Mock beer taps labelled “Rachel Thieves” have appeared behind the bar of a Hertfordshire pub as its landlord takes aim at Chancellor Rachel Reeves over crippling tax hikes.

The Green Dragon’s Chris Ghazarian has rigged up the spoof pump as a protest – telling customers the pretend pint would taste “very bitter” and cost more than anything else available, though anyone ordering it receives only water.

Punters at the Flaunden venue find the stunt amusing, the 36-year-old landlord said: “They find it hilarious. I obviously don’t make them pay for it.”

What flavour profile would this fictional beverage have? Mr Ghazarian had thoughts: “If it was a real beer, it would probably be something that’s very bitter and not very pleasant. It would be the most expensive thing on the bar.”

Pump clips typically display alcohol percentages, he noted, adding: “The majority of pump clips have the alcohol percentage on them, and when you’re dealing with the Chancellor, percentages are a big thing. But the fact there are no certainties with her, I thought I would put on, ‘The per cent may go up at any point’.”

Labour’s cost avalanche has buried hospitality bosses across Britain – business rates, National Insurance contributions and minimum wage demands are all climbing, while tougher drink-drive rules spell trouble for establishments in remote areas.

Rates bill to soar despite government U-turn

Ministers may have retreated on business rates, but The Green Dragon’s financial pain remains acute – “thousands of pounds more” will still land on Mr Ghazarian’s desk because valuers have bumped up the property’s estimated worth by 66 per cent, pushing it from £26,500 to £44,000.

Business owners are cast as villains by Sir Keir Starmer‘s government, Mr Ghazarian claimed, while branding the Chancellor’s rescue plan – a 15 per cent rates discount lasting one year followed by frozen bills for two more – as woefully short.

Confusion reigned among his clientele, he recalled: “I had a lot of my customers saying to me, ‘I thought there was going to be 15 per cent off the price of my pint’. And I had to explain that my business rates were still going up, I was just getting 15 per cent off what they could have been.”

‘You can’t tax your way to growth’

Running a business has become mission impossible thanks to government policy, Mr Ghazarian charged: “The Government has made the cost of running a business just impossible, while claiming to be pro-business and backing the economy to grow. But you can’t tax your way to growth.”

His pump clip serves a purpose beyond comedy, he explained: “The pump clip voices our opinion in a pint-sized format. Everyone notices it, agrees and has a little laugh. It’s a way for me to voice my thoughts and how I feel about what’s going on at the moment.”

Flaunden doesn’t normally feature in tales of political rebellion – its timber-framed cottages and 19th century St Mary Magdalene church define the village’s genteel character, reports The Telegraph.

Spies and ambassadors among former patrons

The Green Dragon’s customer archive allegedly features some notorious names – Joachim von Ribbentrop, Adolf Hitler’s ambassador to Britain in the 1930s, reportedly supped there, as did Cambridge Five traitors Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess. Village folklore maintains the pair were spotted deep in conversation at the pub a mere day before their 1951 dash to the Soviet Union.

Sir Keir Starmer’s name almost joined this historical register last month when he dropped into the neighbouring village hall for green energy talks with locals, though the pub itself didn’t make his itinerary.

A missed opportunity, according to Mr Ghazarian, who’s held the tenancy since 2019: “I’d like to have had a word with him. I think I’m entitled to. I pay enough VAT and tax and everything else, like a lot of people do.”

Vicious cycle threatens closures

Cost inflation ripples through his entire operation, the landlord warned: “With all these added costs, my suppliers are putting their prices up, which means I put my prices up, which means the customer has to pay, and it will come to a point where the customer says, ‘Do you know what? I’m not going to pay that’.”

The domino effect is inevitable, he argued: “So your trade declines, you don’t need as many staff because you’re quiet, so unemployment rises. It’s a simple formula. You don’t have to be an accountant to work it out. It’s a very vicious cycle and once you start gaining momentum, it will be very hard to stop it.”

Hospitality venues including pubs, restaurants and cafés deserve VAT cuts, while the entire business rates system needs dismantling and rebuilding from scratch, Mr Ghazarian insisted.

Future uncertain for family business

Current circumstances remain manageable, but storm clouds are gathering: “At the minute we’re okay, but with what might come next I don’t have much confidence at all. I’m married, I have an 18-month-old and another on the way, and this is our family home.”

Closure looms as a possibility if the tax burden continues rising while customer numbers fall, he acknowledged: “I want to keep the pub open, but if customers stop coming and the taxes are too high, it’s only going to end one way. Pubs are going to close. I just hope it’s not us.”

