{"id":815903,"date":"2026-10-27T22:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T22:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/815903\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T22:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T22:54:10","slug":"chris-mason-budget-needs-to-go-some-way-towards-delivering-pms-promises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/815903\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Mason: Budget needs to go some way towards delivering PM’s promises"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two quotes from the chancellor and the prime minister get to the heart of this Budget.<\/p>\n

“The money New Labour had in the 90s is simply not there now\u2026.Britain has it harder now,” Chancellor John Healey said last month.<\/p>\n

And from Andy Burnham, days before he became prime minister: “This change…is the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years.”<\/p>\n

So what happens when the economic realities confront the political ambitions of this new government?<\/p>\n

As Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), puts it, external<\/a>: “We have a relatively new government with seemingly big ambitions but facing a long list of constraints.<\/p>\n

“Some of those constraints\u2026are self imposed, others are being worsened by global events, most noticeably war in the Middle East.”<\/p>\n

Let’s be clear, plenty in Westminster in all parties will say that the amount of money around isn’t everything \u2013 how well taxpayers’ money is spent and where it is spent matters too. <\/p>\n

And spending less and taxing less, plenty argue, should be a priority.<\/p>\n

But in the bones of many in the Labour Party is an instinct that the government, the state, can and should be a vital agent in driving change and improvements in people’s lives \u2013 a world-view grounded in a sense that governments should proudly step in, rather than one that believes they should get out of the way.<\/p>\n

And how do you deliver a proudly proactive state, delivering for people in a noticeable way, when the tax burden is generationally high, the national debt is sky high, energy bills are rising<\/a> and inflation is higher than expected? <\/p>\n

In short: it is not easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two quotes from the chancellor and the prime minister get to the heart of this Budget. “The money…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-815903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}