If Rachel Reeves was being judged on her ability to come up with excuses, then she’d be top of her class. From Brexit to fourteen years of Tory government, from the Truss mini-Budget to the weather, the Chancellor has compiled a comprehensive list of reasons why she needs to hike taxes in this month’s Budget and why it’s taxpayers who have to tighten their belts, rather than the Treasury.

Even as the economic pressures are mounting, Reeves’s answer is always the same: squeeze households harder

When she stands up on the 26th of November to deliver her second Budget, Reeves will do so against a backdrop of genuine fiscal crisis. Government debt is around 100 per cent of GDP, with 30-year gilt yields are at 5.2 per cent, higher than the post-mini-Budget spike back in 2022. This gives the UK

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