Healey backs growth but will not rule out tax rises at Budget

Chancellor John Healey has said the UK economy is "turning a corner" but declined repeatedly to rule out tax increases at next month's Budget.

The Guardian reports Healey backing growth while insisting Labour must be "honest on spending". The Sun says he "repeatedly refuses to rule out tax rises" but insists Britain is improving. The Express warns the comment "will terrify pensioners" and suggests he may axe the state pension triple lock, though GB News notes this as a proposal urged upon him rather than policy. The BBC confirms the "turning a corner" line despite continuing debt concerns.

Every Chancellor since Gordon Brown has arrived saying the economy is turning a corner. Most of them were standing in the same corner. The phrase does no work - it names a direction without a distance, a feeling without a figure. What matters is whether the next set of quarterly numbers and the Budget arithmetic support it. Healey's refusal to rule out tax rises while claiming improvement suggests the gap between the promise and the available room has not closed. That gap is the thing to watch: revenues minus commitments, and whether the turn he describes shows up in the receipts or only in the rhetoric.

The Budget is due next month. The figures will either vindicate the claim or they will not. Both the language and the sums stay on the record.