IF the news is a trumpet (bear with me) an impeding Budget is a great buoy-shaped mute jammed into the bell. The volume has been turned down on politics this week as Rachel Reeves and her aides put the finishing touches on the first Labour Budget since 2011. Money is the root of all evil and the root of all politics – there’s little point in playing until you know the ante.
At the moment, the Government is pleasing practically no one. Still fresh from the almighty row over cuts to the Winter Fuel Payment, they seem intent on upsetting as many people as possible. Perhaps that is the freedom of being still the best part of five years away from an election (though not in Scotland).
The early release of prisoners has angered the hang them brigade on the right – and the distinct absence of any ideological argument for alternatives to prison means none on the left are cheering it, either. Keir Starmer’s announcement that those who earn income from shares and rents don’t meet his definition of “working people” won him some tongue-in-cheek praise from online Maoists (a hang them brigade of a different bent) – but has the makings of yet more drear headlines for him in the Tory press. (Image: PA) Speaking of Starmer (above), he has spent altogether too much time either in Samoa, on a 28-hour flight there or another one back, for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, which carries the displeasing acronym Chogm – pronounced “Chog-um”.
His refusal to entertai.