Conservative conference: Boris Johnson refuses to rule out further tax rises

Boris Johnson has refused to rule out raising taxes again, three weeks before the chancellor announces the Budget.

Speaking on the first day of his party's conference in Manchester, the prime minister said he was a "zealous opponent of unnecessary tax rises".

But he told the BBC's Andrew Marr that the pandemic had hit the UK's economy like a "fiscal meteorite".

Earlier this year Chancellor Rishi Sunak also froze income tax thresholds - leading to more people paying the levy - and the extra £20 weekly Universal Credit payment, brought in during the pandemic, is due to end this week, at a time when the price of energy and food is rising.

Asked if he would raise taxes again, Mr Johnson replied: "If I can possibly avoid it, I do not want to raise taxes again."

The PM added: "I can tell you that you have no fiercer and more zealous opponent of unnecessary tax rises than me, but we have had to deal with a pandemic on a scale which this country has not seen before in our lifetimes and long before.

"We don't want to raise taxes, of course we don't, but what we will not do is be irresponsible with the public finances."

Mr Johnson also said the UK was going through a "period of adjustment" post-Brexit, when asked about job shortages and supply issues in shops and on petrol forecourts.

He called out those who wanted to "go back to the tired, failed old model" of "reaching for the lever called uncontrolled immigration" to bring people into the country to fill the job gaps.

Instead, Mr Johnson said the country needed to look to a future of "better paid, better skilled jobs" for British people.