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.”
Former Treasury minister and adviser to Burnham in the Makerfield campaign Lord Jim O’Neill, who has turned down a role in his government, said Burnham’s first statement Commons was:
“The last thing investors wanted to hear… gilt yields have risen by a 0.25% in one day, which is a lot. We’ve not had that since Liz Truss days… If your country is under the focus of ‘can they come up with a sensible fiscal strategy’ on a day when the markets think ‘well no, you’re not showing any sign of it’ you’re going to have a tough day…if it stays like this your mortgage rate is going up.”