Budget speculation is self-inflicted harm, Reeves should pipe down - Susan Dalgety

Wednesday November 26 can’t come quick enough. I can’t recall a budget that has garnered so much speculation about what it will contain. Every day seems to bring a new bright idea from Number 11 Downing Street. I have a vision of Rachel Reeves asking ChatGPT every morning for ideas on how to balance the books.

Limiting tax breaks on pension contributions, a new tax on electric vehicles and a gambling levy are just some of the ideas that have popped up on Rachel’s ChatGPT feed recently. There has even been a suggestion that there will be a tax on “small parcels”. Online retailers such as Shein and Temu can send packages worth less than £135 to the UK without incurring import tax – though I think there may be riots in the street if the Chancellor tries to break the nation’s habit for £6 dresses and 50p notebooks from China.

The budget frenzy is all her own fault of course – and that of her boss, the Prime Minister. She and Keir Starmer promised before last year’s elections that they would not increase taxes for “working people” and would end borrowing for day-to-day public spending by the end of this parliament.

They are now finding it well-nigh impossible to fulfil the latter promise without putting up income tax or cutting vital public services, which is why Rachel is scrabbling about for a fiscal miracle. But this constant drip feed is damaging the economy. Within hours of the Chancellor’s office letting it be known that she would not after all increase income tax, the cost of government borrowing shot up, making her job all that more difficult.

Historically, Chancellors barely hinted what was going to be in their budget beforehand, preferring to reveal all when they stood up in parliament. My advice to Rachel Reeves and her office is to spend the next ten days focusing on getting their sums right and less time speaking to the press.