There is a response by the federal party at the local LibDem blogspot. There will no doubt be a fuller analysis when the small print in the Red Book has been analysed. At this time, I would only add that the 4.2% increase in the government’s minimum hourly wage rate still falls short of the amount necessary to bring it up to the true national living wage of £8.45, as calculated last October. Even this will be out-of-date, eaten into by food inflation, caused by the fall in the value of the pound sterling since the referendum. Food and housing costs are major components of ordinary people’s budgets, but Mr Hammond has done nothing to ease them.

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