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This charge is a serious one: suggesting Rachel Reeves has misled UK citizens, scaring them to accept billions in additional taxes that could be funneled into higher welfare payments. However exaggerated, this isn't usual Westminster bickering; on this occasion, the consequences are higher. A week ago, critics of Reeves and Keir Starmer had been labeling their budget "chaotic". Today, it's branded as lies, and Kemi Badenoch calling for the chancellor to quit.

Such a grave accusation demands straightforward responses, so here is my view. Did the chancellor been dishonest? On current information, no. There were no whoppers. However, notwithstanding Starmer's yesterday's comments, that doesn't mean there's nothing to see and we can all move along. The Chancellor did misinform the public regarding the considerations shaping her choices. Was it to channel cash to "benefits street", like the Tories assert? No, as the numbers prove this.

A Standing Sustains Another Blow, But Facts Should Prevail

The Chancellor has taken a further blow to her standing, however, should facts still have anything to do with politics, Badenoch should stand down her lynch mob. Maybe the resignation yesterday of OBR head, Richard Hughes, due to the unauthorized release of its own documents will satisfy SW1's appetite for scandal.

But the real story is much more unusual than media reports suggest, extending wider and further beyond the political futures of Starmer and the 2024 intake. Fundamentally, herein lies an account concerning what degree of influence the public get over the governance of the nation. And it concern everyone.

Firstly, to the Core Details

When the OBR published last Friday a portion of the projections it shared with Reeves as she prepared the red book, the surprise was immediate. Not merely had the OBR never acted this way before (an "rare action"), its figures seemingly contradicted Reeves's statements. While leaks from Westminster were about the grim nature of the budget was going to be, the OBR's own predictions were improving.

Take the government's so-called "iron-clad" fiscal rule, stating by 2030 daily spending on hospitals, schools, and other services would be completely funded by taxes: in late October, the OBR reckoned this would barely be met, albeit by a minuscule margin.

Several days later, Reeves gave a media briefing so extraordinary that it caused morning television to interrupt its regular schedule. Several weeks prior to the actual budget, the country was put on alert: taxes were going up, and the primary cause cited as pessimistic numbers from the OBR, in particular its conclusion suggesting the UK was less efficient, investing more but yielding less.

And so! It came to pass. Despite the implications from Telegraph editorials combined with Tory media appearances implied recently, that is essentially what happened during the budget, which was big and painful and bleak.

The Misleading Justification

Where Reeves misled us was her alibi, since these OBR forecasts didn't force her hand. She might have made different options; she could have provided alternative explanations, including on budget day itself. Before the recent election, Starmer promised exactly such people power. "The hope of democracy. The strength of the vote. The potential for national renewal."

One year later, and it is powerlessness that is evident in Reeves's pre-budget speech. Our first Labour chancellor for a decade and a half portrays herself to be a technocrat buffeted by factors outside her influence: "In the context of the persistent challenges on our productivity … any chancellor of any party would be standing here today, facing the choices that I face."

She certainly make a choice, just not one Labour wishes to publicize. From April 2029 UK workers and businesses are set to be paying an additional £26bn a year in taxes – and the majority of this will not be spent on improved healthcare, public services, nor happier lives. Regardless of what nonsense is spouted by Nigel Farage, Badenoch and others, it isn't being lavished upon "benefits street".

Where the Cash Actually Ends Up

Instead of being spent, more than 50% of this additional revenue will in fact give Reeves cushion for her self-imposed budgetary constraints. Approximately 25% is allocated to paying for the government's own policy reversals. Reviewing the watchdog's figures and being as generous as possible to a Labour chancellor, only 17% of the taxes will go on actual new spending, such as scrapping the two-child cap on child benefit. Its abolition "will cost" the Treasury a mere £2.5bn, as it was always a bit of political theatre from George Osborne. A Labour government could and should have binned it immediately upon taking office.

The True Audience: The Bond Markets

Conservatives, Reform and the entire Blue Pravda have spent days railing against the idea that Reeves conforms to the stereotype of left-wing finance ministers, soaking hard workers to spend on the workshy. Labour backbenchers are cheering her budget as a relief for their troubled consciences, protecting the disadvantaged. Both sides are 180-degrees wrong: Reeves's budget was primarily aimed at investment funds, speculative capital and participants within the financial markets.

Downing Street could present a compelling argument in its defence. The margins from the OBR were deemed too small to feel secure, particularly considering lenders demand from the UK the greatest borrowing cost of all G7 rich countries – exceeding that of France, which lost its leader, and exceeding Japan that carries far greater debt. Coupled with the policies to hold down fuel bills, prescription charges as well as train fares, Starmer and Reeves argue this budget allows the central bank to reduce its key lending rate.

It's understandable why those folk with Labour badges might not frame it in such terms next time they're on the doorstep. According to a consultant for Downing Street puts it, Reeves has effectively "weaponised" the bond market to act as an instrument of discipline against Labour MPs and the voters. This is the reason the chancellor can't resign, regardless of which promises she breaks. It's the reason Labour MPs will have to fall into line and support measures to take billions off social security, just as Starmer promised yesterday.

A Lack of Political Vision and a Broken Promise

What's missing from this is the notion of strategic governance, of harnessing the finance ministry and the central bank to reach a new accommodation with investors. Also absent is any innate understanding of voters,