Acknowledging the uproar over Friday’s headlines, the chancellor said he could not be accused of “difficult decisions” given the headlines. They made hard reading. “Tax hell,” was the Sun’s brief summary. Perhaps most damning was the Daily Mail, which ran the headline ‘Tories soak campaigners’. Domestically, the estimate of around £55bn worth of spending cuts and tax rises made for even tougher reading for Hunt. The Sun editorial said the autumn statement was “one of the worst drugs a Tory chancellor has ever taken” and added: “We just pray it doesn’t kill the patient”. Noting that the UK is set for its highest tax burden in its history, the Sun said it feared Hunt’s announcement “could crush growth and investment in gifts, jobs and skilled high-skilled to lower-income competitors taxes”. While by no means suggesting that the mess was caused by the Conservatives alone, the paper’s article asked why Britain was “alone in hammering household spending power in the teeth of a recession”. He continued to disparage Labor but said a pension rise of at least 11% – in line with inflation – was good news for those living solely on payments, but an “indefensible reward for millionaires without mortgages when the lives of of new tenants gets significantly worse”. . Inside, former Sun political editor Trevor Kavanagh was far more coy about the response than shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves. “If Jeremy Hunt’s budget blizzard of tax hikes, spending chaos and rule-bashing was designed to confuse the enemy, it failed,” he wrote. “Labour’s Rachel Reeves rises to the challenge”. The Express carried a glimmer of positivity, declaring victory for its campaign to ensure pensioners who cannot work to supplement their incomes get a pay rise in line with inflation. But the Daily Mail, keenly watching her reaction from many Tory strategists, was much more scathing, calling Hunt’s statement “a budget to break the back of middle Britain”. He said Hunt had defied “fundamental principles” of the Conservatives and shown a “grotesque overreaction” to inflation and the economic downturn. “The biggest losers will be the hard-pressed families of middle Britain,” said the Mail’s editorial. “They are traditionally Tory voters. After that, many will inevitably question whether it makes sense to vote for the party at the next election.” Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Concerns about what Hunt’s statement would do to the Tories’ chances in 2024 were echoed by Fraser Nelson, the editor of the Spectator magazine. “No one can accuse him of offering false hope today,” Nelson wrote. “The harder question is whether there is any kind of hope.” He added: “It was not just an autumn statement written, but the next Conservative manifesto – with all the bad stuff saved for after the vote. Almost the behavior of a party waiting to win.” On the front page of the Telegraph, a headline that made Tory aides cringe quoted the boss of the Resolution Foundation as saying the statement amounted to “the rhetoric [George] Osborne… with his policies [Gordon] Coffee”. Meanwhile, Tim Montgomerie, the founder of the website ConservativeHome, tweeted: “Definitely won’t be voting Conservative at the next election.” Headlines from traditionally Tory-friendly papers are a cry from them after Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget. The Mail then proclaimed: “Finally! A real Tory budget’, while the Telegraph ran with ‘Kwarteng bets on biggest tax cuts in half a century’ and the Express hailed the event with ‘Go for development! Big tax cuts herald the new era.”
