In her Budget speech today, Chancellor Rachel Reeves will have four goals. Two political – keeping her own job and keeping Keir Starmer in his as PM – and two economic – avoiding a financial crisis and getting the economy going. Her chances look poor on all of them.

In the latest polling by Lord Ashcroft Polls, 76 per cent of voters expect the Budget to make them personally worse off, versus only 2 per cent who expected it to make them personally better off. Even amongst Labour voters, only 8 per cent expect the Budget to make them better off. As to making the country as a whole better off, only 11 per cent of voters expect the Budget to do that, with 72 per cent expecting it to make the country worse off. According to Opinium, 78 per cent of voters expect the Budget to be unfair.

How co

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