Sir Keir Starmer hinted yesterday that his government may be making some "tough decisions" on tax rises early in his premiership as he gave his first press conference as prime minister.
Just 24 hours after entering No 10, the Labour leader faced the media for the first time in Downing Street and announced that he had already canned Rishi Sunak's controversial Rwanda deportations scheme for illegal migrants.
But, as he introduced a more informal approach with a request to "call me Keir", the new prime minister appeared to struggle on the question of potential tax rises.
It came shortly after a former cabinet minister confided to The Independent that there "is no golden legacy" on the economy from the outgoing Tory government and all the money was spent on Covid and lockdowns. So Sir Keir will need to make cuts or raise taxes to fund his pledges.
Sir Keir told journalists: "In relation to the tough decisions, we're going to have to take them and take them early. And we will do that with a raw honesty. But that is not a sort of prelude to saying there's some tax decision that we didn't speak about before that we're going to announce now. It's about the tough decisions to fix the problem and being honest about what they are."
This story is from the July 07, 2024 edition of The Independent.
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This story is from the July 07, 2024 edition of The Independent.
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