A Treasury spokesperson said: “We are backing Britain’s pubs – cutting April’s business rates bills by 15 per cent followed by a two-year freeze, extending World Cup opening hours and increasing the Hospitality Support Fund to £10m to help venues grow … later this year, we’ll build on our Pride in Place programme with a new High Streets Strategy to revitalise town centres.”

The spokesperson continued: “This comes on top of capping corporation tax, cutting alcohol duty on draught pints and six cuts in interest rates, benefitting businesses in every part of Britain.”

Rachel Reeves is poised to unveil a bailout package for pubs as the industry warns of  bankruptcies from rising business rates.

An announcement by the chancellor is expected as soon as Tuesday, reports The Times, with government sources signaling the support is worth around £300 million. The Treasury has been drawing up plans for relief on bills for pubs from April this year, but Reeves is said to have resisted more fundamental tweaks to the business rates system.

Pubs face 76% rates rise over three years

Dozens of MPs have raised the alarm over the imminent closure of pubs, which lobbying groups say would face a 76 per cent rise to their business rates over the next three years.

While the Treasury move risks igniting calls for other affected sectors to receive help, including hotels and restaurants, Reeves’s allies say they hope it will quell a looming backlash from Labour backbenchers.

To further cushion the impact of business rate changes, the chancellor is expected to set out plans to relax licensing rules for hospitality venues in the run-up to this summer’s football World Cup.

Industry insiders expect the support for pubs to be temporary and said any fundamental reform to the methodology or “multiplier” used to calculate the rates was likely to take longer.

Hotels to see 115% rates increase

Reeves has sought to avoid the relief being widened as she tries to limit the tax changes in her spring statement on March 3.

However, the trade body UK Hospitality calculates that the average hotel will see business rates increase by 115 per cent over the next three years, states the report.

Business rates are a tax levied on non-domestic properties and revalued every three years. The latest set of revaluations come into force from April.

Despite the chancellor pledging to reduce business rates for high street firms, she also scrapped a Covid-era 40 per cent discount, meaning that some are facing a rise of over 100 per cent and have warned they face bankruptcy in months.

There has already been £4.3 billion of support pledged to limit rate rises, but pubs claim the unique way their rates are calculated has put them in an unfair position.

Tories brand package ‘sticking plaster solution’

The Conservatives said that Reeves would inevitably have to revisit the issue to more fundamentally help those industries worst affected but left out of the support for pubs.

Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, said: “Labour is scrambling to announce this package but it’s a sticking plaster solution when the patients are bleeding out all over our high streets.

“It’s taken them weeks to make this partial U-turn on the chancellor’s budget, during which thousands of retail and hospitality businesses have been staring down the barrel of disaster. Whatever they announce, it will be too little, too late.

“Labour promised a fairer system and permanently lower rates, yet business rates are going up for the second year in a row, with bills set to skyrocket by hundreds of per cent for many independent firms.

“This is a betrayal of the high street. Only the Conservatives will build a stronger economy so that we can cut business rates for thousands of high street businesses.”

Chancellor claims she was ‘blindsided’ by changes

Reeves said this month that she was “particularly concerned” about the impact of business rate changes on pubs and they remained her “biggest concern”.

The government had legislated to allow a discount of up to 20p on business rates for every £1 charged by the exchequer, but it was set instead at 5p.

Sources close to Reeves said that she had been blindsided by the valuation changes, given business rates are calculated and set by the Valuation Office Agency. However, Jonathan Russell, the body’s chief executive, said this month that it had been “very clear” to the Treasury before the November budget about the impact of the changes.

Carolyn Harris, a Labour MP and chair of the cross-party group on UK spirits, said: “Pubs are more than pints. Landlords tell me that spirits are crucial to their profitability. Amongst the higher costs pubs are facing is yet another hike in excise duty hitting their bottom line. We cannot support pubs and hospitality if the spirits sector isn’t empowered to thrive.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is reportedly considering a dramatic shake-up of Britain’s savings landscape, with the annual Cash ISA allowance set to be cut in half in her upcoming Autumn Budget.

According to the Financial Times, Treasury officials are considering plans to reduce the annual cash limit from £20,000 to £10,000 as part of a broader effort to encourage more people to invest in the stock market.

The move would revive an idea first floated earlier this year, which ministers framed as part of their ambition to build a more dynamic “investment culture” across the UK. While no final decision has been made, several options are understood to be on the table – and speculation has intensified in recent weeks that a firm announcement could come in November’s Budget.

