Rachel Reeves painted a rosy picture in her budget speech, but behind the rhetoric lie rising debt, higher taxes, stagnant productivity and a raft of muddled policies, says Guy Stenhouse.

If you listened to Rachel Reeves delivering her budget you would think the Labour Government has presided over an outstanding period of economic success.

The reality is that the country's debt is still rising, welfare spending is out of control, taxes are increasing, economic growth per person is pathetic, public-sector productivity stagnant, the incentive to work hard undermined at every turn.

What the budget really lacked, which is true of the Government as a whole, is vision. Apart from spending more money what is the Government really trying to do? What is its central purpose?

As well as being muddled, the changes announced in the budget contain some items which are downright stupid. Not the mansion tax, this is in overall economic terms trivial but not actually daft, but five other specific items.

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First, the new 3p per mile tax on electric vehicles. The........

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