The Labour Party was created in 1900 as a “new party for a new century” born out of the struggles of working class people.

Fast forward 125 years and how ironic it is that Britain has been betrayed by those who promised things really would get better.

On July 5 last year Sir Keir Starmer said Labour was “ready to serve… ready to restore Britain to the service of working people”.

He proclaimed: “Across our country people will be waking up to the news, relieved that a weight has been lifted, a burden finally removed from the shoulders of this great nation.

“And now we can look forward. Walk into the morning, the sunlight of hope, pale at first but getting stronger through the day, shining once again, on a country with the opportunity to get its future back.”

His robotic words ring rather hollow now, don’t they?

With a Budget around the corner, and the festive holiday season on the horizon, it is shaping up to be the nightmare before Christmas.

Inflation-busting rises have sent council tax, gas and electricity, water, mobile phone, broadband, car tax and insurance bills through the roof as every area of family accounts is torpedoed.

Most of this financial year’s increases – which bit hard on April Fool’s Day no less – will leave the average household £1,000 worse off.

The joke is on Labour, but it is no laughing matter for families petrified at what comes next.

Perhaps that is why Rachel Reeves is desperately scratching around trying to find a scapegoat before she moves to plunder more.

In the run up to her next Budget where it is thought a £30billion black hole will have to be plugged the blame game has started with the charmless Chancellor name-checking Brexit as one of the reasons the economy under her watch continues to splutter.

More tax hikes are being hatched in a grim forbidding of what is about to be unleashed.

Fault-finding and finger pointing, rather than accountability, are traits indelibly linked to Labour, especially this government which lurches from crisis to incompetence.

It might explain why Ms Reeves has been slow to put her hand up and shoulder some – any – responsibility for stewardship of an economy which has seen inflation soar, wage growth slump, unemployment reach a four-year high, businesses whacked with huge National Insurance rises, private school fees no longer exempt from VAT in a sneering attack on ambition, and the wealthy targeted in moves so cynical many jumped ship for Dubai. It’s no wonder some predict a likely recession.

Level up? Confidence has crashed through the floor.

Predictably, she is now wheeling out her and Labour’s favoured attack line of Brexit, blaming economic woes on the democratic decision of 17.4 million people who voted leave the bloc in 2016, saying she’s working around the clock to clear up the mess they created because “there is no doubting that the impact is severe and long lasting”.

We can expect to hear those words on doom-laden repeat as we approach November 26.

There have been few winners from a government drunk on power. Last year taxes were hiked by £40billion with Ms Reeves condescendingly dismissing those who dared to warn of the long-lasting impact of her raids for “scaremongering and bleating”. All bets are on the Chancellor limbering up for round two.

Labour promised the earth but has delivered next to nothing – and that looks like being about all hard-working families will be left with after her second Budget next month.

As if it really needs to be said, the warning lights for the economy are flashing brighter as we are rapidly transported back to the 1970s.