Budget fears mount as PM struggles to assemble team

Andy Burnham is facing resistance as he tries to recruit key figures ahead of his first Budget, with multiple outlets reporting concerns over potential wealth taxes.

GB News and the Daily Express report the Prime Minister is struggling to bring in an unspecified ally, amid what the Express describes as "fears over wealth taxes" and warnings of "more hardship on the way". Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has confronted Burnham over Budget plans, the Express reports. Meanwhile, the Mirror carries Burnham branding a £1m signing-on bonus for Thames Water's new finance boss as "unacceptable" - a populist move that sits oddly with reports GB News attributes to unnamed sources that Labour has "completely mishandled" the early release scheme for prisoners.

The shape of the coming Budget is taking form through these skirmishes. Wealth taxes - capital gains, inheritance, perhaps a levy on assets - are the predictable opening move when a new government needs money and wants to be seen punishing the comfortable. The resistance the PM is reportedly meeting suggests the party itself is split on how far to go. That internal fracture matters more than the policy: Denis Healey ran the Treasury through both inflation crises and capital flight in the mid-1970s, and the lesson was that announced intent moves money faster than the tax itself ever will. If Burnham can't hold his own side, markets will notice before Parliament does.

GB News also reports an unspecified "major British industry" will slash jobs and close high street stores ahead of the Budget - no sector named, but the timing of the announcement is the story. Businesses don't pre-emptively cut in a vacuum; they cut when they expect the costs of employing people to rise or when confidence drops. If that's a deliberate shot across the Treasury's bow, it's a well-aimed one.

Watch the Budget date itself, whenever it's formally set, and watch whether the PM names his Chancellor before then or after. The longer the wait, the harder the internal fight.