This is a huge, transformative budget.
Don’t let anyone tell you there isn’t much difference between the main parties at Westminster.
This is a Budget imbued with Labour’s instincts and worldview.
Rising taxes, self-imposed borrowing rules being shredded and rewritten – to allow for more borrowing – and huge spending on the NHS can be seen from low Earth orbit, and that’s just the beginning.
I lost track of how many times during the campaign Labor figures insisted they had “no plans” to raise taxes beyond what they said were relatively narrow bands.
Now you don’t have to be so ruthless to conclude that it’s complete nonsense.
Labor, psychologically scarred by losing more elections than they win, tend to try to stay close to the Tories on pre-election tax and spending plans, thinking they can beat them and fearing anything else will Scare swing voters and make them pay.
And, that’s pretty much what Labor did this summer.
There is no such caution now.
The books are worse than we thought, here’s Labour’s commutation plea, with the chancellor insisting we won’t do it again In my interview with her.
“This is not the kind of budget we want to repeat,” Rachel Reeves told me.
For the chancellor, we now enter the valley where her prospectus is under the most scrutiny and danger.
Journalists, policy experts, industry, unions, you as readers have the opportunity to appropriately hide details and ask awkward questions.
You’ll see the Chancellor on BBC television and hear her voice on the radio.
Senior figures insist they want such scrutiny.
They pointed out that last Sunday she did not appear on TV and radio programs ahead of the Budget, in what has become an irritating recent tradition – with reporters asking relevant questions about the contents of the Budget and being repeatedly told to wait until Wednesday.
She will no doubt be in attendance this Sunday alongside the new Conservative leader elected on Saturday.
So where might this scrutiny come from? Of course, all the big things—tax increases, borrowing, spending.
But I always like to focus on those seemingly smaller squabbles that have the potential to blow up in front of the government.
Already have The real anger of many farmers They fear changes to inheritance tax will mean many farming families will no longer be able to pass on their life’s work and business to the next generation.
There are also some big-picture, long-term thoughts to think about.
This is a government whose central mission is to help drive economic growth.
However Growth forecasts appear stubbornly weakAs our economics editor Faisal Islam writes.
And there is a similar Observations from the Institute for Fiscal Studiesthey provide a forecast of how much money each of us might have in our pockets over the next few years, once the bills are sorted out, which is, in economist terms, per capita disposable income.
They concluded that while its growth rate was slightly higher than in recent years, it was still quite puzzling.
The government hopes these forecasts are wrong — and they probably are.
But, as I Wrote beforefor many people, an immutable financial reality seems to be a significant factor in anti-political sentiment and violent political swings: the harsh truth is that things have not gotten better, not even better, in years.
And, ultimately, the continuation of this trend, or its apparent end, will matter more to millions of people and the likely ultimate fate of this administration than many of the other budget numbers currently being picked.
