The Budget countdown is on, and with just over a week to go until Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s big fiscal statement her political opponents are keen to offer up their (unsolicited) advice. The media had to choose their fighter this morning as Reform’s Nigel Farage was speaking at exactly the same time that Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch took to the podium. The Tories set out their stall on the economy at their party conference in October – and today provided an opportunity for Badenoch and her shadow chancellor Mel Stride to reiterate their message: Labour is hiking taxes to protect benefits. ‘Everything else is a smokescreen,’ Badenoch advised her crowd.

The government is not, of course, going to introduce income tax rises – as the Financial Times reported last week – but the Tories a

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