Labour sought to take credit for Phillip Hammond’s excruciating climbdown on the National Insurance hike today, with John McDonnell claiming Jeremy Corbyn had forced him into it.
But Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said the Government had “arrogantly” announced the climbdown so close to Prime Minister’s Questions because they knew Labour would not challenge them robustly.
He told Sky News: “This whole episode is a consequence of having an arrogant Government taking the country to the extremes, knowing they can do all they like because the opposition is so shambolic.”
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said: “This is classic Tim Farron and the Lib Dems. They’re making petty, party politics of this. The first person who raised the issue of the self-employed was Jeremy Corbyn , 10 minutes into his response to the Budget.
He was the first person to raise it in the House of Commons chamber. We then had Labour MPs piling in. I hounded the Chancellor the next day, all the way through the media forcing him to make this reversal.”
Jeremy Corby did not specifically mention National Insurance during his Budget response, but he did say: “We have long argued for a clampdown on bogus self-employment but today the Chancellor seems to have put the burden on self-employed workers instead.”
McDonnell added: “We had the Federation of Small Businesses, the Trade Unions. Virtually the rest of civil society saying this was unfair, and that’s why he’s been forced to address it. What we need now is a proper plan for the future, both for the self-employed - but also I want to know, there’s a £2billion gap now in this Budget. I do not want either steath taxes on working people being introduced as a result, or further cuts in public services that might be threatened - and I want social care protected.
“There’s too many people suffering out there as a result of a lack of social care.
Asked if Labour had ever performed a u-turn, McDonnell said: “Yes, of course they’ve done u-turns, but they’ve ‘fessed up to it and apologised. I’m hoping the Chancellor apologises. But we’ve never had a catastrophic one like this.”