I’m writing this having just watched the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, try to tell is that she wasn’t lying or misleading us about the need for £26 billion of tax rises in the budget, and that she had been consistent all along. Bollocks.
It was a confident performance by Reeves, yet utterly unconvincing. Mrs Miggins, of 32 Acacia Avenue, will have been totally unconvinced, and rightly so.
At the end, Laura Kuenssberg inexplicably asked the Chancellor if she was bruised by Kemi Badenoch’s personal attacks on her in her budget response – a rather softball question, given all the things she could have asked her but didn’t. Reeves duly took the onion out of her pocket and said that she would never indulge in personal attacks like that. Really? She has spent the last five years launching personal attack after personal attack on various Tory politicians. Liz Truss, anyone? In the public mind, Rachel Reeves is now on a par with Liz Truss in the public’s minds for economic competence. And that’s not a good place to be.
There are two political consequences from this budget. Firstly, it has bought her and Keir Starmer time in terms of their own political survivability. Why? Because this really was a Labour budget – a typical Labour tax and spend budget which taxes ordinary people to pay for more welfare benefits. And Labour MPs drank the koolade. It will be a short term political fix, though. The electorate will view it in a different way, as the May elections will surely demonstrate.
Secondly, Kemi Badenoch’s response to the budget sealed a very good autumn for her. She’s achieved all she can – given people permission to take a second look at her and her party. That won’t mean an immediate revival in Tory fortunes, but you can already see a slight improvement in the Tory polling position. Badenoch’s challenge now is to maintain the momentum she has built up over the autumn and translate it into votes. I still think the May elections will be bad for both Labour AND the Conservatives, but it may not be quite so bad for the Conservatives as previously thought. Not a high bar, maybe, but a step forward of sorts.
