In all the speculation about Rachel Reeves’ second budget, one thing the leaks hadn’t refered to was that it would leave Britain with the highest tax burden in post war history – by raising an extra 26 billion pounds.
The biggest chunk of that will come from extending the freeze on income tax and national insurance thresholds, so more people will over time pay more.
Welfare spending is going up – with the two child cap on benefits scrapped – to huge cheers from Labour backbenchers.
The Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch let rip both at the speech, which she called "a budget for Benefits Street" and at Ms Reeves personally as "a woman wallowing in self pity; whining about mansplaining and misogyny."
For a budget that was pretty predictable there was one big surprise. It was accidentally published on the internet, in the hour before Ms Reeves started speaking, by the very economists who are supposed to check the government’s numbers
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