Labour MPs will be thrilled by this budget – but will the jubilation last?

The Chancellor threw just the right amount of class war rhetoric to her backbenches to ensure they were spellbound

Despite almost all of Rachel Reeves’s Budget measures having been briefed in advance, she still took what felt like a record amount of time to provide a handy summary to those MPs who hadn’t bothered reading the newspapers in the last month.
It was a confident and belligerent performance, and the Chancellor relished the drama of the occasion, confounding the worst fears of critics who had expected a more ruthless raid of voters’ purses and wallets. She expertly raised expectations of a major increase in fuel duty, only to reveal that it will remain frozen, offering a relief to the nation’s motorists (or, as they might more accurately be described, voters).
Of course, whether the Budget actually delivered increased costs on “working people” will depend entirely on how you wish to define the term, and it occurs that the Labour Party’s various confused attempts to provide such a definition only helps them avoid the charge that manifesto promises have been broken.
For there certainly were tax rises: National Insurance is going up for employers, and that cost will be passed on to someone. The stamp duty surcharge on second homes is to be increased by two thirds, from three to five per cent, which will make the class warriors on the benches behind the Chancellor feel virtuous, but which will almost certainly push rents up for those seeking to find homes in a sector that fewer landlords will now decide they can afford to enter.
Reeves cleverly made much of a huge increase in Air Passenger Duty for those travelling by private plane, a move that again delighted all the sons and daughters of toil sitting clasping their cloth caps on the Government benches, which meant her more modest increase on ordinary working people taking a flight to sunnier climes was barely noticed.
And she inevitably won more plaudits by confirming an end to Non-Dom tax status: “That’ll teach rich people to want to live in Britain,” Ms Reeves didn’t quite say. 
She received similar approbation for confirming the worst fears of those who can just about afford private school fees, that VAT will be imposed on fees from January. Just in case this wasn’t enough to decimate the private school sector, she also announced the Government would go ahead with an end to business tax relief for such schools.
Still, it can hardly be denied that this was nowhere near as painful a Budget as might have been expected, except for employers who will have to pay more National Insurance, and investors who face higher taxes on second properties and capital gains.
As well as good news on fuel duty, Reeves even announced a cut in the cost of draft beer as well as an inflation-busting increase (to be paid by employers, not her) in the National Minimum Wage. Again, if there were flowers available for sale in Members’ Lobby, Reeves would have been drowned in an avalanche of them from her party colleagues.
The brothers and sisters have waited for 14 years for this event and it was clear that they were the main target for the speech. Most of it felt like a continuation, if not of the general election campaign, then of the celebrations that immediately followed it, crowing about victory with the underlying message: “We’re the masters now”.
Whether that triumphalism will endure the intense scrutiny that follows every Budget, or the scepticism of the people who actually count – the voters – is something that Labour MPs will no doubt be able to report back after they’ve spent a few days in their constituencies.