During Prime Minister’s Questions this week, a goading Kemi Badenoch gleefully questioned which of Sir Keir Starmer’s frontbench had complained anonymously that the handling of the Budget had been a “disaster from start to finish”.

The Conservative leader went from one Cabinet member to another before claiming that perhaps it was the Chancellor herself who had made the damning admission. Rachel Reeves stared back with a pained half-smile, as her backbenchers sat behind stony-faced.

This was not how Downing Street and Labour MPs had hoped what was dubbed a “make or break” Budget would go. New Feature

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The run up to the biggest day in the Westminster calendar this week had been punctuated by missteps, U-turns and wild speculation that

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