13 h. ago The most misleading thing about Rachel Reeves’s budget? Who it was really for | Aditya Chakrabortty

Labour backbenchers have been cheering it as a win for the most vulnerable in socety. In fact it was aimed at the bond marketsThe charge is a grave one: that Rachel Reeves has just lied to Britons, spooking them into paying billions in extra taxes that she can splash out on higher benefits. However hyperbolic, this isn’t the usual Westminster sparring; this time, someone might get hurt. A week ago, critics of Reeves and Keir Starmer were, rightly, calling their budget “chaotic”. Today, it’s denounced as lies, and Kemi Badenoch is demanding the chancellor quit. It’s an accusation that demands straightforward answers, so let me give mine. Did the chancellor tell lies? On the available evidence, no. There were no whoppers, no falsehoods, no porkies. But despite Starmer’s comments yesterday, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to see here and we can all move along. Reeves did mislead the public about the factors shaping her decisions. Was it all to funnel cash to “benefits street”, as the...

Politics

30 h. ago Starmer says there was ‘no misleading’ by Chancellor ahead of Budget

Rachel Reeves has also reportedly been accused of misleading the Cabinet.

Politics

3 d. ago Rachel Reeves accused of misleading the UK over 'hard choices' and £30bn black hole

A letter from the Office for Budget Responsibility revealed it told the Chancellor that the spending gap would be much smaller, leading to claims she had 'lied to the public'

Economics

4 d. ago Rachel Reeves accused of misleading voters over £20bn Budget black hole – live updates

The fiscal watchdog said the chancellor knew about its revised prediction well before she changed course to raise taxes

Economics

4 d. ago Rachel Reeves accused of ‘misleading’ UK over £20bn Budget black hole – live updates

The fiscal watchdog said the chancellor knew about its revised prediction well before she changed course to raise taxes

Economics

5 d. ago Rachel Reeves's Budget shows Labour is reversing Tory injustice, Neil Kinnock says

Neil Kinnock, who called for the two-child benefit limit to be scrapped, says the Chancellor's decision to remove the policy is a 'fine way of combatting child poverty and good for the economy'

Politics

6 d. ago £14,000 handouts to 18,000 families: Reeves's Budget will raise taxes to fund benefits windfall for parents of six or more children

Official figures show the Chancellor's Budget plan to scrap the two-child benefit cap will be worth more than £14,000 a year each to 18,000 low-income families with six or more children.

Economics

6 d. ago £14,000 handouts to 18,000 families: Rachel Reeves's Budget will raise taxes to fund benefits windfall

Official figures show the Chancellor's Budget plan to scrap the two-child benefit cap will be worth more than £14,000 a year each to 18,000 low-income families with six or more children.

Economics

1 week ago What does the left want? A wealth tax. What will that accomplish? Very little | Aditya Chakrabortty

Imposing a 1% levy on the super-rich isn’t a policy, it’s pantomime. Tackling inequality in Britain will require much more far-reaching changesBy this time next week you will be digesting the budget, you lucky thing. Yet even before Rachel Reeves has commended a single damn thing to the house, her efforts have been written off as a “shambles”, from a “chaotic” government that is Labour in name alone. Which begs the question: what is the leftwing alternative?Because there is one, on which agreement stretches from Labour backbenchers to many of their opponent MPs and far beyond. Whether you listen to Zack Polanski or Zarah Sultana, the TUC or the YouTubers, they all call for a wealth tax – stinging the rich to pay for schools and hospitals. Who could be against such a thing?Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Economics

2 w. ago The real Reform voters have been revealed – it’s a slapdash coalition Farage will struggle to hold together | Aditya Chakrabortty

This is no single bloc marching under one ideology, or even a mass of ‘red-wall’ voters. What unites them is a desire for something differentWho are Nigel Farage’s army, the voters who want him as our next prime minister? Few questions are as important in British politics. Were an election called tomorrow, the favourite for No 10 would be Farage, whose immigration policies are in some ways more extreme than those of the BNP were. His party’s role model for government would be Donald Trump’s US: Elon Musk-style cuts to our public services and masked agents snatching families off the streets.A few months ago, many in Westminster and across the country would have considered this a cautionary nightmare, a catastrophe that would unfold if Keir Starmer failed. But in the week of another red-on-red assault and after 150 opinion polls in a row topped by Farage’s Reform UK, it’s no longer a scare story. It’s the most likely prospect. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago The Zohran Mamdani method can work beyond New York. Take the fight to the right | Aditya Chakrabortty

For too long, the centre has been adopting the language of the right but deploying it with greater civility – to disastrous endsZohran Mamdani was forged in the era of Donald Trump. He came to socialism through watching Bernie Sanders run for the US presidency in 2016, in the contest that ultimately gave us Trump I. Last November, a few days after the election of Trump II, he asked voters why they’d backed that guy. The conversations prepared Mamdani in his battle for New York, and the film of them reveals so much about the politics of this era that it repays watching.Those of us schooled in the tactics of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair might roll our eyes at yet another “listening exercise”, starring a powerbroker and his retinue in some beautifully lit hall, but this is no such thing. Here stands an unknown on a street corner in the Bronx, waving a placard as doughtily as a Seventh-Day Adventist. Rather than read off a Rolodex of platitudes, this politician sees his public – some of ...

Politics