Starmer ramps up attacks on ‘high tax’ Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak
Sir Keir Starmer has renewed attacks on Boris Johnson for overseeing a series of tax rises, saying that the Prime Minister is targeting “working people” as inflation soars.
The Labour leader today said Johnson and chancellor Rishi Sunak were like a “Tory Thelma and Louise, hand-in-hand as they drive the country off the cliff and into the abyss of low growth and high tax”.
The government is set to implement a series of tax rises that will take the UK’s tax burden to its highest level since the 1950s.
This includes a 1.25 percentage point increase in National Insurance in April and a six percentage point increase on corporation tax from next year for the UK’s most profitable companies.
The thresholds for income tax and for student repayment loans will also be frozen in what Starmer said in Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) amounted to “stealth taxes on working people.”
“You can be as stealthy as you like, but you can’t hide the reality that we have the highest tax burden for 70 years in the middle of an inflation crisis,” he said.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 5.4 per cent in the 12 months to December – a 30-year high.
Energy bills are also set to soar by around £600 a year in April, after Ofgem increases the energy price cap this week.
Responding to Starmer’s attacks, Johnson said the government was helping those on Universal Credit by reducing the taper rate.
He is also expected to tomorrow unveil a package of measures aimed at reducing household energy bills in the coming months.
“I think everybody in this country can see we’ve been through the biggest pandemic for 100 years, that we’ve looked after the people of this country to the tune of the £400bn that we put into furlough and all the other schemes,” Johnson said.