The change would be significant. More than 14 million people in the UK currently hold over £10,000 in cash savings, and since Reeves became Chancellor in July 2024, over £59 billion has been invested in cash ISAs.

For many households, these accounts are a simple and trusted way to shelter savings from tax. The current system allows people to save or invest up to £20,000 a year tax-free, with complete freedom to allocate that amount between cash and stocks and shares.

Financial experts have been quick to react to the revived plans, with several describing the proposal as a thinly veiled revenue-raising exercise.

Rob Mansfield, an independent financial adviser at Rootes Wealth Management, said the move “looks like nothing more than a tax grab”. He argued that many savers simply prefer cash ISAs over stocks and shares, and that lowering the limit would have little impact on their behaviour. “If the limit is reduced, we’d likely see cash held where the interest is taxed,” he said. “If the government are serious about wanting people to invest, then tell people of the benefits and rewards of long-term saving rather than trying to force them into investing for nationalistic reasons.”

Luke James, tax director at Gravitate Accounting, warned that the policy could have unintended consequences. “After nearly a decade without inflation adjustment, any sudden change could appear punitive to cautious savers and weaken trust in fiscal policy,” he said. “While Stocks and Shares ISAs offer higher potential returns, they involve volatility and assume a level of financial literacy not shared by all. Many prefer Cash ISAs for their simplicity, security, and tax efficiency. Reducing the limit may push savings into taxable accounts rather than equities, undermining the policy’s intent.”

James also pointed out that with the Government’s previous “British ISA” proposal scrapped earlier this year, there is no guarantee that redirecting funds away from cash would lead to more money flowing into UK businesses. “Without broader incentives, education, and a clear long-term investment strategy, the reform risks short-term gains at the expense of lasting confidence and growth,” he added.

The potential impact on ordinary savers is clear. Antonia Medlicott, founder and managing director of Investing Insiders, estimated that around 30% of savers would need to move their cash to avoid paying tax. “The big advantage of saving through an ISA is that not a penny of the interest you earn can be taxed,” she said. “If Rachel Reeves is planning a cut to the annual allowance, that could mean the roughly 30% of adults who use Cash ISAs may soon need to find a new home for their savings – or face a tax bill.”

Medlicott also questioned whether the policy would achieve its stated goal. “Rachel Reeves is rumoured to be using this move to cajole more people into investing. But ISAs aren’t the only way to avoid tax on cash. If you’re a basic rate taxpayer, you can also earn £1,000 of tax-free interest per year in an ordinary savings account. You’d need to be holding over £33,000, earning 3%, to exceed that allowance. So, if the Chancellor goes ahead, we may just see a mass exodus of people moving their ordinary savings instead. I fail to see how that helps the Chancellor achieve her goal of increasing the flow of investment into UK equities.”

Jeremy Cox, head of strategy at Coventry Building Society, said the simplicity of ISAs was one of their biggest strengths – and warned against making them more complex. “Upsetting this balance by reducing the cash ISA allowance is going to make it far more complex in one fell swoop,” he said. “In nudging people toward investing more, the Chancellor needs to be careful she doesn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and discourage people from building up their cash savings too.”

Others suggested there could be ways for savers to adapt if the rules change. Rob Morgan, chief investment analyst at Charles Stanley, noted that limiting Cash ISAs could lead some to use short-dated gilts or money market funds within a Stocks & Shares ISA to replicate “cash-like” returns while staying within a tax-sheltered wrapper. That would, however, require greater knowledge and potentially financial advice.

Ritesh Sood, founder of Soul Mortgages, took a more optimistic view of the policy. “While the potential reduction of the Cash ISA allowance has sparked debate, it could ultimately guide the public towards a more robust, diversified savings strategy,” he said. “The Government’s objective is to stimulate the UK stock market by channelling more capital into investments, which could potentially flow directly into UK businesses.”

Kevin Mountford, co-founder of Raisin UK, said halving the allowance would be “a major shake-up for savers”. He warned that cutting the limit risks undermining public confidence in one of the UK’s simplest savings vehicles. “At a time when more people than ever are paying tax on their savings interest, restricting access to tax-free cash savings could feel like a step backwards for ordinary households,” he said. “It has taken considerable effort to build a stronger savings culture in the UK, and it feels as though the Government now sees savers and pensioners as easy pickings.”

Mountford added that while investment can yield higher returns over the long term, it isn’t suitable for everyone. “For many, particularly older savers or those building an emergency fund, a cash ISA is not about chasing returns but about peace of mind,” he said. “Any reform needs to balance the push for growth with the need for financial inclusion.”

