Chancellor Rachel Reeves pushed taxpayers to the bottom of her priority list as she delivered a Budget aimed at pleasing two key audiences: the international money markets and unruly Labour MPs.

The 404 Labour MPs flanking Reeves, who had been nervously eyeing their abysmal poll ratings and some of them plotting to remove Sir Keir Starmer, will be appeased by some of her choices. Reeves confirmed a new surcharge on properties valued at above £2 million – there are no tears spilt on the Labour benches for millionaires. And she ended the two-child benefit cap, with an impassioned section about her responsibilities as the first female Chancellor.

But, confronted with a £20bn productivity decrease predicted by the official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), she could

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