Budget was one for party, not country

FOOTBALL managers who hear the chairman of the club loudly singing their praises and insisting they are safe in their jobs know that it is time to start looking around for a new post.

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So Chancellor Rachel Reeves may have felt a little shiver of fear on Monday as her boss, the Prime Minister, felt it necessary to call an emergency press conference to endorse both her and her Budget.

Of course there is an important difference between football club owners and the managers they employ. Sacking the manager does not, generally, bring about the chairman’s own downfall.

Sir Keir Starmer knows his own fate is inextricably linked to that of his Chancellor. They are politically joined at the hip. She goes and it is difficult to see how he doesn’t go too - either immediately or in fairly short order.

Rachel needed the PM to bolster her standing on Monday because of the unfortunate details which emerged within hours of her finishing her tax-rising, welfare boosting Budget last week. In essence, in her pre-Budget briefing, in early November, she misled the press and, therefore, the public and the City, by failing to tell the whole story about the size of the black hole in the public finances.