We also found that ministerial attitudes to legal risk were v variable. It can change minister to minister. For inexperienced mins, hearing words like 'high risk' can be v worrisome. Others know it comes with territory and happy to press ahead.
Cath Haddon
@cathhaddon.bsky.social
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Senior Fellow @instituteforgov.bsky.social + history, Whitehall geekiness and constitutional agony aunt Subscribe to our newsletter: bit.ly/3dxiJ5J
![IfG senior fellow Jill Rutter is a former Treasury civil servant. On the BBC podcast The Tax Conundrum she describes how the Treasury would look for positive stories to sweeten the bitter pill of tax rises:
"When I was in my very early days at the Treasury, and chancellors were making some quite unpleasant decisions in budgets, we used to spend the last few weeks ahead of the budget in what was called a lollipop hunt.
The idea was that the chancellor wanted to leaven the bad news with some lollipops that were tweaks to the tax system or maybe a bit of money for something that you could point to and you would get… [something like] "the association of duck farmers welcome the chancellor’s final recognition that they need this relief".
The problem is that after you've brought in that relief, you've got a built-in lobby group that will squeal the moment you decide you need to take it away because either it’s costing more than you thought or it’s not having the effects you wanted."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4yylr557uperi5ea33ju346q/bafkreiebr2vrzsbd2inftfoiut66qgokawla7lzdpidxidksgwcfbki36e)
