A Budget Dictated by Backbench Headbangers: Kemi Badenoch is Right to Label Reeves's Budget a ‘Gift to Benefits Street.’

Ah, the annual budget - that glorious spectacle of political theatre through which pompous chancellors attempt to justify their political survival. Tax cuts, spending commitments for public services, and the odd solemn promise to lift the burden off working people have all been used to extend the life of a chancellor's political career, or if a budget goes well enough, propel them next door into Number 10. Yet, this time seems to be different. Instead of championing taxpayers, or at least labourers, the very demographic from which the Labour Party derives its name, Rachel Reeves decided to take a rather unorthodox approach.

With all the pomp that one would expect of a headless peacock, Reeves defiantly sent the following message to the British public: ‘You there, taxpayer. Don’t think you’ve been squeezed for your last pennies enough? Well think again you greedy tosser.’

Okay, I may have made that up, but it may as well have been said by the chancellor herself. As Kemi Badenoch so eloquently noted, the Budget amounts to a ‘gift to benefits street’ and although the lefty press may have qualms with her language, it's an indictment that's difficult to refute.

Starmer and Reeves make a rather odd political couple. Few in Westminster or the Fourth Estate seriously believe that there is any genuine warmth between the two. Yet unlike Brown and Blair, whose notoriously fractured relationship culminated in the former bringing down the latter, the two have become inextricably linked through a Gordian knot of sorts; if one trips, the other too must fall. It is only through the lens of this rather unfortunate paradigm the one can come to understand the purpose of last week's Budget: not one that follows Starmer's pledge to put ‘country first, party second’ (that ship has clearly sailed long ago), but one that appeases a clique of backbench headbangers who have in all but name seized control of the steering wheel of government. Now out of the party, Zarah Sultana, who still bears the scars of the Labour whip for rebelling against the cap last year, alas, seems to have had the last laugh.

On the surface, the budget proposals seem reasonable enough. The two-child cap is at least partly to blame for the menace of child poverty. One child in poverty is, after all, one too many. But what Reeves proposes is a policy that aims to transform the safety net into a hammock, one where worklessness becomes comfortable. As a recent article in the Telegraph highlighted, a working family would have to earn upwards of  £70,000 to compete with a family on benefits with three children once parts of the budget come into effect in 2026. Picture this: you and your partner spend your life working hours on end to provide for your three children, only to learn that the family next door that curiously never seems to have worked a day in their lives actually trumps you in income. I certainly wouldn't blame anyone for falling into a bout of despair after that miserable sight.

If the inflation of an already ballooning welfare budget wasn't already bad enough, the number of people set to pay a higher rate of tax is set to skyrocket. The treasury spent upwards of £313 billion on welfare alone between 2024-2025, a figure equivalent to the GDP of South Africa. Instead of recognising that the welfare state has gone crackers, making informed cuts that strive to relieve that tax burden placed on working people, or at the very least adhering to the principle of her party’s manifesto pledge, which sought to refrain from raising taxes, Reeves has decided that is to make a U-turn of spectacular proportions. With inflation set to rise in tandem with a freeze on income thresholds until 2030, Reeves seeks to raise an estimated  £8-9 billion at the taxpayers' peril, putting millions of Brits into tax brackets that they very likely cannot afford. For working people up and down the country hoping for a quiet, cheerful Christmas, it seems Rachel the Grinch has come to town.

When I'm thinking of the miserable road that likely lies ahead, my mind often circles back to the chancellor's call on ‘everyone’ to make a ‘contribution’. In response to that, I've written up a set of questions for the chancellor and her cheerleaders among the establishment: are taxpayers not already contributing their fair share, does ‘everyone’ include those not in work, and would you apply the same standards to the Tories had they delivered a similarly disastrous budget? I would certainly love to know!

Image: Wikimedia Commons/House of Commons

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