After months of speculation, leaks and backtracking, Rachel Reeves finally delivered her second budget today.

And given the amount of coverage it had already received, it is perhaps unsurprising that the final result was more than a little underwhelming.

Having abandoned the initial plan of a straightforward increase in the basic rate of income tax, the Chancellor has instead opted for a more piecemeal approach of imposing a mind-boggling array of comparatively small tax increases on everything from pension contributions through to online gambling. There are two ways of looking at this: It could be viewed as death by a thousand cuts, meaning that everybody feels worse off; or being more charitable, it could be said that she is spreading the pain around evenly, so that nobody is unfai

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