Within just six months Rachel Reeves has gone from promising no surprise taxes to imposing the biggest hike in history.
The Chancellor told the public she would deliver a brighter future but instead she landed the country with a £40 billion bill.
During the election, she promised growth would fund Labour’s plans but the projections for the economy are dismal.
Meanwhile, inflation and mortgages are predicted to rise as a result of the changes she announced.
Businesses are being clobbered with higher national insurance contributions – something Ms Reeves herself described in the past as a jobs tax.
Older people will be dragged into paying income tax on their state pensions in just over two years and more families than ever will be hit by inheritance tax.
Family farms are tipped to become a thing of the past after a punishing change to rules allowing them to be passed easily from parent to child.
But do not worry, there will be a penny off the cost of a pint of beer to cheer everyone up.
Over in the public sector, the NHS is being given billions of extra funding.
The health service runs through the country’s veins but even its most ardent admirers know it needs reform.
So far Labour has ducked that challenge, instead asking the public for ideas about what should happen and being duly rewarded with suggestions like free waffles for all patients.
The NHS has more doctors than before the pandemic but treats fewer patients.
One of the Chancellor’s first acts in power was to give public sector workers big pay rises without securing any agreement that they would improve productivity.
Working practices on the railways have not advanced with modern technology and some date back 100 years. It emerged today (WED) that one train firm is still using fax machines.
Public sector organisations will be covered for the rise in the national insurance contributions paid by employers.
Struggling businesses will not. They will also have to find more money to cover the rise in the minimum wage.
On top of that, they face stifling red tape giving employees rights from day one in the job.
Only one person in the Cabinet has ever set up or run a business.
But what does that matter when for the first time the Budget was delivered by a woman?
It was such an important point Ms Reeves told us of her “pride” in the fact just two minutes into the hour and 17 minute long statement.
Former prime minister Theresa May, who sat directly above the Chancellor, was guffawing at the fuss being made.
As the second of three female Tory premiers, with a possible fourth woman Conservative leader potentially taking the helm – who also happens to be black – this weekend, she was unimpressed by the bragging.
More importantly, voters do not care a jot who delivers the Budget, they just want economic competence.
But this Chancellor targeted the businesses who lift up the nation while increasing the size of the state.
Labour promised “change” if they were elected, but it is clear they have not changed at all.
