We can all hold our heads higher...

Labour party's week to cheer as Chancellor brings joy to poorer homes

- BY LIZZY BUCHAN Political Editor, DAVE BURKE and ASHLEY COWBURN

FOR months, the Budget had been looming over Westminster like a dark cloud.

But on Wednesday night, MPs, ministers and government aides packed into Parliament's Strangers’ Bar to raise a glass.

A minister told us: “Its a good day, and we have to celebrate the good days.”

Good days have been few and far between for Labour recently amid speculation about Keir Starmer's leadership, backbench unrest and lagging polls ratings.

But, despite a chaotic run-up and the extraordinary leak of key details by the watchdog, the Chancellor came out fighting with a Budget which offered hope to hard-up households.

Labour MPs were delighted by the cost of living help for struggling families, including scrapping the two-child benefit limit - a move which is expected to lift 450,000 children out of poverty.

And they were bullish about the inevitable anger from right-wingers about the Chancellor's £26billion tax raid.

One MP told the Mirror: “If the Labour Party doesn't put dealing with child poverty at the centre of what we do, we're not the Labour Party. Of course, we'll have the Tories and Reform saying there are easy answers to complex problems, but we can all hold our heads higher this week.”