Let’s not dress this up or pretend this is some harmless clerical slip. What we just witnessed with the OBR Budget leak is nothing short of a national embarrassment; a full-blown, brass band, red carpet shambles at the heart of this Government.
And while they’ll all line up today to call it an “error”, shrug their shoulders, blame an OBR junior staffer or a corrupted PDF, the truth is this: competent governments don’t accidentally detonate their own Budget before the Chancellor even opens her mouth.
This isn’t a school newsletter going out early. This is the economic roadmap of a major nation, billions of pounds worth of decisions, forecasts, tax changes, the stuff that moves markets and influences interest rates, all dumped online like someone’s weekend shopping list.
Yet we’re expected to calmly nod along, pretend this is business as usual, and swallow the line that “these things unfortunately happen”.
No, these things don’t just happen.
Not in serious countries and not under serious leadership.
Look at the fallout, gilts flying around like fireworks, markets reacting before Parliament even hears a word, investors scrambling, journalists tripping over each other, and a Chancellor forced to deliver a Budget where the punchline’s already been leaked. It’s amateur hour - and it makes the world look at Britain and go: “Ah yes… the country formerly known as competent, reliable and stable.”
So, should the Chancellor resign?
If this had happened under any previous government - Labour, Tory or a coalition, it doesn’t matter - the opposition would be demanding the Chancellor’s "head on a spike" outside Downing Street.
The press would be howling. Financial experts would be calling it a constitutional calamity. Instead, we get the usual polished soundbites, the corporate PR apologies, and the bizarre expectation that we all just sit quietly and take it.
Because that’s what this government seems to rely on, the public being too tired, too worn down, and too fed up to care. But people do care. They’re sick of the sloppiness, sick of the hypocrisy, sick of the excuses, sick of institutions that screw up on this scale with zero consequences.
Is this leak unprecedented?
Absolutely. You can rummage through fifty years of Budget practice, and you won’t find anything like this, not even close. You have to go back to 1947, when Chancellor Hugh Dalton resigned for accidentally sharing Budget details with a journalist minutes before delivering his speech.
The full-blown shambles that is the Budget leak is much bigger than a single document - Adam Brooks | Getty Images
Budgets are locked down tighter than a submarine hatch. They’re choreographed to the minute, and the timing matters. The sequencing matters. The presentation matters because markets reacting prematurely can wipe billions off the financial instruments that this country relies on.
This is bigger than one document, bigger than one day.
It’s all about trust.
If they can’t even keep the Budget secure, what else is slipping through the cracks? What else is being handled with this level of incompetence?
How many more “accidents” are we supposed to tolerate before someone stands up and says, "Enough?"
Britain deserves better than this, better than a government that treats the nation’s finances like a lost USB stick, better than a political class that shrugs at failures that would get anyone else sacked before Monday morning. Better than leaders who talk about stability while overseeing utter chaos.
And the worst bit?
They’ll still expect us to clap, to praise the “difficult decisions” to accept that this was just a blip, nothing to see here, move along.
Well, not this time.
When you leak the Budget of the United Kingdom, trigger market jitters, and make the whole country look ridiculous, you don’t get to move along.
You get judged, and right now, that judgment is simple.
This Government isn’t in control.
It’s not serious.
And it’s running out of excuses for its chaos.