Denis Cornwall, direct channel manager at Wesleyan, echoed that sentiment but said reform could still be an opportunity if handled carefully. “Any steps to encourage a stronger culture of retail investing are welcome if they help improve financial wellbeing,” he said. “For savers, the key will be ensuring investments align with personal goals and tolerance for factors like risk and volatility – especially if they’re thinking about moving from Cash ISAs to Stocks & Shares ISAs for the first time.”

The Government has not confirmed whether any ISA changes will feature in the Budget, though Treasury sources have repeatedly emphasised that any reforms would not be aimed at raising revenue.

Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert, questioned that claim on social media this week. Responding to a comment that wealthy savers should pay tax on their interest, Lewis wrote: “That’s a different point. The idea isn’t to raise revenue as noted, it’s to encourage investing.” He added that cutting the cash ISA limit “would simply piss millions of, often older, people off and I doubt will change the dial on investing.”

Rachel Reeves’ forthcoming Budget is already sending tremors through the housing market, industry insiders have warned, with HSBC the latest major lender to hike mortgage rates. The term “Doom Budget” is even gaining traction as anxiety mounts among mortgage brokers, who say lenders are responding not only to stubborn inflation and rising gilt yields, but also to growing concerns about the economic fallout of Ms Reeves’ fiscal statement on November 26.

Adam Stiles, Managing Director at Helix Financial Partners, said: “HSBC have followed a long line of other lenders who have increased rates over the past week or so. This could be possibly in anticipation of the upcoming Doom Budget, as well as a number of other economic factors. We expect to see other lenders continue to raise their rates in what is a fraught political and economic climate.”

Other brokers likewise feared that politics and economics are colliding. Pete Mugleston, Managing Director at onlinemortgageadvisor.co.uk, said: “Even though the Bank of England has been cutting rates, rising gilt yields are pushing up the cost of funding fixed mortgages. Until yields settle, borrowers should expect more of this through September.”

Emma Jones, Managing Director at whenthebanksaysno.co.uk, said: “We’re seeing a domino effect now. Political chaos and market scepticism about the Government’s ability to manage the public finances are not helping. More rate rises look baked in.”

For those with mortgages coming up for renewal, the advice is blunt. Aaron Strutt, Product and Communications Director at Trinity Financial, said: “More of the bigger lenders are raising their rates and even though they are not going up by huge amounts, they are enough to noticeably bump up monthly repayments.

“There will almost certainly be more increases this week, so if you are holding off locking into a fixed deal, then this probably isn’t the time to do so.”

Louis Mason, Communications Director at Oportfolio Mortgages, added: “Don’t wait. Act now. If your current deal ends in the next 6 months, your number one job is to secure a new rate today. You can always switch to a cheaper deal later if rates miraculously fall, but you can’t get back a cheap rate that’s gone. Every day you wait could cost you.”

The sense of unease stems from uncertainty around Ms Reeves’ Budget. She has scheduled it for November 26, later than the usual October slot, fuelling speculation about her strategy.

She released a video statement in which she said: “Britain’s economy isn’t broken. But I know it’s not working well enough for working people. Bills are high. Getting ahead feels tougher. You put more in, get less out. That has to change.”

Ms Reeves has also promised discipline in public spending. Speaking last week, she vowed to keep “a tight grip on public finances” while seeking to “deliver growth and stability for the long term.”

She has been equally clear in dismissing speculation about tax rises.

She told reporters last week: “People who seem to know what is in the Budget before we have made those decisions are just wrong.

“A lot of them are talking rubbish, and frankly, a lot of what they’re saying is irresponsible.”

Nevertheless, reports suggest Ms Reeves is considering a range of measures to raise revenue without breaking Labour’s pledge not to increase income tax, VAT or National Insurance.

Options said to be under review include reforms to pension tax relief, tweaks to capital gains and inheritance tax thresholds, and sector-specific levies such as gambling or banking taxes.

She has also indicated that boosting productivity will be the centrepiece of her plans, with reforms to infrastructure investment, planning, and rail projects such as Northern Powerhouse Rail designed to underpin long-term growth.

Markets, however, remain cautious. Rising gilt yields suggest investors are already pricing in turbulence, reflecting fears that Ms Reeves could struggle to balance her fiscal rules with the demands of funding public services.

For lenders such as HSBC, that means the cost of securing funds for fixed-rate mortgages is rising, and they are passing those costs directly onto borrowers.