It is easy to criticise the Budget. The process was a chaotic mess. For many on the right, Rachel Reeves’s £26 billion tax raid to placate Labour MPs was a form of madness as well as badness. But good politics means understanding your opponents. One former No. 10 Tory thinks there was method in the madness: ‘It totally makes sense for Labour to move to the left.’

Nearly half of those who voted Labour last year would not vote for the party today. The number of voters fleeing Labour to the right – to Reform or the Tories – has remained steady since January at between 13 and 16 per cent, or one in seven of their 2024 voter base. Two-thirds of those votes have been lost to Reform.

‘They should be saying: “We’re taxing the rich to pay for public services”’

However, the number of votes being

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