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This allegation is a serious one: that Rachel Reeves may have deceived the British public, spooking them into accepting massive additional taxes that could be used for increased welfare payments. However hyperbolic, this is not usual political sparring; on this occasion, the consequences could be damaging. A week ago, detractors aimed at Reeves and Keir Starmer were calling their budget "uncoordinated". Now, it is branded as lies, and Kemi Badenoch calling for the chancellor's resignation.

This grave accusation demands clear answers, therefore here is my view. Has the chancellor lied? On the available evidence, no. She told no major untruths. However, notwithstanding Starmer's recent remarks, that doesn't mean there is nothing to see and we can all move along. The Chancellor did misinform the public regarding the considerations informing her decisions. Was this all to funnel cash to "welfare recipients", as the Tories assert? Certainly not, and the figures demonstrate this.

A Reputation Sustains A Further Hit, Yet Truth Should Prevail

The Chancellor has sustained another blow to her reputation, but, should facts still have anything to do with politics, Badenoch ought to stand down her lynch mob. Maybe the resignation recently of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) chief, Richard Hughes, due to the leak of its internal documents will quench Westminster's thirst for blood.

But the real story is far stranger than the headlines suggest, and stretches broader and deeper beyond the political futures of Starmer and his 2024 intake. At its heart, this is a story about how much say the public have over the running of our own country. This should concern everyone.

First, to the Core Details

After the OBR published last Friday some of the forecasts it provided to Reeves while she wrote the red book, the surprise was immediate. Not merely had the OBR not acted this way before (an "rare action"), its figures apparently contradicted the chancellor's words. Even as leaks from Westminster were about how bleak the budget would have to be, the OBR's own forecasts were getting better.

Consider the government's most "unbreakable" fiscal rule, that by 2030 day-to-day spending on hospitals, schools, and other services must be completely funded by taxes: in late October, the OBR reckoned this would just about be met, albeit by a minuscule margin.

A few days later, Reeves gave a media briefing so extraordinary it forced morning television to interrupt its usual fare. Several weeks before the actual budget, the country was warned: taxes would rise, with the primary cause cited as gloomy numbers from the OBR, in particular its finding suggesting the UK was less productive, putting more in but yielding less.

And lo! It happened. Despite what Telegraph editorials combined with Tory media appearances suggested over the weekend, this is essentially what happened at the budget, which was big and painful and bleak.

The Misleading Alibi

The way in which Reeves misled us concerned her alibi, because these OBR forecasts did not compel her actions. She might have made other choices; she could have given other reasons, including on budget day itself. Before last year's election, Starmer pledged exactly such people power. "The promise of democracy. The power of the vote. The potential for national renewal."

A year on, and it is a lack of agency that is evident in Reeves's breakfast speech. The first Labour chancellor for a decade and a half portrays herself to be a technocrat at the mercy of forces beyond her control: "Given the circumstances of the persistent challenges on our productivity … any chancellor of any political stripe would be in this position today, facing the decisions that I face."

She did make a choice, just not one Labour cares to publicize. Starting April 2029 UK workers and businesses are set to be contributing an additional £26bn a year in taxes – but the majority of this will not be funding better hospitals, new libraries, nor happier lives. Regardless of what bilge comes from Nigel Farage, Badenoch and others, it isn't getting splashed on "benefits street".

Where the Cash Really Goes

Instead of being spent, more than 50% of this extra cash will instead provide Reeves cushion against her own fiscal rules. About 25% goes on covering the government's own policy reversals. Reviewing the watchdog's figures and giving maximum benefit of the doubt to a Labour chancellor, a mere 17% of the tax take will fund genuinely additional spending, for example abolishing the two-child cap on child benefit. Its abolition "costs" the Treasury only £2.5bn, because it had long been an act of theatrical cruelty by George Osborne. This administration could and should have binned it in its first 100 days.

The True Audience: Financial Institutions

The Tories, Reform along with the entire Blue Pravda have been railing against the idea that Reeves fits the stereotype of left-wing finance ministers, taxing hard workers to spend on shirkers. Labour backbenchers are cheering her budget as a relief for their social concerns, protecting the disadvantaged. Each group are completely mistaken: The Chancellor's budget was primarily aimed at investment funds, speculative capital and participants within the financial markets.

The government can make a strong case for itself. The forecasts provided by the OBR were insufficient for comfort, especially given that lenders demand from the UK the highest interest rate of all G7 rich countries – higher than France, which lost its leader, higher than Japan that carries far greater debt. Combined with the measures to hold down fuel bills, prescription charges and train fares, Starmer and Reeves can say this budget allows the Bank of England to reduce interest rates.

You can see why those wearing red rosettes might not frame it in such terms when they visit #Labourdoorstep. According to one independent adviser for Downing Street says, Reeves has "weaponised" financial markets as an instrument of control against her own party and the electorate. This is why the chancellor cannot resign, no matter what promises are broken. It's the reason Labour MPs will have to knuckle down and support measures to take billions off social security, just as Starmer promised recently.

A Lack of Political Vision , a Broken Promise

What's missing from this is any sense of strategic governance, of mobilising the Treasury and the Bank to forge a new accommodation with markets. Also absent is any innate understanding of voters,