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The allegation carries significant weight: that Rachel Reeves has misled UK citizens, spooking them to accept massive extra taxes that could be spent on higher benefits. However exaggerated, this isn't usual Westminster bickering; on this occasion, the stakes are higher. Just last week, detractors of Reeves alongside Keir Starmer were labeling their budget "uncoordinated". Now, it is branded as falsehoods, with Kemi Badenoch calling for the chancellor to quit.

This grave accusation requires straightforward responses, therefore here is my view. Did the chancellor lied? Based on current information, no. She told no blatant falsehoods. But, notwithstanding Starmer's recent remarks, it doesn't follow that there's no issue here and we should move on. Reeves did mislead the public regarding the considerations shaping her decisions. Was it to channel cash to "welfare recipients", like the Tories claim? Certainly not, as the figures prove this.

A Standing Takes Another Hit, But Facts Should Prevail

The Chancellor has taken a further blow to her standing, however, should facts still matter in politics, Badenoch ought to stand down her lynch mob. Perhaps the resignation yesterday of OBR head, Richard Hughes, due to the leak of its own documents will quench SW1's thirst for blood.

But the true narrative is far stranger than media reports suggest, extending wider and further beyond the political futures of Starmer and his class of '24. Fundamentally, this is a story concerning how much say the public have in the running of the nation. And it should worry everyone.

Firstly, on to the Core Details

After the OBR released last Friday a portion of the projections it shared with Reeves as she wrote the red book, the surprise was immediate. Not merely has the OBR never done such a thing before (an "rare action"), its figures apparently contradicted Reeves's statements. While rumors from Westminster were about how bleak the budget would have to be, the watchdog's forecasts were improving.

Consider the government's most "iron-clad" fiscal rule, stating by 2030 daily spending on hospitals, schools, and the rest would be completely funded by taxes: at the end of October, the watchdog reckoned it would barely be met, albeit by a minuscule margin.

A few days later, Reeves held a media briefing so unprecedented that it caused morning television to interrupt its regular schedule. Several weeks before the real budget, the nation was warned: taxes were going up, with the main reason being pessimistic numbers from the OBR, in particular its conclusion suggesting the UK had become less productive, putting more in but yielding less.

And lo! It happened. Despite the implications from Telegraph editorials combined with Tory broadcast rounds implied over the weekend, this is basically what transpired during the budget, that proved to be big and painful and bleak.

The Deceptive Justification

Where Reeves deceived us was her justification, since these OBR forecasts didn't compel her actions. She might have made different options; she might have provided alternative explanations, even during the statement. Before last year's election, Starmer promised exactly such people power. "The promise of democracy. The power of the vote. The potential for national renewal."

One year later, yet it is powerlessness that is evident from Reeves's breakfast speech. Our first Labour chancellor for a decade and a half casts herself as an apolitical figure at the mercy of forces beyond her control: "Given the circumstances of the long-term challenges on our productivity … any finance minister of any party would be in this position today, confronting the decisions that I face."

She certainly make decisions, only not one the Labour party wishes to publicize. Starting April 2029 UK workers as well as businesses will be paying another £26bn a year in tax – and most of that will not go towards funding better hospitals, new libraries, nor happier lives. Whatever bilge comes from Nigel Farage, Badenoch and others, it isn't getting splashed on "benefits street".

Where the Money Really Goes

Rather than being spent, more than 50% of the extra cash will instead provide Reeves a buffer for her own budgetary constraints. Approximately 25% goes on paying for the government's own U-turns. Reviewing the watchdog's figures and being as generous as possible to a Labour chancellor, only 17% of the taxes will fund genuinely additional spending, for example scrapping the limit on child benefit. Removing it "will cost" the Treasury a mere £2.5bn, because it had long been an act of theatrical cruelty by George Osborne. This administration could and should abolished it immediately upon taking office.

The True Audience: The Bond Markets

Conservatives, Reform and the entire Blue Pravda have spent days barking about the idea that Reeves conforms to the stereotype of left-wing finance ministers, soaking hard workers to fund shirkers. Labour backbenchers have been applauding her budget as a relief to their troubled consciences, safeguarding the disadvantaged. Each group could be completely mistaken: Reeves's budget was largely aimed at investment funds, speculative capital and the others in the bond markets.

Downing Street can make a compelling argument for itself. The margins provided by the OBR were too small for comfort, especially given that lenders demand from 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 the policies to cap fuel bills, prescription charges as well as train fares, Starmer and Reeves argue their plan allows the central bank to cut its key lending rate.

It's understandable that those folk with Labour badges may choose not to couch it in such terms next time they're on the doorstep. According to a consultant for Downing Street says, Reeves has "utilised" the bond market as a tool of control over her own party and the electorate. It's the reason Reeves cannot resign, regardless of which promises are broken. It is also the reason Labour MPs will have to knuckle down and vote that cut billions from social security, as Starmer indicated recently.

Missing Statecraft , an Unfulfilled Pledge

What is absent from this is any sense of statecraft, of mobilising the finance ministry and the central bank to reach a new accommodation with investors. Missing too is any innate understanding of voters,