The Chancellor pledges to investigate Budget leaks and lies. There can only be one verdict.
Rachel Reeves has announced an enquiry into herself. (Image: Getty)
The nation was shocked by all the leaks, speculation and untruths in the recent chaotic Budget. But not as shocked as the Chancellor who delivered it, Rachel Reeves. Today, she publicly proclaimed her dismay at all the dishonesty happening on her watch, and promised she’d get to the bottom of it.
Poor Rachel Reeves. As a paragon of honesty, celebrated for her steadfast commitment to telling the truth, working in the Treasury must feel like being trapped in a nest of vipers. She made that perfectly clear at the Treasury Committee today, expressing her frustration at the “volume of speculation” and leaks around her recent Budget, insisting such briefings “must never be allowed to happen again”.
Reeves loudly bemoaned the “inaccurate” and “damaging” nature of disclosures, committed by devious, slippery persons who so far haven’t been named.
Naturally, deceiving people is something Reeves would never dream of doing herself, as voters can attest. We all recall her truthful tax pledges during the election, her genuine shock at discovering the £22billion black hole on entering the Treasury, and the £40billion taxes she was regretfully was forced to increase to fill it.
We also remember the £26billion of further tax hikes in her second Budget. Urgently required to fill a fiscal black hole that didn’t actually exist. Which wasn’t her fault either.
No journalist would ever accuse the Chancellor of twisting the truth – except me on these 25 occasions. And if those aren’t enough for you, here’s another 12 lies.
Her bewilderment grew as the committee pressed on. Pre-Budget speculation suggested she was going to increase income tax, when nothing was further from her mind.
It was even suggested that Reeves had leaked the income tax hike story herself, in a pre-Budget press conference. Some even recall interrupting their Cheerios to watch it, but that didn’t happen either.
And if it did happen, it was the work of some mysterious official who has yet to be identified.
But now they will be. Reeves has announced an enquiry into the Treasury she nominally heads, and given it her full support.
And in the same spirit of truth telling, I can exclusively reveal exactly who will be blamed for the constant trickle of leaks and lies. Nobody. Absolutely… nobody.
That’s the entire purpose of the enquiry. To find this mysterious nobody, and blame them.
It’s the purpose of every government inquiry. They drag on for months, years. Typically, they wait until everybody involved has left the building, and the public has lost interest, then accuse… nobody.
And nobody gets punished.
This inquiry will no different. Senior figures, including those very close to the Budget process, will emerge unscathed. One person will be shielded entirely, the Chancellor herself. Does she expect us to believe anything else?
Reeves should have resigned already. She personally misled the public on income tax and the state of the economy, to justify the tax hikes and see off a Labour backbench revolt.
One person did quit though. Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, damned for a minor early release of the Budget.
That was an honest error, rather than a calculated one. So of course he had to go.
I’m sure Reeves will escape scot-free this time too. So will the rest of her leaking, lying Treasury team. And nobody will be to blame. Again.
