I used to be in room as bombshell Budget leak revealed – Rachel Reeves’ response was surprising

Moments before Rachel Reeves started her Budget speech, aides were scrambling to decide how to respond to all of the measures she was about to announce being leaked half an hour early

Moments before Rachel Reeves started her Budget speech, there was a flurry of activity in the House of Commons chamber.

Notes were being passed to the Chancellor by her aides. Phone screens were being thrust in front of her face for her to read.

At one point, in the gallery above, one of Reeves’ senior advisors was holding an iPhone in each hand, apparently texting on both, like a post-Blackberry Malcolm Tucker. We imagine the messages were along the lines of “OMG, OBR, WTF?”.

Half an hour earlier, the Office for Budget Responsibility had accidentally hit publish on their analysis of her Budget – effectively leaking all of numbers from it in the process.

This, of course, was extremely helpful to Kemi Badenoch, whose own advisor was positively Tiggerish in the gallery as the boss took to her feet for PMQs.

Badenoch, who has a habit of seeing an open goal, squaring up and hitting it just hard enough to send the ball over the crossbar and into orbit, ranted about the “most chaotic Budget lead up ever”. Which only succeeded in prompting everyone present to shout ” Kwasi Kwarteng ” back at her.

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Her response to the Budget itself, hailed as a dramatic improvement in performance by friendly journalists, was kind of shouty, unfocussed and largely a string of personal insults aimed at Rachel Reeves. There’s a reason ‘Comedy Roasts’ don’t really work in the UK, and her rant probably won’t go down as the triumph she clearly thinks it was.

At times of high drama, Tory MPs, reduced to the barest rump of mostly balding blokes in blue suits, tend to revert to their basic character: A public school fifth form who broke into to the tuck shop and ate all the Dip Dabs.

One might think an elite group of adult professional politicians might be wary of such an unseemly display, especially given their recent experience of shambolic budgets, and try to squash down those base impulses.

But no. Behind Badenoch, big teenager energy was in full force. Braying and guffawing, some with a grumpy foot on the bench in front, others doing their best amdram outrage, faux-furious at the chaos, the likes of which haven’t been seen since they were last in charge.

Facing such a hostile crowd, and needing to rapidly address an unfolding situation, you might have expected Ms Reeves to be a bit flustered.

And certainly the early moments of her speech got a bit lost in the noise. But once the Tories’ sugar crash set in and they settled down, Reeves’ delivery was calm and controlled.

She said the OBR had coughed to it, had apologised and taken responsibility. It wasn’t her fault, or the Government’s. It was unfortunate, but doesn’t really change anything. We move on.

Of course, the numbers leaking out is a serious and embarrassing thing. The numbers move markets. Real money is gained and lost by real people in the moments after a budget is announced, and it leaking out early can make traders exceptionally skittish.

But in that flurry of activity at the top of the hour, Ms Reeves and her advisors seem to have decided the numbers alone are not the Budget.

The Budget is the story you tell about the numbers.

“These are my choices”, she kept repeating, contrasting almost every announcement with those made by the previous government. “These are Labour choices”.

The storytelling peaked with the scrapping of the two-child benefit limit, an announcement she clearly relished making. More or less everyone just shut up for a minute, while she told a story about her predecessors punishing children for having been born into poverty. About wasted talent and limited life chances.

And finally despite the shouting, leaking, scrabbling for bits of paper and texting with two phones at once, FINALLY, a Labour politician in government was able to tell a story about changing that.