Keir Starmer insisted today that Rachel Reeves did not mislead the public in the run up to the Budget.
The Chancellor delivered a series of hair-raising warnings about the state of the public finances in the weeks running up to the £30billion tax bomb.
But it has now emerged that the Treasury’s OBR watchdog told her as long ago as September that there was no ‘black hole’ in the government’s books.
In fact, while downgrades to productivity forecasts had wiped about £16billion off revenues, by the end of October Ms Reeves knew that had been more than offset by a £31billion upward revision thanks to effects such as inflation and a more tax-rich economy.
That meant that overall the public finances were in a small surplus, and most of the money Ms Reeves needed to raise was down to her own political choices.
A large chunk went on funding benefits, while the Chancellor doubled the slender ‘headroom’ against her fiscal rules in a bid to avoid being buffeted by future events.
On November 4 Ms Reeves held a highly unusual breakfast-time press conference flagging the productivity downgrades.
And on November 10 she further gaslighted the public by insisting the only way to avoid breaking Labour’s manifesto was to cut capital spending – something she was not willing to do.
Sir Keir cited the £16billion downgrade again today, while skirting over the other positive factors.
He argued it had been inevitable the government would need to raise taxes, adding: ‘So there was no misleading there.’
On the potential income tax hike, Sir Keir said: ‘There was a point at which we did think we would have to breach the manifesto in order to achieve what we wanted to achieve. Later on, it became possible to do it without the manifesto breach.’
Now it’s time to have your say in the Daily Mail’s latest poll – do you agree with the Prime Minister’s claim that there was ‘no misleading’ in the Budget?
In the weekend’s poll, Mail readers were asked: ‘Should Rachel Reeves resign after ‘lying’ to the nation in the run-up to her Benefits Street Budget?‘ Out of more than 60,000 votes, 98 per cent of you said ‘yes’ and 2 per cent of you said ‘no’
