Echo Comment on the “lie” debate about Reeves’ budget

Ms Reeves certainly gave the impression that there was a massive “black hole” that only a 2p rise in income tax would fill. But, sensing opposition from her own backbenchers, she quickly reverse ferreted on the income tax rise and then, on budget day itself, backed down on the black hole which mysteriously disappeared.

Ms Reeves did mislead. Whether it was a calculated lie is much harder to say because that suggests that Ms Reeves deliberately set out to deceive. Given the weeks of backtracking and u-turning before the budget, all the evidence suggests that the Treasury was too chaotic to calculate how to plant an untruth and what to gain from it.

If there was a coherent plan to lie, it is about the only thing this government has successfully delivered.

This debate is a political “he said, she said” knockabout that excites the commentariat around Whitehall but which just depresses those of us in the real world. Just as Labour’s evasive explanations about productivity gaps and fiscal headroom don’t really cut it, so Kemi Badenoch calling on Ms Reeves to resign every few minutes is just wearisome.

But there are parts of the budget that we do need to be forensically examined. For instance, is it true that, due to a business rates miscalculation, pubs face an average £12,000-a-year rise. That would surely be a calamitous blow to those brave survivors, and exactly what is happening needs to be explained.