Why is Hammond dishing out tax cuts? Is he readying the lifeboats? | Gaby Hinsliff

If Brexit hits the UK as hard as many expect, this budget gift to taxpayers may be intended to keep the economy afloat

Why did Philip Hammond unexpectedly cut taxes for high earners a year early, in a budget supposedly all about ending austerity? And why won't Labour, for all its ferocious rhetoric about championing the many not the few, pledge to reverse them?

At first glance, the question seems almost too obvious to need an answer. Everyone likes free money. And since richer people tend to vote Tory, giving away money to richer people (nearly half the benefit of yesterday's move to bring forward next year's planned hike in allowances goes to the top 10% of households) tends to be a cynical but successful way of buying Tory votes. Standing between people and all that free money, conversely, tends to be electoral suicide for Labour. Which is why some at Westminster even wondered if this budget was laying the ground for a snap election before too long.

Related: A budget to end austerity? Only if Hammond makes the rich pay | Polly Toynbee