The briefing leaked ahead of the budget tells us that Tory austerity is set to continue under Labour, writes Michael Lavalette

Ahead of Wednesday’s budget, the Labour front bench found themselves in trouble with the Speaker of the House of Commons for briefing journalists about the budget contents that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce in the Commons. 

The breech of parliamentary protocol means we know some of the changes coming down the line, and it looks as if Labour will introduce a redistributive budget – but don’t get excited, this is one that will protect the rich whilst taking money from the poorest in society. Once again, poor and working-class families are going to be made to pay for a crisis not of their making. 

In the four months they have been in government, Labour have claimed to have ‘discovered’ financial black hole after financial black hole. If there is a black hole, there are plenty of ways they could address it. They could increase borrowing; they could increase revenues on capital gains and death duties, or they could do the unthinkable and tax the rich. But instead we have had Labour Ministers repeatedly telling us that ‘with a heavy heart’ they are going to have to make life for the poorest in society much worse. 

First it was the two-child benefit cap, which they were unable to remove. The result is that some of the poorest families in Britain, the vast majority of them working families, have been abandoned by Starmer’s Labour. 

Next up was the elderly. The abolition of the winter fuel allowance saved the government a pittance. But for many older people this cut means they face the choice of ‘eating or heating’. 

The odious Wes Streeting has been salivating at the prospect of handing over large parts of our NHS to the private, for profit, health sector. This sector has, unsurprisingly, been happy to fund Wes to help flesh out his meagre MP’s and Minister’s salary.  

The social-care crisis has seen Streeting turn to that age-old British establishment tactic of demonising and stigmatising the poor. So, Streeting has a plan. Those on benefits should be given injections to reduce their weight, this will supposedly get them off benefits and into work (thus reducing benefit costs) and will also save on long-term health costs to the NHS. A vile narrative is emerging of scapegoating those on benefits and blaming them (alongside migrants, people with disabilities and poor people with ‘too many’ children) for being ‘benefit dependent’ and receiving ‘something for nothing’. Or as we might call it: a strategy of divide and rule. 

If you are amongst the poorest in work, you’ll be delighted to know that they are going to put the minimum wage up from £11.44 an hour to £12.21. But what Labour gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. If you travel to work by bus the 77p an hour raise will have to cover the 50% increase in bus fares, as they rise to £3 a journey. So, each day you will have to work for almost three hours for your pay increase to cover the cost of the bus-fare hike. 

For fourteen years, we had Tory government after Tory government enforcing austerity on us and making all of us worse off in real terms. To get elected, Labour promised ‘no more austerity’ but it seems likely that their budget will continue the trend of attacking the poorest whilst protecting those with more money than they can ever spend.