Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is now desperately insisting that the budget briefings haven’t felt chaotic. Speaking on Times Radio, Nandy claimed:
“It doesn’t feel chaotic, I think, to most people who are getting on with their daily lives and not speculating themselves about the budget. Obviously, the budget has major implications for people across the country. And so we will discuss it.”
Meanwhile Treasury officials are frantically trying to spin the screeching U-turn on income tax hikes as the result of “improved OBR forecasts”. The obvious spin may not survive the scrutiny of the markets. At this rate, will Reeves even limp through to the Winter Budget…
Ex-IFS head Paul Johnson said Reeves misled the nation with her pre-Budget spin after it was revealed the OBR had uprated expected tax receipts long before November:
“I think it [her November 4 ‘tax rises are coming’ press conference] probably was misleading. It was clearly intended to have an impact and confirm what independent forecasters like NIESR and the IFS had been saying. It was designed to confirm a narrative that there was a fiscal black hole that needed to be filled with significant tax rises. In fact, as she knew at the time, no such hole existed.”