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This charge carries significant weight: suggesting Rachel Reeves may have misled UK citizens, frightening them into accepting massive additional taxes which could be used for increased welfare payments. However hyperbolic, this isn't typical political sparring; this time, the stakes are higher. Just last week, detractors aimed at Reeves alongside Keir Starmer were labeling their budget "disorderly". Today, it's branded as falsehoods, with Kemi Badenoch demanding the chancellor's resignation.

Such a grave charge demands straightforward answers, therefore here is my view. Has the chancellor lied? On the available evidence, apparently not. There were no blatant falsehoods. However, despite Starmer's yesterday's comments, that doesn't mean there's no issue here and we can all move along. The Chancellor did misinform the public about the considerations informing her decisions. Was it to funnel cash to "welfare recipients", like the Tories claim? Certainly not, and the numbers prove this.

A Reputation Takes A Further Blow, But Facts Must Prevail

Reeves has taken a further hit to her reputation, but, if facts still have anything to do with politics, Badenoch should stand down her lynch mob. Perhaps the stepping down yesterday of OBR head, Richard Hughes, over the unauthorized release of its internal documents will quench Westminster's thirst for blood.

But the true narrative is much more unusual compared to the headlines indicate, extending broader and deeper beyond the political futures of Starmer and the 2024 intake. Fundamentally, herein lies a story about how much say you and I have in the running of our own country. This should should worry you.

Firstly, to the Core Details

When the OBR published last Friday some of the forecasts it provided to Reeves as she prepared the budget, the shock was instant. Not only had the OBR never done such a thing before (described as an "exceptional move"), its numbers apparently went against Reeves's statements. Even as leaks from Westminster suggested the grim nature of the budget was going to be, the watchdog's forecasts were improving.

Take the Treasury's most "unbreakable" fiscal rule, that by 2030 daily spending on hospitals, schools, and other services would be wholly paid for by taxes: at the end of October, the OBR reckoned it would barely be met, albeit by a tiny margin.

A few days later, Reeves held a press conference so extraordinary it forced morning television to break from its regular schedule. Weeks before the actual budget, the nation was put on alert: taxes would rise, with the main reason being pessimistic numbers provided by the OBR, in particular its finding that the UK had become less efficient, investing more but yielding less.

And lo! It happened. Notwithstanding the implications from Telegraph editorials combined with Tory media appearances implied over the weekend, this is basically what transpired at the budget, which was significant, harsh, and grim.

The Misleading Justification

The way in which Reeves misled us concerned her alibi, because those OBR forecasts did not force her hand. She might have made other choices; she might have given alternative explanations, even on budget day itself. Prior to last year's election, Starmer pledged exactly such people power. "The promise of democracy. The power of the vote. The potential for national renewal."

One year later, yet it's a lack of agency that jumps out in Reeves's breakfast speech. The first Labour chancellor in 15 years casts herself as a technocrat buffeted by forces outside her influence: "Given the circumstances of the persistent challenges on our productivity … any chancellor of any party would be in this position today, facing the choices that I face."

She did make decisions, just not one the Labour party wishes to broadcast. From April 2029 UK workers as well as businesses will be paying another £26bn a year in tax – but the majority of this will not be funding improved healthcare, public services, or enhanced wellbeing. Whatever nonsense comes from Nigel Farage, Badenoch and their allies, it is not getting splashed on "welfare claimants".

Where the Cash Really Goes

Instead of going on services, more than 50% of this additional revenue will instead provide Reeves cushion for her self-imposed fiscal rules. About 25% goes on covering the administration's policy reversals. Reviewing the watchdog's figures and giving maximum benefit of the doubt to Reeves, a mere 17% of the taxes will go on genuinely additional spending, such as scrapping the limit on child benefit. Removing it "costs" the Treasury only £2.5bn, because it was always a bit of theatrical cruelty from George Osborne. A Labour government could and should have binned it in its first 100 days.

The Real Target: The Bond Markets

Conservatives, Reform along with the entire right-wing media have spent days barking about the idea that Reeves conforms to the stereotype of left-wing finance ministers, soaking hard workers to fund shirkers. Party MPs have been cheering her budget for being a relief to their troubled consciences, safeguarding the most vulnerable. Each group could be 180-degrees wrong: Reeves's budget was largely aimed at investment funds, hedge funds and the others in the financial markets.

The government could present a compelling argument in its defence. The forecasts provided by the OBR were insufficient to feel secure, especially considering bond investors charge the UK the highest interest rate among G7 developed nations – higher than France, which lost its leader, and exceeding Japan that carries way more debt. Combined with our measures to hold down fuel bills, prescription charges as well as train fares, Starmer together with Reeves can say their plan enables the central bank to cut interest rates.

It's understandable that those folk with Labour badges might not frame it this way next time they visit #Labourdoorstep. As one independent adviser to Downing Street says, Reeves has "utilised" financial markets as an instrument of discipline against Labour MPs and the voters. It's why Reeves cannot resign, regardless of which promises are broken. It's why Labour MPs will have to knuckle down and support measures that cut billions from social security, just as Starmer promised recently.

Missing Political Vision and a Broken Promise

What is absent here is any sense of statecraft, of harnessing the Treasury and the central bank to reach a new accommodation with markets. Also absent is any innate understanding of voters,