On Wednesday 28 October, Budget morning, our co-founder and CEO Fraser Smeaton was on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. He was one of the business owners asked what they wanted from the chancellor's first Budget. MorphCostumes was founded in Edinburgh in 2009 by Fraser, his brother Ali and their friend Gregor Lawson, and we now design and ship over 1,500 costumes from the UK to customers in twelve countries.

What Fraser said

Fraser's point was about investment. Once a business has grown, he told the programme, paying corporation tax at 25% and then income tax at 39.5% on what comes out "reduces the amount of investment" an owner can put back in "to keep them growing fast".

He also said that entrepreneurs he knows are moving their businesses offshore, and that the UK can be "more competitive". His worry is that government underestimates how mobile founders are, and how much they shop around for the best place to build a business.

Why it matters to us

We have built MorphCostumes from a flat in Edinburgh into one of the world's largest online costume retailers without leaving the UK. The money we keep goes into the things you feel when the costume arrives: new designs, garment techs measuring every prototype across 30+ points, and the 500,000+ quality checks we run every year. We would like the next seventeen years to be built here too.

Where to find it

The BBC's write-up of the interview is on its Budget 2026 live page. The interview went out on the Today programme shortly after 6:15am on 28 October; you can listen to the full episode on BBC Sounds while it is available.

We make your best times better with costumes.