This is getting quite serious for the Chancellor. In the run up to the Budget we were told that the OBR’s downgrading of productivity would create a multi-billon black hole. The government started preparing public opinion for a manifesto-breaking rise in income tax. We were not told that rising wages and inflation meant more tax revenues to offset the productivity downgrade. But Rachel Reeves was. By October 31 the OBR told Reeves that she was actually sitting on a £4.2 billion surplus. Yet four days later she gave a press conference in Downing Street at which she suggested that the watchdog’s forecasts were worse than expected and made the case for tax rises. “What I want people to understand ahead of the budget, is the circumstances we face,” she said. “I could … sweep those challenges under the carpet. I am being honest with people.” In fact, as we now learn, she was being the opposite of honest. She might not survive this.

Keir Starmer claims Nigel Farage is to blame for the boat people because Brexit took us out of the Dublin Convention (in 2020), which allowed us to return asylum seekers to the EU countries from whence they came. The PM is either ignorant of the facts — or knowingly lying. Neither is a good look. The Dublin Convention was a two-way street for asylum seekers. Yes, we could try to return them. But others could also be returned to us. As a result the Dublin Agreement actually made us a net recipient of asylum seekers. Take 2018. We made 5,500 requests for asylum seekers to be returned. Only 209 transfers were agreed. In the same year, under the same convention we accepted 1,215 asylum seekers. So we were net recipients by over 1,000. The Dublin Convention did nothing to make it easier to return asylum seekers. Nearly all politicians are cavalier with the truth when it suits them. But Starmer is taking this to a new level.