Rachel Reeves found herself in an uncomfortable position today when confronted with past remarks where she promised not to request additional tax increases. This occurred as she faced scrutiny over her latest tax-heavy budget proposal.
While appearing on Sky News, the Chancellor had to endure the awkwardness of watching herself in a previous video where she addressed a prior substantial tax package.
In footage from a year earlier, Reeves confidently stated that the £40 billion tax hike had ‘wiped the slate clean,’ implying that further tax increases wouldn’t be necessary.
She assured the public, “We don’t need to come back for more. There’s no need for another budget like this.”
While making rounds on morning news shows to justify the new fiscal measures, presenter Trevor Phillips challenged her on these past assurances, asking, “That wasn’t true, was it?”
A visibly unsettled Reeves responded by pointing to productivity downgrades reported by the Treasury’s Office for Budget Responsibility as the root of the current financial challenges.
That is despite the independent body having revealed that it was telling Ms Reeves months ago that productivity downgrades had been largely wiped out by better-than-expected tax revenues.
By the end of October the OBR was predicting that the government would be running a small surplus, with Labour’s U-turns on winter fuel allowance, benefits reforms and the two-child benefit cap the only things pushing the finances into the red.
Rachel Reeves was confronted with footage of herself vowing Labour ‘won’t be back for more’ today as she struggled to justify her latest tax bomb Budget
The Chancellor had to sit awkwardly on Sky News while her words from the aftermath of the last record-breaking tax package were played out
Ms Reeves said: ‘Well, the budget this year was not on the scale of the one last year, but as I set out in my speech at the beginning of November, the context for this budget did change and I did have to ask people to contribute more.
‘And the biggest thing that happened between the spring forecast and the forecast that the Office of Budget Responsibility provided for this budget was a big downgrade in productivity.’
Phillips persisted that what Ms Reeves said was ‘literally not true’, suggesting she should be up front that ‘what you thought you were going to be able to do, turned out not to be the case’.
Ms Reeves again argued that the reasons were ‘not in my control’.
The Chancellor also dragged Keir Starmer into the crisis today amid rising fury, saying the PM had been fully aware of what she was doing.
She insisted OBR’s downgrades were to blame for her decision to heap another £30billlion on taxes – even though the watchdog had in fact been informing her privately that there was no structural black hole in the finances.
And she denied that her extraordinary fear-mongering about the state of the government’s books amounted to lying.
Ms Reeves spent weeks before the fiscal package was unveiled talking up how the independent body had found a huge black hole in the books.
By the end of October the OBR (headed by Richard Hughes, pictured) was predicting that the government would be running a small surplus
A letter from the OBR to the Treasury Select Committee has been published spelling out the timetable of exactly what forecasts were provided to the Chancellor as she drew up her Budget package
However, it has emerged that the OBR told her as long ago as September that productivity downgrades were being offset by better tax revenues.
In fact by the end of October Budget forecasts were showing her running a small surplus, with only Labour’s own political choices to boost benefits meaning that she needed to impose a massive package of tax hikes.
Ms Reeves admitted she did know that she was running a surplus when she gave an extraordinary breakfast-time speech talking up the grim state of the public finances.
But she denied ‘lying’ to the public about the situation, arguing that she needed a bigger buffer to avoid markets panicking about government debt.
However, in a heated exchange on the BBC with the leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch called her out for deceiving the electorate about the Budget.
The Chancellor looked away as she was stared down by Mrs Badenoch on screen before their separate interviews.
Following the awkward moment, Ms Reeves complained that she had been made ‘uncomfortable’ by the Opposition chief’s brutal attacks in the Commons.
She swiped that Mrs Badenoch had been ‘personal’ in her jibes, which included ridiculing the Chancellor’s gripes about ‘mansplaining’.
Rachel Reeves studiously avoided meeting the gaze of Tory leader Kemi Badenoch as they both prepared to be interviewed on the BBC this morning
Ms Reeves complained that she had been made ‘uncomfortable’ by the Opposition chief’s brutal attacks on the Budget in the Commons
Mrs Badenoch told presenter Laura Kuenssberg that her ‘job is to hold the Government to account, not to provide emotional support for the Chancellor’
But Mrs Badenoch told presenter Laura Kuenssberg that her ‘job is to hold the Government to account, not to provide emotional support for the Chancellor’.
She said that Labour ministers ‘like to dish it but they can’t take it’ and repeated her demand for Ms Reeves to quit for ‘telling lies’.
Asked about Mrs Badenoch’s Commons attacks on the Budget, Ms Reeves said: ‘I don’t like that sort of stuff. I don’t do it. I try to concentrate on policies rather than personalities.
‘I would just say that Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss’s budget, she said was 100 per cent right, so I’m not totally sure whether her judgment chimes with the British public.
‘But as a politician, I have always tried to focus on the issues and not the personalities. It’s just not the sort of politics that I do.
‘So, yes, I was a bit uncomfortable listening to that, because it’s not really the way that I behave, but people are entitled to deliver the Budget response that they want and she focused on personalities.
‘I would have preferred to hear Kemi Badenoch set out her alternative economic proposals. We haven’t heard that.’
But Mrs Badenoch dismissed the idea she had gone too far.
‘I remember last year’s Budget – Rachel Reeves took a swipe at me, I wasn’t even Leader of the Opposition then – she’s forgotten now,’ she said.
‘I remember when Rachel Reeves was out there calling Rishi Sunak a liar. I remember when they were all calling Liz Truss a lettuce.
Despite the on-screen froideur, behind-the-scenes photos suggest that the pair did share a joke at one point
‘But now it’s them and I’m merely talking about her competence. They can’t take it. They like to dish it, but they can’t take it.
‘My job is to hold the Government to account, not to provide emotional support for the Chancellor and the people out there wanted someone to tell her she was doing a bad job, and I had to make sure that I got that message across.’
Ms Badenoch added: ‘I don’t care whether people misbehave at the despatch box. What I care about is whether or not I’m doing a good job.
‘She should care about whether or not she’s doing a good job – she’s doing a terrible job.’
She said: ‘The Chancellor called an emergency press conference telling everyone about how terrible the state of the finances were and now we have seen that the OBR had told her the complete opposite.
‘She was raising taxes to pay for welfare.
‘The only thing that was unfunded was the welfare payments which she has made and she’s doing it on the backs of a lot of people out there who are working very hard and getting poorer.
‘And because of that, I believe she should resign.’
Ms Badenoch added: ‘The shadow chancellor Mel Stride has written to the FCA.
‘Hopefully there will be an investigation, because it looks like what she was doing was trying to pitch-roll her budget – tell everyone how awful it would be and then they wouldn’t be as upset when she finally announced it – and still sneak in those tax rises to pay for welfare.
‘That’s not how we should be running this process. We need people to have confidence in our system, in what the Chancellor is going to announce.’
Despite the on-screen froideur, behind-the-scenes photos suggest that the pair did share a joke at one point.
