Labour’s promise not to raise our taxes is out of the window

It is possible to feel some sympathy for Rachel Reeves. She inherited a basketcase of a UK economy, straddled with mounting debt and rising borrowing costs, with ever-increasing public service bills to meet. Get out of that if you will.

That’s how the chancellor wants us to view her. As a victim of circumstance, someone who came into a job that others before her had messed up – notably Liz Truss – against a backdrop of long-term low productivity, heightened global fragility and uncertainty. That was her message this morning. Poor Rachel.

But then you remember what she said before she took the post, and in the first few months of sitting in the chair, how she would drive “further and faster” on economic growth. Sure, she blamed others. There was talk of finding a “black hole” in the accounts, variously put at anywhere between £25bn and £50bn. That would have to be filled – but, don’t worry, the super-charged, supremely able Reeves was in command and would steady the ship before accelerating forward.

She would manage that, too, without breaking a key pledge in the Labour manifesto, not to raise taxes on working people – namely income tax, national insurance and VAT.

That promise went out of the Downing Street window this morning.

The whole point of her rare, eve-of-Budget speech was to soften the coming blow. Holding her hand up, nevertheless, but also preparing to slap. In 22 days’ time, we will learn exactly what she was referring to, with “we will all have to contribute to that effort [to rebuild Britain]” and that “each of us must do our bit”.

Gone is the pretence. This was the new appointee saying they can’t hack it, they’re not up to the brief, they are unable to do what they said they would, which was the thing that got them appointed in the first place.

We, the public, those who trusted Reeves and her boss, Sir Keir Starmer, have every reason to feel betrayed. They said they could do it, and they can’t. Sufficient numbers believed in them to secure an overwhelming majority.

Meanwhile, they have the temerity to criticise the Brexit campaign for telling porkies on the sides of buses, Nigel Farage for lacking financial rigour and expertise.

Being chancellor is not easy, we get that. Ultimately, you’re dealing with the most tangible item that goes to the very heart of the government-individual relationship – the pound in the pocket. How you treat it matters; it’s what gets you elected, how you’re judged. Forget everything else: when voters put the cross on the paper, they ask themselves will I be better or worse off if they win?

Simple. Labour said “Absolutely”. They knew how to galvanise consumers and business, they would get Britain motoring again. After years of Tory torpor, the future was bright.

More than a year on, it hasn’t happened. Instead of lifting commerce and enterprise, and providing the encouragement that bosses require to commit, to make investments, to expand, they have done the opposite.

A series of blows – with the increase in employers’ National Insurance being the starkest, but there have been others – has shown what they really think of aspiration. This, despite repeatedly insisting before and after their triumph that they knew what was required, that they were listening.

It's the common complaint made about Reeves, that she is tin-eared. It’s obvious now that it’s true. They have told her consistently about having to grapple with rising costs, not least the minimum wage. Reeves has ploughed on regardless. They might as well have not been there, so deaf is she to their concerns.

Yet she and Starmer maintain they do care – and, what is more, they understand and have a solution. The reality is that Reeves is running on empty, defeated if she ever tried in the first place.

Britain has been blessed with great chancellors – most recently Gordon Brown, Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson. Reeves cannot hold a candle to them.

When her career at the Treasury is finally consigned to history, she will not belong in their company.