Prospect of breaking 50-year income tax taboo shows scale of Reeves’s challenge

The chancellor appears to believe voters will forgive a broken promise in return for meaningful investment

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In April 1975, the Labour chancellor Denis Healey sought to grip the UK's runaway inflation and rising unemployment rates - an economic crisis triggered by the shock rise in global oil prices - by raising the basic rate of income tax.

Now Rachel Reeves, faced with her own set of difficult economic circumstances, including a multi-billion-pound budget shortfall, is contemplating the same remedy - breaking a 50-year taboo by becoming the first chancellor since Healey to hike the basic rate of income tax.