Echo Comment on the "lie" debate about Reeves' budget

THE world of politics is alive with whether or not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, misled the country, or even lied to it, in the run-up to last week’s 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