How do you predict what Labour will do next? Time was when you’d read the earnest pamphlets of ambitious backbenchers, study speeches to think tanks from junior ministers and find out the reading lists of key aides to the Prime Minister. These days, the better predictor of where things are going is that the Government will end up having to do the one thing it has been insisting all along that it won’t.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves, this week, announced she was “protecting” the triple lock on pensions until 2029, promising that the state pension will continue to rise every year in line with inflation, wages or 2.5 per cent .

The triple lock has long been unsustainable and MPs on all sides have long privately acknowledged that. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimates it will

See Full Page