“At 50, Nakamoto’s legacy is no longer just code; it’s a cornerstone of economic sovereignty,” according to Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert.
“Bitcoin’s reserve status signals trust in its scarcity and resilience,” Lian told Cointelegraph, adding:
“What’s fascinating is the timing. Fifty feels symbolic — half a century of life, mirrored by Bitcoin’s journey from a white paper to a trillion-dollar asset. Nakamoto’s vision of trustless, peer-to-peer money has outgrown its cypherpunk roots, entering the halls of power.”
However, lingering questions about Nakamoto remain unanswered, including whether they still hold the keys to their wallet, which is “a fortune now tied to US policy,” Lian said.
Related: Bitcoin’s next catalyst: End of $36T US debt ceiling suspension
Is Satoshi Nakamoto wealthier than Bill Gates?
In February, Arkham Intelligence published findings that attribute 1.096 million BTC — then valued at more than $108 billion — to Nakamoto. That would place him above Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on the global wealth rankings, according to data shared by Coinbase director Conor Grogan.
Satoshi’s new addresses. Source: Conor Grogan
If accurate, this would make Nakamoto the world’s 16th richest person.
Despite the growing interest in Nakamoto’s identity and holdings, his early decision to remain anonymous and inactive has helped preserve Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos — a principle that continues to define the cryptocurrency to this day.
Magazine: 10 crypto theories that missed as badly as ‘Peter Todd is Satoshi’
The United States stock market lost more in value over the April 4 trading day than the entire cryptocurrency market is worth, as fears over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to ramp up.
On April 4, the US stock market lost $3.25 trillion — around $570 billion more than the entire crypto market’s $2.68 trillion valuation at the time of publication.
Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market”
Among the Magnificent-7 stocks, Tesla (TSLA) led the losses on the day with a 10.42% drop, followed by Nvidia (NVDA) down 7.36% and Apple (AAPL) falling 7.29%, according to TradingView data.
The significant decline across the board signals that the Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market” after falling 6% across the trading day, trading resource account The Kobeissi Letter said in an April 4 X post. This is the largest daily decline since March 16, 2020.
“US stocks have now erased a massive -$11 TRILLION since February 19 with recession odds ABOVE 60%,” it added. The Kobessi Letter said Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement was “historic” and if the tariffs continue, a recession will be “impossible to avoid.”
Source: Anthony Scaramucci
On April 2, Trump signed an executive order establishing reciprocal tariffs on trading partners and a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries.
Trump said the reciprocal tariffs will be roughly half the rate US trading partners impose on American goods.
Related: Bitcoin bulls defend $80K support as ‘World War 3 of trade wars’ crushes US stocks
Meanwhile, the crypto industry has pointed out that while the stock market continues to decline, Bitcoin (BTC) remains stronger than most expected.
Crypto trader Plan Markus pointed out in an April 4 X post that while the entire stock market “is tanking,” Bitcoin is holding.
Source: Jeff Dorman
Even some crypto skeptics have pointed out the contrast between Bitcoin’s performance and the US stock market during the recent period of macro uncertainty.
Stock market commentator Dividend Hero told his 203,200 X followers that he has “hated on Bitcoin in the past, but seeing it not tank while the stock market does is very interesting to me.”
Meanwhile, technical trader Urkel said Bitcoin “doesn’t appear to care one bit about tariff wars and markets tanking.” Bitcoin is trading at $83,749 at the time of publication, down 0.16% over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Magazine: XRP win leaves Ripple a ‘bad actor’ with no crypto legal precedent set
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports12 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
-
Sports4 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
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway