Labour MPs nervous ahead of 'tough decisions' in Wednesday's Budget
29 October 2024, 20:04 | Updated: 29 October 2024, 20:05
There is trepidation among Labour MPs ahead of the Budget tomorrow.
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They know how big a moment this is.
They’ve waited 116 days for it, after all.
It’s not that all the announcements will be a surprise - they know a great deal about the content already. Let’s face it - after weeks of briefings from the Treasury, we all do.
The trepidation is caused by the Prime Minister's promise that this Budget will embrace the "harsh light of fiscal reality".
Code for: tax rises are coming to prevent austerity.
There is genuine fear - from MPs and from business - about how the expected National Insurance employer contribution will land.
At Labour’s weekly meeting of MPs yesterday - one backbencher asked the Chief Secretary to the Treasury what would be done to stop small businesses feeling like they have been chopped off at their knees. Darren Jones told the MPs they would be pleased when they heard the full plans.
But it’s not just the measures that are making these Labour backbenchers nervous. It’s also what the Budget will say about who this Government is, what it's for, and where they are going.
One Labour grandee told me they doubt whether the Prime Minister and those around him had enough political nous. They think Sir Keir has outsourced too much to his Chancellor.
Everyone - even the Starmer and Reeves loyalists - know they’ve got a very tricky task tomorrow.
“It’s been such a delicate ship to steer through such a thorny canal and I think they’ve just about got it to the place they wanted to in the run in," someone close to the Chancellor said.
One Labour MP told me that the test tomorrow will be to “divide between long term investment and short term protection”.
“There will always be risk, but Labour must have a response for those who are subjected to inequality.”
It’s been an unusual run up - because we know so much. Budgets are usually devised in dark rooms with not as much leaked out ahead of time.
But sometimes - those Budgets have gone wrong - like George Osborne’s in 2012. He had to u-turn on his plot to tax food that is designed to cool down - because he hadn’t considered that this would affect pasties.
So perhaps the fact that we know so much already will mean fewer surprises in the backlash too.
