When Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announced that he would not be going ahead with his plan to scrap the top rate of tax in the UK, he claimed that he had done so because “he listened” to the public. There had indeed been a widespread outcry over his plan, set out in his ironically named “mini-budget” on September 23, but the reversal is more likely because the Conservative government’s own MPs would block its passage through parliament by voting against it.
Some of this resistance was probably a genuine belief that the measures were wrong. But a more likely explanation is that many MPs fear that their seat (and control of government and parliament) would be in danger if they went along with the idea.
