Inside Budget week as Labour MPs ship verdict on Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer
After weeks of chaotic leaks and speculation, Labour MPs are buoyed by Rachel Reeves’s Budget – which may offer the Chancellor and PM Keir Starmer a brief respite
For months, the Budget had been looming over Westminster like a dark cloud.
But on Wednesday night, MPs, ministers and Government aides packed into Parliament’s Strangers Bar to raise a glass. A minister told us: “It’s a good day, and we have to celebrate the good days.”
Good days have been few and far between for Labour recently amid speculation about Keir Starmer’s leadership, backbench unrest and lagging polls ratings. But despite a chaotic run up, and the extraordinary leak of key details by the watchdog, the Chancellor came out fighting with a Budget offering hope to hard-up households.
Labour MPs were delighted by the cost of living help for struggling families, including scrapping the two-child benefit limit which is expected to lift 450,000 children out of poverty. And they were bullish about the inevitable anger from right-wingers about the Chancellor’s £26billion tax raid.
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One MP told the Mirror: “If the Labour Party doesn’t put dealing with child poverty at the centre of what we do, we’re not the Labour Party. Of course we’ll have the Tories and Reform saying there are easy answers to complex problems, but we can all hold our heads higher this week.”
Fixing the public finances and keeping the markets calm were at the heart of the Budget. It appeared to land without too much of a bump, but a row over whether Ms Reeves was misleading over the size of the black hole in the public finances is rumbling.
The Government was also trying to fix the fractured relationship with its MPs and see off speculation about the futures of the PM and the Chancellor. For now, it appears to have succeeded. Asked whether the PM and Chancellor’s positions were safe post Budget, another MP replied: “Yep very safe …for now.”
A third backbencher said: “It’s gone down quite well. I think it staved off the calls from the left, she’s kept the ones on the right onside. She has played it well and, things like ‘I’m a Labour Chancellor’, her socialist values that she displayed at the despatch box really went down a storm with us.
“We thought, hang on a minute, this is what we’re here for. Because Keir is a little bit, you know, well, vanilla at times, but this was really good.” They added: “As for the Chancellor herself? Her position is safe, I don’t think there’s any problem there.”
A fourth MP said: “Calming the bond markets and the backbench left in one Budget, all while doubling the headroom, is a hell of an achievement.”
Sharon Hodgson, the MP for Washington and Gateshead South, said: “It was a great Labour Budget showing the difference a Labour Government can make and I am so very proud of Rachel also. She was dealt the worst hand ever and has shown, against all the odds, that you actually can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
Downing Street wants to make it clear that the PM is laser focused on helping families struggling to make ends meet – something he told the Mirror in an exclusive interview last week.
A No10 source said: “We know that the cost of living is still the number one issue for families. The Budget shows those who’ve been struggling that they’re being heard.”
The source added: “It’s really important for Keir that we help people with the cost of living. It’s his main priority. He knows from his own childhood how tough it can be for families when money is tight.”
For now, that message is cutting through – but it isn’t all blue skies ahead. Tough elections in Scotland, Wales and in local councils in England in May mark a moment of danger. The threat from Reform remains potent and there is a battle ahead to fix the country’s battered public services.
The Budget has won Mr Starmer and his Chancellor some much-needed goodwill in Labour ranks. But there are still clouds on the horizon.
