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The accusation carries significant weight: that Rachel Reeves may have lied to the British public, scaring them into accepting billions in additional taxes that could be spent on higher welfare payments. While exaggerated, this isn't typical Westminster bickering; this time, the stakes could be damaging. Just last week, critics of Reeves alongside Keir Starmer were labeling their budget "disorderly". Now, it is denounced as lies, and Kemi Badenoch demanding the chancellor to quit.

This grave accusation requires clear responses, so here is my assessment. Has the chancellor been dishonest? On the available information, apparently not. There were no major untruths. However, despite Starmer's yesterday's comments, it doesn't follow that there is nothing to see and we can all move along. Reeves did misinform the public about the considerations shaping her decisions. Was it to channel cash towards "welfare recipients", as the Tories assert? No, and the numbers demonstrate it.

A Standing Takes A Further Blow, Yet Truth Should Prevail

The Chancellor has taken a further hit to her standing, but, if facts continue to matter in politics, Badenoch ought to stand down her lynch mob. Perhaps the resignation recently of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) chief, Richard Hughes, due to the unauthorized release of its own documents will quench SW1's thirst for blood.

Yet the true narrative is far stranger compared to the headlines suggest, extending wider and further than the careers of Starmer and his class of '24. Fundamentally, herein lies an account about how much say you and I have over the governance of our own country. And it concern everyone.

First, on to the Core Details

When the OBR published recently a portion of the projections it shared with Reeves as she wrote the budget, the surprise was instant. Not merely has the OBR never acted this way before (described as an "rare action"), its figures seemingly went against Reeves's statements. Even as leaks from Westminster were about the grim nature of the budget would have to be, the watchdog's forecasts were improving.

Consider the government's most "unbreakable" rule, that by 2030 daily spending for hospitals, schools, and other services would be completely paid for by taxes: at the end of October, the OBR reckoned it would just about be met, albeit only by a minuscule margin.

Several days later, Reeves held a press conference so extraordinary it forced breakfast TV to break from its regular schedule. Several weeks before the actual budget, the nation was put on alert: taxes would rise, and the main reason cited as gloomy numbers from the OBR, in particular its conclusion suggesting the UK was less efficient, putting more in but yielding less.

And lo! It happened. Despite the implications from Telegraph editorials and Tory media appearances suggested recently, that is basically what happened during the budget, that proved to be big and painful and bleak.

The Misleading Justification

The way in which Reeves misled us concerned her justification, since those OBR forecasts didn't compel her actions. She might have chosen other choices; she might have given alternative explanations, even on budget day itself. Before the recent election, Starmer pledged exactly such public influence. "The hope of democracy. The power of the vote. The potential for national renewal."

One year later, yet it's a lack of agency that is evident in Reeves's pre-budget speech. The first Labour chancellor for a decade and a half casts herself as a technocrat at the mercy of factors outside her influence: "In the context of the long-term challenges with our productivity … any finance minister of any party would be in this position today, confronting the choices that I face."

She did make decisions, just not one the Labour party cares to broadcast. Starting April 2029 UK workers as well as businesses are set to be paying another £26bn annually in tax – and most of that will not be funding improved healthcare, new libraries, or enhanced wellbeing. Whatever bilge comes from Nigel Farage, Badenoch and their allies, it is not being lavished upon "welfare claimants".

Where the Money Really Goes

Rather than going on services, over 50% of this extra cash will in fact give Reeves cushion for her own fiscal rules. About 25% is allocated to covering the administration's policy reversals. Reviewing the watchdog's figures and giving maximum benefit of the doubt to a Labour chancellor, only 17% of the tax take will fund genuinely additional spending, such as abolishing the two-child cap on child benefit. Its abolition "costs" the Treasury only £2.5bn, as it had long been a bit of theatrical cruelty by George Osborne. A Labour government could and should abolished it in its first 100 days.

The Real Target: The Bond Markets

Conservatives, Reform and the entire right-wing media have been barking about how Reeves conforms to the stereotype of left-wing finance ministers, taxing strivers to spend on the workshy. Party MPs are applauding her budget as balm to their social concerns, protecting the most vulnerable. Both sides could be completely mistaken: Reeves's budget was largely aimed at investment funds, hedge funds and participants within the bond markets.

Downing Street could present a strong case in its defence. The forecasts provided by the OBR were too small to feel secure, especially given that bond investors charge the UK the greatest borrowing cost of all G7 rich countries – higher than France, which lost its leader, and exceeding Japan that carries far greater debt. Combined with the policies to cap fuel bills, prescription charges as well as train fares, Starmer together with Reeves can say this budget enables the Bank of England to reduce its key lending rate.

You can see that those folk with red rosettes may choose not to couch it in such terms next time they're on #Labourdoorstep. As one independent adviser to Downing Street puts it, Reeves has "weaponised" the bond market as an instrument of control over Labour MPs and the voters. This is the reason Reeves cannot resign, no matter what pledges she breaks. It is also why Labour MPs must fall into line and vote that cut billions from social security, just as Starmer promised recently.

A Lack of Political Vision , an Unfulfilled Promise

What's missing from this is any sense of statecraft, of harnessing the finance ministry and the central bank to reach a new accommodation with investors. Also absent is intuitive knowledge of voters,