Labour insiders are increasingly restive over the ‘dire’ comms plan around the Budget. Reeves’s team cancelled a scheduled TV interview at no notice with GB News and Times Radio – basic poor comms handling. Meanwhile, her major defensive line is that she wouldn’t want to repeat her own budget. Needs some work…
Elsewhere, the financial media has been neglected after a series of ‘curious’ briefing decisions – including a string of denials which subsequently proved to be true when the Budget documents were released. The biggest was HMT spinners getting the expected tax rises wrong by £5 billion…
UPDATE: Reeves has also declined to appear on Martin Lewis’ Money Show this evening to defend her budget.
Red Wall Labour backbencher Jonathan Brash told GB News that Starmer should resign:
“I’m completely fed up about it, and I think it’s got to the point now where I genuinely think that, as far as the Prime Minister is concerned, it’s not a case of if, it’s when.”