Rishi Sunak has refused to rule out smashing a hole through the Tory manifesto and raising income tax or VAT to pay for coronavirus.
The Conservatives’ manifesto pledged less than a year ago: “We will not raise the rate of income tax, VAT or National Insurance.” But Mr Sunak admitted in his spending review yesterday: “Our economic emergency has only just begun”.
And he’s already now broken a different manifesto pledge to keep paying 0.7% of GDP into foreign aid - cutting it to 0.5%. Asked if he’d come back in a year or two years and cut the tax pledge too, Mr Sunak told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m not going to get drawn on future fiscal policy, as much as you try.” He said the £394billion scale of borrowing this year is "not