The real reason the Treasury can’t find the fiscal ‘black hole’

The Chancellor was so shocked when she received the briefings from Treasury officials that she had no choice but to scrap her election commitments. It was so serious that it was about to crash the markets. It had to be fixed so urgently that the winter fuel allowance had to be cut, and we will need huge tax rises in a ‘Horror Budget’ next month. The Chancellor Rachel Reeves and the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer have made the ‘black hole’ in the public finances central to their government agenda. But hold on. In the kind of twist that would puzzle even the most distinguished astro-physicist, when you look closely it turns out that the ‘black hole’ doesn’t exist. 

Given how central it is to everything the government is doing, and the precision over its size, you would imagine that Reeves had some detailed documentation to back up her claims.