BUDGET PANTOMIME: “SHE’S BENEATH YOU!” TWOP put together a quick take on the totally useless Budget on Wednesday evening. Although it was TWOP’s first Budget, the measures announced were so anti-climactic that it seemed hard to justify giving the announcement much notice, but the spectacular subsequent political fall-out is a gift that just keeps giving (unlike the Chancellor.)

Rache has spent the last four days under increasing pressure as every objective commentator confirmed that the grim “black hole” she had warned of before the Budget had evaporated. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) revealed that wage and therefore tax growth in 2024/5 had more than offset productivity downgrades: undermining the case the “Chancellor” had made publicly and aggressively for sweeping tax rises. Critics, including Kemi Badenoch, riding high after her best Commons performance as LOTO, now accuse Rache of misleading the House AND THE COUNTRY. (Kiran Stacey and Mark Brown, The Guardian – Sunday 30th November, 2025.)

In response, Reeves has just “dug in”, insisting that she did not lie and arguing the tax rises were about building a fiscal buffer, rather than short-term political crisis management. (Jennifer Kiernan, BBC – Sunday 30th November 2025.)

But Rache’s unsubstantiated if aggressive denial does not neutralise the political danger the Chancellor finds herself in (Rachel Sylvester, The Observer – Sunday 30th November, 2025. Paywalled but you can read one article before having to pay or flushing cookies.) At the Parliamentary level, despite having just given in to her left-wing backbenchers, she is increasingly regarded as both unreliable and “unsellable.” Meanwhile in the country at large households brace for higher tax bills with growth as sluggish as ever, despite the government’s protestations that growth is their top priority. The government’s credibility has taken a one-way dive in to absurdly obvious incompetence.

Was the OBR “Reveal” deliberate?

Even while the Budget was still being delivered it was becoming clear that the OBR’s final pre-Budget report had made it clear that improved wage growth in 2024/5 had produced higher than expected tax receipts and an improved fiscal situation, even sans hoped-for productivity growth. I think it looks quite possible that the OBR took pre-emptive revenge.

Badenoch finds her groove

For the Conservative opposition, the timing could not have been better. Badenoch’s Budget response in the Commons was widely recognised as her best yet — tough, direct and sharply focused. She hit Reeves for “statistical gamble” economics, exposed the inconsistency between Labour’s manifesto and its tax hikes and painted a clear narrative: “promised tax-neutrality, delivered stealth tax rises.”

With working-class voters increasingly sensitive to cost-of-living pain, the risk for Labour is that this Budget will not look like progressive prudence, but more like punitive price-hikes ,dressed as necessity, all too probably to be ineffectively blamed on the Tories.

Criticism of Badenoch’s speech focused on how “unfair” it was for Kemi to go after Reeves on a personal basis. This critique echoes the Chancellor’s own whingeing complaints about “mansplaining” and being criticised for being a woman. Sadly, Reeves is just financially and mathematically incompetent and, extraordinarily, politically insensitive too. This does not need mansplaining: Reeves has a mix of characteristics and attitudes that should end anyone’s political ambitions. Well done Kemi.

Torsten Bell: a word of caution

TWOP had the deep misfortune to listen to Torsten Bell post-Budget interview by Evan Davis in his kindly uncle mode on Wednesday’s BBCR4 PM. It is not TWOP’s habit to pick up radio content from TikTok but it’s worth watching the interchange https://www.tiktok.com/@bbcradio4/video/7577110942492675350 as well as listening to the interview on BBC Sounds (where it will be available only until 25 December – Happy Christmas!) from 35mins 37secs in https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002mmxv.

TWOP usually has a lot of time for Bell’s Resolution Foundation familiarity with the metrics of benefits, economic and fiscal understanding and general competence. But this interview…never has there been a more obvious or less attractive demonstration of having your fingers caught in the till. It seems that Bell knew the Budget was nonsense and goes in to full-on monstrous assertion mode. It’s really not a good look (or sound!)

Back to think-tankery for you Mr Bell until you can find a more appealing political manner.

Sudden retreat on workers’ rights

The government’s decision to water down their proposed “Day One” unfair-dismissal right, shifting from immediate protection to a six-month qualifying period, has triggered outrage from trade unions and many on the Labour left. (Jessica Elgot and Richard Partington, The Guardian – Thursday 27th November, 2025)

A Bill that was sold as a manifesto banner headline now strolls through Parliament wearing a business lobby suit. For all the government’s talk about fairness and dignity at work, this looks like a cynical U-turn and one more example of rhetoric colliding with reality, resulting in retreat rather than reform.

Justice, liberties and back-office desk jobs, not juries

Amid all the fiscal drama there is another quiet but potentially radical shift in British justice policy. Leaked proposals suggest the government is ready to scrap jury trials for all but the most serious criminal offences — handing verdicts over to judges alone. (Charles Fletcher, navigatepolitics.uk – Friday 28th November, 2025)

This is another example of “stability and efficiency” being prioritised over liberty and basic institutions. Sadly, in current hands, this is bound to be delivered outside schedule, outside budget and with unexpected severe collateral damage.If you are sceptical about state power, this kind of structural overhaul should raise alarms.

 “Renewal” or Retreat?

A truly great week:

• The Budget hammered another nail in to the coffin of public trust in economic competence: raising taxes at a time when the claimed fiscal threat has shrunk.
• Promised workers’ protections are diluted, not strengthened: a political and moral U-turn.
• Fundamental judicial protections established for centuries are to be replaced without meaningful discussion by judge-led verdicts rather than citizen juries.
• The rhetoric of “renewal”, “stability” and “pro-worker Britain” collides with the reality of higher taxes, weaker rights and even more centralised state control.

The government may well convince itself that it is playing sober politics — preparing for long-term upheaval, laying foundations, threading the needle between fiscal necessity and political restraint. But the optics are bleak. For many working people and civil-liberty-minded voters, this will feel like symbolic renewal wrapped around real retrenchment.

Labour came to power in July 2024, just 17 short months ago seeking to show it could govern. Instead, it is increasingly looking like a government that excuses unpopular choices forced on it by economically illiterate class warrior backbenchers as necessary pain forced on it by those despicable and incompetent Tories. Labour tries to pass its predicament off  as “responsible leadership” when it is starkly obvious that THERE IS NO LEADERSHIP.

Check out our insta: @theworldofukpolitcs