Editorial: The Labour government delivers a cowardly budget which reflects cowardly politics

In two ways the budget unveiled by Rachel Reeves yesterday was a metaphor for Labour’s approach to UK finances.

​First it was revealed by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) by mistake ahead of the budget being announced to MPs. This was almost fitting given that Ms Reeves for months trailed what might be in her budget to test public reaction. The government is so lacking in conviction, so cowardly, that secrecy barely exists.

Second the budget was a metaphor for a related form of cowardice: a refusal to be seen to make cuts anywhere, no matter how justified on grounds of efficiency or ensuring taxpayers get value for money. This cowardice in the Labour Party, it must be said, was present to a lesser extent in the latter parts of the 2010 to 2014 Tory government. It is also evident in Stormont, where barely an MLA ever argues for efficiencies.

Governments of the left are often called ‘tax and spend’ administrations. You could hardly get a better example of that than under Keir Starmer. They simply won’t make savings, not even in a sphere so bloated as welfare.

But the government doesn’t even have the basic fortitude to raise taxes clearly. Instead it pushes through raises that it hopes won’t be noticed (the Farm Tax is staying, for example).

Above all, it is a government that assumes that anyone in receipt of welfare payments from the government must never make sacrifices, even if they decide not to work. And it then tries to fund this from ‘alarm clock Britain’ – that army of people who get up every day to go to work or run their own business. Some of the lowest paid workers in the land are being pulled into the tax net by the freezing of tax allowances.

Meanwhile UK debt continues to rise to perilous levels. Yet in Northern Ireland vast sums of cash are found for things such as endless legacy probes into the security forces, in order to please terrorists and their pals.