The hidden ‘horror’ in this lacklustre Budget could yet be its saving grace

By mistake rather than design, Jeremy Hunt has done the right thing and imposed a stealth tax on the one demographic group that is most likely to vote Tory – rich pensioners, says John Rentoul

Did the chancellor assume the only thing that matters to pensioners is the state pension? (PA Wire)

There is always a next-day story about some horror hidden in the small print in a Budget. It is one of the constitutional functions of independent think tanks, since about the time of Magna Carta, to point it out.

This spring Budget was no different. Nobody liked it much on the day, although instant opinion polls found that most people approved of most of the measures in it – especially the big tax cut in the form of lower national insurance contributions.

But it wasn’t until the Resolution Foundation crunched the numbers that it became clear who the losers were: pensioners who pay income tax. They don’t pay national insurance, and so cannot benefit from the 2p-in-the-pound cut in the rate of contributions – neither the one that took effect in January, nor the one that will come in next month.