A mixed blag
FOR Britain’s sake we pray the most seismic Budget in many years pays off.
But we can at least count one blessing.
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That is Rachel Reeves’ smart decision to maintain the fuel duty freeze.
Over 14 years The Sun’s Keep It Down campaign has saved drivers billions the Treasury is desperate for.
To her credit, the Chancellor accepted our case that hiking a litre by 7p would fleece the very working people she vowed to protect.
We breathed a sigh of relief too that she ruled out certain other apocalyptic possibilities leaked before the Budget.
That said, it is hard not to conclude that her mind-boggling borrowing and spending splurge is a risky retread of failed Labour policies from the past.
Taxes will hit their highest ever. Our debt will go into orbit. Interest rates and inflation will stay higher for longer.
And for what? The growth predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility is unremarkable and far below Labour’s hopes.
Spending £22.6billion extra on the NHS, with its vital “reform” still only in the Health Secretary’s head, is folly.
So is putting £6.7billion into shinier schools while trashing a Tory education agenda which proved a resounding success.
Wildly cheering
And a party which always leaves office with unemployment higher is bonkers to clobber private firms for most of its £40billion tax-raising bill.
Hiking their National Insurance and lowering the pay threshold will mean fewer staff hired, especially with the minimum wage jacked up too.
Existing workers will suffer lower pay awards, and prices will rise, to recoup costs.
Still, at least we can drown our sorrows with a pint costing one PENNY less. Do any Labour MPs wildly cheering that one yesterday ever buy a drink?
The Chancellor began by claiming Labour has “a mandate . . . to begin a decade of national renewal”. Well, not quite. It’s true the public backed change.
But colossal tax rises, higher inflation, pricier mortgages and crippling extra debt were not advertised.
And years before that decade is up, voters will be able to pass judgement on Labour’s progress.
Ms Reeves has taken an almighty gamble.
Secret police
YET again police are counting the cost of keeping the media and public in the dark.
Cops should divulge as much as possible about suspects or risk wild guesswork on social media, some of it wrong and dangerous.
If the Contempt of Court Act needs to change to allow that — as Jonathan Hall KC, reviewer of our terrorism laws, suggests — then so be it.
Meanwhile, for how many weeks did the Cabinet secretly know of the al-Qaeda manual and Ricin poison over which Southport suspect Axel Rudakubana is now charged?
If facts CAN legally be revealed, it is not the State’s job to hide them from the public.
