The standard Modus Operandii for this bunch is, prior to a really hard hitting budget, release a bunch of really severe bad news as potential moves they’ll make, then, when the reality is announced it suddenly doesn’t sound ‘that bad’.
That approach has been standard practice for as long as I have been following politics (well over 40 years) and is certainly not unique to Conservative governments. There is some method in it. The treasury deliberately ‘float’ a whole range of issues that are on their ‘options’ schedule to MPs, in the knowledge that they will make it into the media within hours, to see which ones land very badly (which are rarely progressed) and which go down less badly (which usually get through).
They also deliberately overstate the likely increases. That’s also clever. When it’s predicted that somethings going up 10% but actually ends up going up 5%, people tend to say “phew, it didn’t go up 10%” rather than express outrage that it’s gone up 5% (which they would have done had the 10% not been floated) ? I’m being serious by the way. It happens before every budget.
The big difference this time is that options are now extremely limited. It’s the perfect storm of a worldwide slowdown, war in Europe (with the impact on energy and food prices), raging inflation and many other issues, not to mention the residual problems following the foolhardy and totally unsustainable giveaway budget of a few months ago, even though most of it has been reversed. On top of all that, it’s also time that we have to start paying back the billions that were given away in furlough and company subsidies through the pandemic. Sadly, most of the bad news speculation about tax rises and spending cuts will become fact tomorrow. We can only keep kicking the can down the road for so long.