Wednesday briefing: We asked you – what do you want from the Burnham government’s first budget?
In today’s newsletter: First Edition readers and people struggling with the cost of living tell us what the government could do to improve their livesGood morning. Don’t expect anything radical. This, the Treasury has been at pains to tell us, will be a very “low-key” budget. After weeks of speculation from journalists, a flurry of press releases from thinktanks, and a photoshoot with an obligatory red box, the chancellor, John Healey, will announce the details of the Burnham government’s first budget in the Commons today at 12:30pm. Healey has been selling this as a series of measures designed to relieve pressure on low- and middle-income households under the mangled tagline of “breathing space for today, fresh hope for the future”. Many of the proposals have already been briefed, and their modesty is a sign of the constraints – both real and self-imposed – that his government faces. He has rejected…