QUENTIN LETTS: Ms Reeves was relishing this. A nimbus of self-satisfaction shrouded her… there was one thing vengeful about her efficiency

At least Raffles was an elegant thief, stealing jewels in a jiffy. Rachel Reeves’s act of larceny lasted 77 grinding minutes.

The Chancellor claimed to be a reluctant tax-raiser. Don’t believe it. While feral Labour MPs behind her screamed ‘shame!’ and ‘apologise!’ at the toppled Tories, Ms Reeves gave an icy smile.

She was relishing this. A nimbus of self-satisfaction shrouded her as surely as that bucket hairdo.

There was something vengeful about this performance. It felt less a fiscal event than an act of long-contemplated political aggression – a kicking, gouging repayment for the long years when Conservatives gave Budget Day breaks to savers.

‘Invest, invest, invest,’ said Ms Reeves. Tax, tax, tax.

Ms Reeves was relishing this. A nimbus of self-satisfaction shrouded her, writes QUENTIN LETTS

This was payback time. The Chancellor recalled that in the Tory 1990s she and her sister Ellie – also now in the cabinet, here sitting just down from her on the front bench – were given school lessons in a Portakabin. That, argued the Chancellor, justified her swingeing tax on private education.

Ellie Reeves had the decency to look down at her lap and wring her fingers during this. Her big sister just looked indignant, affronted, hell-bent.

The vocal delivery was its normal echoey, adenoidal self, an overblown bassoon. Too much force from the lungs bent her vowels out of shape. She ground her jaw as she produced the words.

Some MPs made notes, as if they understood the economic data. Pammy Nash (Lab, Motherwell), dwarfing her neighbour Sam Carling (NW Cambs), may have been writing her shopping list, she was taking so much down. She opened her vast handbag and extracted a sweet. Mr Carling blinked nervously, perhaps fearing Pammy might next devour him.

Ms Reeves’s clemency on the price of draught beer raised an enormous cheer from Gareth Snell (Lab, Stoke Central). I haven’t seen him look so happy for months.

Jas Athwal (Lab, Ilford S), the celebrated multiple landlord, looked markedly less thrilled about the new property taxes. And the hefty hit on employers’ national insurance brought an audible ‘ooofff!’ from the Tory benches.

As a work of political theatre, most of this Budget made for heavy listening. At one point she started listing railway stations: ‘Church Fenton and York, Watford, Stourbridge, Hyndburn and beyond.’ The metallic, mechanical timbre was exactly that of an automatic platform announcement.

The speech took a long time to reach the meat of her measures. Instead she mickeyed around with party politics, demeaning herself with an early remark about the Tory leadership contest. It was not until just after 1pm that she got on to taxes.

‘Here we go,’ said a Conservative grimly. When she spoke of investment, Tories shouted ‘borrowing’.

The Chancellor recalled that in the Tory 1990s she and her sister Ellie (pictured) – also now in the cabinet – were given school lessons in a Portakabin

‘Good luck,’ Speaker Hoyle had said to his deputy Nusrat Ghani when she took the chair for the session. Ms Ghani did not have much trouble during the Chancellor’s speech but things changed when Rishi Sunak replied for the Opposition.

Soon-to-depart Rishi yelled, as best he could, about fiscal rules being ‘fiddled’. The Labour party had lied to the electorate. ‘An enormous spending spree,’ he continued.

He was, however, speaking into an even more enormous hurricane of pelted insults and noise from the Labour benches. I have not known that level of attempted intimidation. An ugly scene. Deputy Speaker Ghani proved entirely unequal to the task of quelling it.

The Labour yobbery was led by Shaun Davies (Telford), Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central & Whickham) and a bespectacled, privileged lawyer called Alex Barros-Curtis (Cardiff West). The Hexham mumbler Joe Morris was near them, hog-whimpering and bawling and giggling and scratching his stupid face. He’s clearly able to raise his voice when he’s in a mob.

We’re in charge now, they were signalling. Absorb your punishment, Britain. Here was our over-regulating, braying, finger-wagging elite, squeezing its knees in glee.

‘Shew yourselves joyful with trumpets and shawms,’ the Old Testament writer said. ‘Let the floods clap their hands.’ And let poor Middle Britain stuff itself for the next four and a half years.