Some posters on here have suggested that they're ok with a rise in income tax or NI. However, Labour pledged pre-election that neither would rise, hence why I think they're looking at all these other ways of raising money. Trouble is, they've only succeeded in pissing millions of people off anyway which has led to them rowing back on things like the WFA and offering all these concessions in last night's bill. While those rethinks - u turns even - are ultimately good news for many, the optics aren't good at all. A rise in income tax or NI is the obvious answer and would've been simpler to implement but it was pretty much their main pre-election pledge not to do it so the backlash would be off the scale if they backtracked on that one.
I don't think the previous government helped because it's my belief that they "winged it" a fair bit in those last 12-18 months or so by cutting NI not once, but twice, in a last-ditch attempt to win votes but they ultimately knew that they couldn't really afford to do that. IIRC, they were also talking about a further NI cut but by then they probably knew they weren't getting back in anyway so effectively could promise what they wanted. As you say though, Labour have pretty much backed themselves into a corner by ruling out rises in income tax, NI, and VAT.
