Subscribe to The Spectator in our Black Friday Flash Sale and you'll get 12 weeks of the magazine, along with full access to all of our online content, for just £12. Not only that, but we'll also send you a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label Whiskey worth £30 on the shops, absolutely free.

Hurry though, this ridiculously good offer, ends on the 1st of December.

Go to www.spictator.com.ukuk forward slash Friday.

Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm Lutty Dunn and today I'm joined by James Heel and Tim Shetman.

There's been a lot happening over this weekend. Your party is the gift that keeps on giving. There's been another defection and Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been accused of playing fast and loose with the truth over the state of the country's finances. James,

we'll take that last issue first. What is the latest here and how serious is this for Reeves?

So the accusation against Rachel Reeves was that she misled the public, the markets, even the

cabinet about how serious the black coal was in the run-up to the budget. Two dates in particular, ahead of 26th of

November, seen of particular interest, one of which was the press conference she gave on the 4th of

November, which she sort of talked up how bad that was going to be. The other was the briefing

to Bloomberg on the 14th of November. This is after it was revealed by the Financial Times that

the government wasn't going

to break its manifesto pledge to not raise income tax, the basic rate of income tax. And that concerns

about sort of, they said actually that the finances much better than previously thought.

This has all been caused by the letter, which the OBR released on Friday sitting out a timetable

for what they told the government and when about the state of the finances. They told the government at the end of October, there was actually

$4 billion more headroom than previously thought. There is now a bit of a standoff between the OBR and

the Treasury about whether the OBR has breached any kind of secrets about the budget process and all

of this. And Rachel Roos was out on the Sunday rounds, insisting that she didn't lie to the nation about how bad things were. So she survived that media round, but I think at times it was quite unconvincing and all that. This sets us up nicely ahead of Tuesday when we're going to have Robert Hughes. The head of the OBR is going to give evidence to the Treasury Select Committee, followed by Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor. So really the question is about, sort of, were they playing fast and loose, trying to roll the pitch and has that damaged Rachel Reeves credibility? I would just make one point, I think, which is that in terms of who's sort of most exercised about this, they're not Rachel Reeves' natural allies. It's mostly the conservatives who've written to the Natural Conduct Authority asking for an investigation into the briefings that went on.

Nigra Farsh has also written to the Prime Minister's Ethics Advisor Laurie Magnus, asking for an investigation into it. But thus far, the criticism is mostly confined to kind of, shall we say, the right of British politics as opposed to the left. But yes, very much serious questions for Rich Reeves to answer still. And, you know, it's, I suppose you could make a kind of counter-narrative,

optimist case, which is that at least we're not talking about the process leading up to the budget than some of the measures in it. But I do think she's not out of the woods yet. Tim, you think this could cost Rachel Reeves her job? I mean, look, I think if it cost her job, it would also cost Kirstama his job.

I think they're lashed together on the same mast, and I think it's inconceivable that he would fire her. So I think they're both in a spot of trouble. And the fact that the Prime Minister is coming out today to make a speech, to explain the budget to the nation, I mean, this is totally without precedent that you have a budget speech and all the fallout from it.

...