𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Is that it? A hundred days of Andy Burnham, and this is all he had to offer: a nothing-burger Budget, served up in the middle of a national economic emergency. Don’t take my word for it: the forecasts published alongside his Budget this afternoon paint a dark picture of the years ahead.

Living standards down. Growth down. Borrowing up. And prices set to rise higher than ever before. This isn’t stagnation. We’re going backwards. This is barely managed decline, and it is wrecking the lives of people who are barely managing to pay the mortgage.

Inflation was supposed to be back at 2% by now. Instead, it is heading for 4% in the new year. Meanwhile, growth next year has been cut to 1%. What does that mean for people’s real wages? Not a penny more in 2027. Nor in 2028.

Family incomes will fall over this year and next, and by the end of the decade they will be barely 1% higher than before the pandemic. That will be the story of this Labour government — a lost decade of impoverishing decline for British families.

This parliament will be the most tax-raising parliament in history. Beating the record of the last Conservative one, which will now only be the second most tax-raising parliament in history.

In the face of that emergency, what was the response? Nothing. A hundred pounds, once, into some bank accounts; a few reliefs extended by a few months; a few tax rises for later.

Some vague promises to spend more on defence, but with no plan to deliver it.

John Healey might be a nice man. But he’s had 100 days to show that he’s up to the job. And after 100 days, he delivered a budget that will make British families poorer than they would otherwise have been.

I’d deliver a Budget in my first hundred days too. The difference is what it would include.

Reform’s would give £1,300 back to the average household. Paid for by £40billion in cuts to benefits for migrants, foreign aid, and mad net zero schemes.

We’d make sure the state pension is never taxed. And if I didn’t do it, I’d resign. Why? Because if you can’t make life better for the British people, what’s the point of being chancellor?

John Healey’s had his go and failed. Isn’t it time to try a party that will make things better instead?

Britain is broke. But Britain isn’t beaten. It just needs Reform.

Robert Jenrick is Reform UK’s Treasury spokesman