Hinting that he could vote against the budget measures, he said the autumn statement could be the “final nail” in the party’s electoral chances. Other conservative backers who have questioned Hunt’s budget plans include McVeigh’s fellow right-wingers John Redwood, a Liz Truss supporter and former cabinet minister, and Richard Drax. Redwood said Hunt should have considered “popular spending cuts” such as the £11 billion ax to the Bank of England to deal with the bond market turmoil, “ending hotel bills for illegal immigrants” and ” to stop costly anti-driver changes to main roads. “. Drax argued that raising taxes on businesses and workers “risks stifling the growth and productivity that [Hunt] and I want both, and that would deal with the recession we’re in now.” Jacob Rees-Mogg called the package of tax rises the “easy choice”, suggesting Hunt should have looked at “government efficiency”. McVey told GB News she could not support the decision to raise taxes on “strapped” Britons. “What you don’t need is less of your earnings going into your pocket,” he said. “I think – as a number of people have written – this has been the end of the Tory party and this will be the nail in the coffin for the next general election… I cannot support these increases, I said look elsewhere you could have saved money and be of more value to the British people.’ Michael Fabricant, another Conservative MP, has previously said the Tories would “think twice” about supporting tax rises when HS2 went ahead. Another critic was Tim Montgomery, the founder of ConservativeHome and the Center for Social Justice, who praised a Daily Mail front page headline ‘Soak the Strivers’, saying: “I will definitely not be voting Conservative at the next election.” Speaking to broadcasters earlier, Hunt denied his economic strategy was anti-conservative, saying sound money was more important than low taxes. “What I would say to my conservative colleagues is that there is nothing conservative about spending money you don’t have,” he said. “There is nothing conservative about not addressing inflation, there is nothing conservative about bypassing difficult decisions that put the economy on track. 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. “And we’ve done all those things, and that’s why this is a very conservative package to make sure we get the economy right.” He was defended by some other Tory MPs, with Sir Charles Walker telling Times Radio that he didn’t “really like” the content of the Autumn Statement but it was necessary because the Conservatives were “in the hole”. “I’m not going to say good budget, because a lot of people are going to feel a lot of pain this morning,” he said. “But I think it was a necessary budget. And I think he gave it the weight that was required… It was a conservative budget, despite what people say in the papers… it was a budget built around sound money and restoring the public finances and bringing that awful inflation down to manageable levels. flat”.
