George Osborne makes his final pitch to voters with a handout to savers and first time buyers.
Savers, motorists and beer drinkers all have reasons to be cheerful after the final budget before the general election. But not everyone is happy with the chancellor.
Victoria Macdonald
Will there be any relief for the NHS in the chancellor’s statement? I have spoken to a number of health economists and the general feeling is there’s not likely to be much.
As the Tories release their election campaign poster, FactCheck goes behind the figures to see whether they add up, and what they’re not telling us.
Working families are being forced to turn to food banks to make ends meet, the Archbishop of Canterbury says ahead of the publication of a government report. But where is your nearest bank?
Bez, of eighties’ group Happy Mondays, tells Channel 4 News that more housing is needed rather than “sugar-coated promises.” Property guru Kirstie Allsop says stamp duty could adversely affect people.
Home-buyers are among the winners of the autumn statement, with many expected to save thousands of pounds on stamp duty. But it isn’t all good news, we’re afraid.
Ahead of the chancellor’s Autumn Statement tomorrow, here are eight questions about the speech, the economy and the politics answered.
Gary Gibbon
Tory MPs tell me they suspect the chancellor’s getting all his infrastructure and NHS spending news out of the way early because he’s given up on getting a hearing for good news on Wednesday.
The Conservatives have been hit with a Twitter “takedown” after a “patronising” advert on how the Budget 2014’s beer and bingo cuts help “hardworking people”.
Jackie Long
Port Sunlight on the Wirral lives up to its status as a model village, with wide tree lined roads and pristine gardens. That’s despite, not because of, the economy, residents say.
Gary Gibbon
This is a fiscally neutral budget of slight readjustments, rather than a major economic moment.
Gary Gibbon
“It is completely political,” someone with knowledge of the budget told me. The “surprise” being mooted could be a crowd-pleasing Tory pledge on personal taxation.
This is George Osborne’s big chance. It is the first time he will hold up the budget box at a time of a robustly growing economy. It has been a four-year wait for this pleasure.
The chancellor could raise the personal tax allowance in Wednesday’s budget, but to do so is expensive and can skew the way money is distributed across the population.