The New Statesman

Next week, Rachel Reeves will deliver her budget.

And for all the talk of fiscal rules, headroom and tax rises, there is a higher power she must contend with.

When the Chancellor goes for meetings in the city, she's rarely introduced to the people whose job it is

to press the button on buying or selling several hundred million pounds worth of guilt.

It is to these people that we've been speaking in the run-up to the budget.

You would not guess that they wield political power.

But for them, politics is not personal. They approach it

with blunt professional interest, seeing opportunity in chaos. And if Reeves thinks she can rely on

their support, she's wrong. The Bond vigilantes. I'm Olly Dougmore and I'm joined by Will Dunn,

the New Statesman's business editor and sketchwriter, who has spent weeks meeting the financiers and money men who will be watching Reeves closely and determining our financial futures.

I will. Hello. Your cover, meet the Bond Vigilantes. Who are they? Who are the Bond Vigilantes?

So in the city of London, it's a huge white tower.

You'll have seen it. It's gleaming, gleaming white.

Topped with, I think they're big diamonds.

And it just stairs all the way up. then right at the top there's a room

and there are like nine or ten guys in there called sebastian and they watch tv all day

and they see something like they'll see like the chancellor crying on the front bench of the

house coins and and one of them will say oh no

Sebastian he's made a cry and so the other Sebastian will go to that there's a big lever in the

middle of the room and he will pull the lever and then all the graphs go angry and that when the graphs go angry

uh martin lewis gets angry

...