For most Brits, there was little to celebrate in Rachel Reeves’s fiscal statement – but that didn’t stop Treasury staff from toasting the Budget. Just hours after the Chancellor delivered her 80-minute speech to MPs on Wednesday, Treasury aides made the short hop across St James’s Park to Westminster’s Two Chairmen pub. From 4 p.m. onwards, while gilt yields continued to rise and markets tried to make sense of Labour’s plans, Whitehall mandarins drank the afternoon away in a post-Budget bash. But not everyone was left feeling merry by the end of the night…
Despite Reeves enthusiastically announcing that pubgoers can now enjoy a ‘penny off a pint’, Steerpike noted that a number of trollied Treasury staffers had the audacity to turn up with shop-bought tinnies in hand. Those who were gracious enough to actually buy drinks from the establishment still caused problems, however, with one onlooker remarking that ‘they left rubbish and smashed glass everywhere’.
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