Osborne to extend austerity as banks face further tax raid

Chancellor George Osborne is set to announce austerity measures will be extended into 2018 and banks will face more tax in a "bleak" Autumn Statement, according to reports.

The Telegraph said Osborne’s hopes of completing his austerity drive had been dashed as low growth and high borrowing costs. The paper said the statement would “have little good cheer to dispense”. It explained richer households and the unemployed would be among the groups having to take more of the fiscal pain. The chancellor had hoped to finish the austerity drive before the next election, set for 2015. It added the chancellor’s admission of another year of missed public finance forecasts will enable Labour to renew its attack that it is the coalition’s deficit reduction strategy...