Ultimately, the anticipated Labour Budget has lived up to its expectations as a classic tax-and-spend approach, as suggested by prior leaks and speculations.

However, its implications are even more profound, signaling a new chapter for Britain where elevated taxes and public spending become the standard.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ two Budgets have effectively ingrained the tax hikes and spending increases necessitated by the pandemic into the economy, subsequently adding further taxes and expenditures.

This transformation marks a departure from the economic landscape from 1980 to 2020, characterized by both Conservative and Labour administrations. It represents a pivotal moment in our economic narrative. The tax burden, which hovered just above 30% of GDP, is now approaching over 38% and is expected to remain at that level for the foreseeable future.

Previously under 40% of GDP, public spending is now on track to reach 45% or more. Although both metrics surged during the pandemic for valid reasons, the decision to maintain them at these elevated levels rests with Labour.

The financial burden on taxpayers is significant.

Taxes will rise another £26billion by the end of the decade on top of the £40billion the Chancellor levied in her first Budget last autumn – taken together it is the biggest tax rise any government has inflicted since Labour was last in thrall to tax-and-spend economics in the 1970s, the most miserable decade in Britain’s post-war history.

The Tories froze income tax thresholds in 2022-23 to repair the damage done to the nation’s finances by the pandemic.

Just under 5million middle-income earners will have been dragged into the 40 per cent band after Reeves’ Budget

It was scheduled to expire in April, 2028, which was more than long enough. But Reeves has extended it for another three years, which means by 2031 the thresholds will have been frozen for a decade.

This makes it the biggest stealth tax in history. Over almost 10 years, workers will pay a cumulative extra £100billion in income tax as a result of the freeze alone. During that period over 5million low-paid workers who previously had not paid income tax will have been dragged into the 20 per cent bracket.

Just under 5million middle-income earners will have been dragged into the 40 per cent band, originally designed only for those earning the big bucks.

It is all so unfair on the ‘working people’ Labour professes to champion. But it’s what you have to do if you want to sustain public spending at its new high level.

However, what makes Labour spending especially iniquitous is that it involves a massive redistribution of money from working people and savers to people living on benefits.

Keir Starmer and his Chancellor concocted this Budget to appease Labour’s Soft Left, which now dominates its backbenches in the Commons. They did so to save their own skins. The conventional wisdom is that it has bought them both some time. I’m not so sure. It could start to unravel very quickly once people work out what it actually entails.

At a time when the ravages of inflation are allowed for a decade to force working people into tax brackets never designed for them, the Budget continues to index-link benefit payments and lavishes even more money on the welfare system. So alarm-clock Britain is penalised while sleep-in, do-nothing Britain is rewarded.

The scale of welfare spending is under-appreciated. The welfare bill, currently £314billion, will increase by £73billion to £406billion over the next five years.

Within that overall total, health-related and disability benefits will rise from £77billion to £109billion by 2030. Welfare spending is out of control and, far from Labour getting a grip, it is pouring petrol on the fire.

Sor Keir Starmer and his Chancellor concocted this Budget to appease Labour’s Soft Left, which now dominates its backbenches in the Commons 

As part of the Starmer-Reeves skin-saving exercise, the Chancellor abolished the two-child benefit cap at an annual cost of £3billion. A year ago Reeves insisted the country could not afford to scrap the cap.

Yesterday, even though almost every economic indicator has since worsened, she donned the mantle of the child poverty crusader to remove the cap and strut before Labour backbenchers.

The hypocrisy was nauseating. Working folk are picking up the tab for her virtue-signalling.

They are also paying for the £9billion extra in welfare as a result of Labour chickening out of welfare reform. Surrender to Labour’s backbenchers doesn’t come cheap these days. There are now 6.5million people of working age on out-of-work benefits. The number is rising fast.

The Government has no plans to do anything about it. The Labour Party should rename itself the Welfare Party – or risk being prosecuted under the trade descriptions act.

The anger of the people will not be long in coming when the mess we’re in fully dawns on them.

It is then Labour MPs, so pleased for the moment now that Starmer-Reeves are dancing to their Soft Left tune, will feel the full force of the people’s wrath.

This government is on the wrong side of almost every economic indicator. The highest inflation in the G7, now forecast to stay high for longer than previously forecast. The fastest rising tax burden in the G7. The highest borrowing costs in the G7, even before the bond markets (where governments go to borrow) have worked out that Reeves’ so-called smorgasbord of multiple tax rises will not deliver the predicted revenues – and that when it comes to Budgets, smorgasbord is a Swedish word for omnishambles.

The one record Starmer boasted he’d set – the fastest growing economy in the G7 – lies in shards. True, the official forecaster increased its estimate of growth for this year – then downgraded the growth forecast for every year after that. So much for Starmer’s claim that growth would be the core mission of his government. It barely merited a mention from Reeves yesterday.

Nor was there anything in the Budget to restore the economy’s animal spirits. No supply-side reforms to improve efficiency. No inducements to attract foreign investment – or even encourage British business to invest more.

Unemployment rises every month and almost 1million young people are without a job, training or education. We remain awash in a sea of debt and deficits which only magically starts to come right towards the end of the decade when the Budget’s backloaded tax rises click in.

By then, of course, an election will be looming. If you believe Labour would then stick to yesterday’s fiscal plans you probably think you have fairies at the bottom of your garden.

This is a government bereft of vision, purpose or inspiration. Its only purpose is to survive.

It is overwhelmingly consumed by its need to balance the costly baubles it dishes out to the Soft Left while keeping a wary eye on the bond markets lest it goes too far and the bond vigilantes come gunning for it.

It has created a country in which strivers and savers are not welcome. No wonder there’s a rush for the door, which this Budget will only exacerbate.

The Office for Budget Responsibility recognises savers are being savaged. It forecasts the household savings rate will collapse from six per cent to two per cent during the rest of the decade. So much for encouraging saving

In opposition. Labour made much of stagnant living standards under the Tories. It was right to do so. Incredibly, the latest official forecasts show living standards increasing at an even more sclerotic rate – about half a per cent a year – than under the last government.

The prognosis is grim. The first four years of this decade were hardly stellar under the Tories. The five under Labour – if it survives that long – don’t look like being any better.

Indeed, after yesterday’s Budget they will be even worse. The sad truth is that we are in the midst of a Lost Decade for Britain – and it is working people who are paying the price.

They have been sorely betrayed by a bunch of second-rate chancers.