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This charge is a serious one: that Rachel Reeves has misled UK citizens, scaring them to accept billions in extra taxes that would be used for higher welfare payments. While exaggerated, this is not usual Westminster bickering; on this occasion, the stakes are more serious. A week ago, detractors aimed at Reeves and Keir Starmer had been calling their budget "a shambles". Today, it is branded as falsehoods, and Kemi Badenoch calling for Reeves to step down.

This grave charge requires clear answers, so let me provide my view. Did the chancellor lied? Based on the available information, apparently not. She told no whoppers. However, despite Starmer's yesterday's comments, it doesn't follow that there is no issue here and we can all move along. Reeves did misinform the public about the factors informing her decisions. Was it to funnel cash towards "benefits street", like the Tories assert? No, as the figures prove this.

A Reputation Takes Another Blow, Yet Truth Must Prevail

Reeves has sustained another blow to her standing, however, should facts still have anything to do with politics, Badenoch ought to call off her lynch mob. Perhaps the stepping down recently of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) chief, Richard Hughes, over the leak of its own documents will satisfy SW1's thirst for blood.

Yet the true narrative is much more unusual than the headlines indicate, extending broader and deeper than the careers of Starmer and the class of '24. Fundamentally, herein lies a story concerning how much say you and I have over the governance of the nation. This should should worry everyone.

First, to Brass Tacks

After the OBR published recently a portion of the projections it shared with Reeves as she prepared the budget, the surprise was immediate. Not merely had the OBR not done such a thing before (described as an "rare action"), its numbers apparently contradicted the chancellor's words. While leaks from Westminster were about how bleak the budget would have to be, the watchdog's forecasts were getting better.

Take the government's so-called "iron-clad" rule, stating by 2030 daily spending for hospitals, schools, and other services would be wholly funded by taxes: at the end of October, the watchdog reckoned it would barely be met, albeit only by a tiny margin.

Several days later, Reeves held a press conference so extraordinary it forced breakfast TV to break from its regular schedule. Several weeks prior to the real budget, the nation was put on alert: taxes were going up, with the primary cause cited as gloomy numbers from the OBR, specifically its finding that the UK had become less productive, investing more but getting less out.

And so! It happened. Notwithstanding the implications from Telegraph editorials combined with Tory media appearances implied recently, that is essentially what transpired during the budget, which was significant, harsh, and grim.

The Deceptive Alibi

The way in which Reeves deceived us was her alibi, because those OBR forecasts didn't compel her actions. She could have chosen different options; she might have provided alternative explanations, including on budget day itself. Prior to last year's election, Starmer pledged exactly such people power. "The hope of democracy. The strength of the vote. The possibility for national renewal."

One year later, yet it is powerlessness that is evident in Reeves's breakfast speech. The first Labour chancellor for a decade and a half casts herself as a technocrat at the mercy of factors beyond her control: "Given the circumstances of the long-term challenges with our productivity … any finance minister of any party would be standing here today, confronting the decisions that I face."

She certainly make decisions, just not the kind Labour wishes to broadcast. From April 2029 British workers as well as businesses are set to be contributing an additional £26bn annually in taxes – and most of that will not go towards funding improved healthcare, new libraries, nor happier lives. Regardless of what bilge comes from Nigel Farage, Badenoch and their allies, it is not getting splashed on "welfare claimants".

Where the Cash Really Goes

Rather than going on services, more than 50% of the extra cash will instead give Reeves cushion for her own fiscal rules. About 25% is allocated to covering the government's own policy reversals. Examining the OBR's calculations and being as generous as possible to Reeves, only 17% of the taxes will go on genuinely additional spending, for example scrapping the two-child cap on child benefit. Its abolition "costs" the Treasury a mere £2.5bn, as it had long been an act of theatrical cruelty by George Osborne. This administration should have abolished it in its first 100 days.

The True Audience: Financial Institutions

The Tories, Reform and the entire right-wing media have spent days barking about how Reeves fits the stereotype of left-wing finance ministers, soaking hard workers to spend on shirkers. Party MPs are cheering her budget for being a relief to their social concerns, protecting the most vulnerable. Both sides are completely mistaken: The Chancellor's budget was primarily aimed at investment funds, speculative capital and the others in the financial markets.

The government could present a compelling argument for itself. The forecasts provided by the OBR were insufficient for comfort, particularly given that bond investors charge the UK the highest interest rate of all G7 developed nations – exceeding that of France, which lost its leader, higher than Japan that carries far greater debt. Combined with our policies to cap fuel bills, prescription charges and train fares, Starmer together with Reeves can say this budget enables the central bank to cut its key lending rate.

You can see that those folk with red rosettes may choose not to couch it in such terms when they're on the doorstep. According to a consultant for Downing Street puts it, Reeves has effectively "utilised" financial markets as an instrument of control over her own party and the electorate. It's why the chancellor can't resign, no matter what pledges she breaks. It is also the reason Labour MPs will have to knuckle down and vote that cut billions from social security, just as Starmer promised yesterday.

Missing Statecraft , an Unfulfilled Promise

What's missing here is any sense of strategic governance, of harnessing the finance ministry and the Bank to reach a fresh understanding with markets. Also absent is any innate understanding of voters,