Rishi Sunak is a problem Labour can’t solve

Given Rishi Sunak spent so much of his Budget pointing out how high spending was – and given he announced some very Labour-friendly measures, such as a surprisingly big cut in the taper rate of Universal Credit from 63 per cent to 55 per cent – whoever responded on behalf of the Opposition was going to have a tricky job. Sir Keir Starmer should have been performing this thankless task, but thanks to his sudden self-isolation after a positive Covid test, it was the Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves who had to do it instead.

It’s not clear how much of the speech was her own and how much of it was pre-written by Starmer. Given the last-minute substitution, it’s fair to assume that most of the themes were chosen by the Labour leader, which explains why Reeves complained about the government’s lack of a plan. This is probably the closest the Opposition has to a slogan at present.