The only way the chancellor can save herself is to lower living costs or make big improvements to public services. Farage waits in the wings if not
It may not feel that way, but these are pivotal weeks in modern British, and perhaps also modern European, politics. I do not know whether the ink is yet dry on the final draft of Rachel Reeves’s 26 November budget, let alone know what measures it will contain. But I do know that this budget matters more than any other in recent times.
Reeves would not have made her Downing Street speech on Tuesday simply to trail a business-as-usual package. The inevitable inference is that she plans a moment of enforced but necessary departure from tradition. The outcome, whether success or failure, will surely reshape politics for years to come.
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
