Rachel Reeves goes back to the future with a tax and spend budget

Chancellor heeds calls long made on the left for spending to match other European countries with rise of £70bn a year

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The days of tax and spend are supposed to be over, but clearly no one told Rachel Reeves. The chancellor’s debut budget – with its sharp increases in spending, taxes and borrowing – was a budget from yesteryear.

In her speech, Reeves harked back to the times Labour governments had arrived in power – in 1945, 1964 and 1979 – needing to sort out Britain’s problems. This was most like a mid-1960s budget, with its vision of a bigger state used to modernise the economy.