While Keir Starmer was mounting a case to prosecute Boris Johnson for his Partygate antics, it took almost two months and a police investigation for him to formally call on the Prime Minister to resign. His view was that unless things were likely to happen, there was no point in calling them.
This is not the philosophy of the current opposition leader. Since October, Kemi Badenoch has called on Starmer to fire his chancellor three times, once over the mishap with his rental licence, then for considering raising income tax, and finally because he did not actually raise income tax.
It is unclear whether Badenoch truly believes Reeves could be forced out given how he rejected Office of Budget Responsibility forecasts to help the party step back from the brink of manifesto violation. Resignations have been coming in rapid succession, from Angela Rayner to Peter Mandelson, and now the departure of Richard Hughes from the OBR over embarrassing shoddy cyber security, which meant the entire budget was quickly leaked.
But the reality is that prime ministers almost never fire their chancellors – and when they do it almost inevitably leads to their own downfall. The most recent chancellor to have that experience, Kwasi Kwarteng, told Liz Truss the plain truth that if she sacked him, her own premiership would be over.
After this budget, Starmer knows the same is true of him and Reeves. The decision not to proceed with the manifesto breach on income tax cannot be understood without the context of Starmer’s need to preserve his own political survival.
Starmer gathered reporters at a community center in Southwark on Monday morning to try to bring the focus back to basics in the budget – cutting energy bills, removing the two-child benefit cap, and promising more investment, regulation and reform.
But what was most surprising in the room was how he called the press conference not to blame, but to bring himself even closer to Reeves. He said, “There was no cheating – I don’t accept that. And I was getting the numbers.”
He took the unprecedented step of revealing that he himself was the one considering violating the manifesto by increasing income tax. “I didn’t want to go to that place, but I knew we might have to go there,” he said, defending Reeves against allegations that he had misled the market and the public.
“As the process continued, it became clear to me and others that we might be able to do what we needed to do with our priorities without violating the manifesto.”
During the hour-long speech and questions, Starmer repeatedly underlined how the choices in the budget were his own. And he also turned his fire on the OBR – with barely concealed fury about how he was “appalled” by the timing of the productivity decline and the “serious error” of the leaked forecast.
Some in Westminster believe Hughes’ resignation has left Reeves even more exposed – following a weekend counter-briefing when the OBR left no doubt that the decision on income tax was not made because of suddenly improved forecasts. Hughes has taken responsibility after shortcomings in the body’s cyber security were found. Perhaps Reeves should do the same since the spin is figured out.
But Starmer made it clear on Monday that this was unthinkable. And if he now breaks with his chancellor, it will again focus attention on the real context of the decision to scrap the idea of breaching the manifesto on income tax – in a week where Starmer’s leadership was under fresh threat in the fiery aftermath of the briefing of colleagues against the health secretary, Wes Streeting.
Scratch the surface, this is what is most worrying for some of the more thoughtful and economically literate Labor MPs – that this was a self-preservation Budget without any ambition, where living standards for ordinary voters have remained stagnant.
Most people in the Parliamentary Labor Party are quite happy with the removal of the two-child limit. But amid predictions of the worst parliament on record for living standards, there is little to give any more growth-minded MPs any room for hope. Once again, it is not Badenoch but the restless PLP who is the real risk to Starmer and Reeves’ futures.
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