I'd described my politics as, first and foremost, anti Conservative these days, but, although I think the Government are only doing what they did yesterday because they have to (like many who came before him, Johnson would kick this can further down the road in typical fashion if he could), I can't get too worked up in these circumstances about what are, effectively, tax rises. Similarly, although it's somehow typical that it happens less than five months before I reach state pension age (having had it put back to sixty six), I can understand the decision to suspend the triple lock on pensions for a year (will it ever return I wonder?).

The thing is though, yesterday's announcement was similar to a budget in some ways as, on the day, the discussion is all about what the Government wants it to be about, it usually takes a few hours for the downsides of the Chancellor's announcements to come to light. That's what's happened today with those two bastions of Corbynite socialism, the Daily Telegraph and Times, running stories about how the tax burden in the UK will become the highest it's been for seventy years (according to the Times), while the Telegraph says it'll be the highest it's been since the Second World War - all of this from a party that sells itself as being much more anti tax than Labour.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-58483020

For decades, Tories wishing to score points at Labour's expense have branded them the "tax and spend" party, but has there ever been a Government that deserves that description more than this one? It'll be very interesting to see if the forty two per cent or so who, according to the polls, have stuck with Johnson and his inept Cabinet through thin and thin still do so after this - the front page of the Telegraph also carries an opinion piece saying that Johnson sounded "the death knell for Conservatism" yesterday.