The New Statesman

The Chancellor has admitted that the economy feels stuck.

But will tomorrow's budget, which promises to grip the cost of living

and looks likely to freeze income tax thresholds, actually do anything to help?

I'm Olly Dougmore, and this is the New Statesman podcast.

Joining me today is our editor-in-chief, Tom McTague, and our political editor, Alva, Rae. Hello both.

Hello.

Alva, Rachel Reeves, is the least popular minister in the least popular government in post-war

Britain. How did we get here? Yeah, not only that, since polling began, she is the most unpopular chancellor of all time.

Fantastic accolades to have.

How did we get here?

So this is the cover story this week and it took quite a lot of words to cover how we got here.

So people can pick up the magazine for the, I guess, the full journey.

And it's very heavy.

It's a heavy one.

The magazine, not the content, which is light and breezy.

I mean, it goes back.

I mean, we were saying this last time, it's impossible really to kind of tell this

story without going back to the Labour Party in opposition, deciding what would go in the manifesto

and how they would play this question of tax that was going to come up during the election campaign.

And basically, Rachel Reeves decided to commit to ruling out increases in

income tax, national insurance or VAT, which for context, so the three main taxes in the UK,

...