Even Burnham admits Budget not ‘radical’

Plus: Let's get serious about lifting tariffs, and how to properly incentivise doctors

Oct 30, 2026

Andy Burnham has admitted that his first Budget was not radical enough. Businesses, banks and taxpayers will all agree with him as they continue to be punished for their hard work. Burnham will be coming to raid their coffers to pay for welfare and other spending he can’t cut. We are spending beyond our means but Labour can’t confront that.

Elsewhere, our columnist Joseph Dinnage warns us about a senior doctors walkout next month. Our illogical tax system means there is no incentive for them to work overtime, the more they work the more it costs them. Fewer doctors working means fewer lives saved. Another thing John Healey neglected to fix in his Budget. See more below to find out what Joseph recommends.

Below you’ll find all the latest pieces from CapX, plus what we’re reading from around the web.

Oscar Gill-Lewis
Deputy Editor, CapX

Today’s Takes

Fresh thinking from CapX

Bureaucrats are interfering too much in businesses

Andrew Tettenborn

‘A business owner is not concerned with equality or fairness, but making his business thrive and recruiting people who overall will help it do so. Demanding that he run his business according to bureaucratic notions of pay transparency, (…) makes his life more difficult and puts his profitability at risk.’

The Equality and Human Rights Commission, a quango with no understanding about the realities of running a small business, proposes to change the rules on disclosing pay, to promote equality. It wants to allow all employees to know what their colleagues earn but for there to be a complete ban on questions to would-be employees about how much they are currently earning. A law requiring such an invasion in all workplaces is apt to create not so much principled progressivism as sullen resentment and make life yet harder for harassed entrepreneurs. Read More

We need to incentivise doctors to work overtime

Joseph Dinnage

‘Since 2022, over 1.7 million healthcare appointments have had to be rescheduled because of industrial action. And now, senior doctors will be staging a 48-hour walkout next month.’

When doctors go on strike they can’t save people’s lives in hospital. They also can’t save as many lives when they work part-time. 77% of consultants are taking on less overtime because of the current pension allowance rules. John Healey should also abolish IR35 restrictions and lower the extremely high marginal tax rate for these high-earners. Incentivising them to work more will help to unleash NHS capacity. Read More

Labour's food tariffs are bananas

Ted Grainger

‘Remember next time, dear reader, when you go to the supermarket to purchase your bananas that you may be spending more of your hard-earned wages on making sure that countries in Africa maintain a competitive advantage because it makes the British Government feel good about itself.’

The Government removed tariffs on 100 or so goods to help lower household costs. In the big picture it’s a tiny proportion of total tariffs but it’s still the right thing to do. It’s a shame the Chancellor didn’t take this argument to its logical conclusion and remove tariffs on most items. We’ve known since Adam Smith published ‘The Wealth of Nations’ that tariffs only serve to make a population poorer. Read More

Stat of the Day

Best of the Web

The price we’ll all pay for the minimum wage hike

Ross Clark, The Spectator

‘We will have a National Living Wage (for the over 21s) of £13.20 per hour and a National Minimum Wage (for 18-20 year olds) of £11.27 per hour. This is nearly twice the level the minimum wage would have been had it simply increased with inflation since it was introduced in 1999.’

Initially, the minimum wage was set at a realistic level, so the harm it caused in destroying jobs was limited. Now that has got much more serious. It also narrows the wage gap. This will please socialists who believe in equality of outcome, but it matters because it is removing some of the incentive for low-paid workers to seek promotions with extra responsibilities. Read More

Cheaper gherkins are a Brexit benefit not to be scoffed at

Dominic Lawson, The Telegraph 🔒

‘I will speak up for gherkin politics, or at least, the Chancellor’s decision to remove the 12% import duty on that refreshing delicacy, along with tariffs on a range of other joys of the table such as garlic and marmalade. Was not that one of the points of leaving the European Union? The very supranational body Burnham is now courting, and which he clearly wants to rejoin?’

Reducing the tariff on jar of gherkins by 4p has been a good source of ridicule in a Budget that has avoided more challenging reforms. But these modest reductions in tariffs are welcome. A better point to make is that they would be incompatible with the Government’s ambition of rejoining the EU customs union. Read More