everybody in the room is... is that fair? are you all against it? yeah. audience applauds. mr heappey also said that the government was in listening mode. you'll have noticed that the top of the government is in listening mode at the moment. and, erm... but the cabinet took the decision, and i think that it's important to recognise that actually as a tax, it will — i think sort of 50% of the revenue's raised by the top 14% of taxpayers, and there's six million people that pay nothing at all. so, erm, you know, it isn't the, eh, the blunt instrument that some people have described it as. there are calls from some conservative backbenchers for the rise to be delayed for a year. mel stride, who chairs the treasury select committee, told newsnight that he believed there was wiggle room in the public finances to allow it. the economy is doing quite a lot better than the obr forecast at the time of the last budget, so we've got that additional fiscal headroom. and the question then becomes, how do you use that? asked yesterday if the rise would go