The Budget was hotly anticipated. For a start, we all expected tax rises, and they duly came. We were all helped in our understanding by an incomprehensible leak from the OBR, which looked as though it was a deliberately sanctioned intervention.
Rachel Reeves announced the increase in taxation on dividends. There was also an increase in fuel duty to be expected from September. There has been an increase in taxes on pensions.
There has also been a levy on houses valued above £2m. On top of these actual tax levies, there has been a freezing of income tax thresholds, which means more people are being dragged into paying more tax.
More and more people are paying higher rates of tax, which, of course, at least breaks the spirit of the Labour manifesto promise. Remember, they promised no increases to VAT, income tax or national insurance on employees.
Simply, freezing the thresholds at which people pay higher rates of income tax is an increase in income tax on those people, as their incomes increase due to inflation.
In all, the taxes have increased by £26bn in this year's budget. That's compared to £40bn of tax rises in last year's budget. Higher taxes have led to lower growth rates, and it was. I was surprised that the OBR revised down the UK growth rates
Of course, the one thing that hasn't reared its head is any notion of reducing expenditure. The welfare bill, which Labour ministers themselves said was unsustainable, continues to rise.
The share of GDP consumed by taxes has now hit post-war highs. It also isn't clear whether the same routine won't be played out next year, with Reeves or, more probably, her successor increasing taxes still more to pay for a welfare state which is truly out of control.
The fact is, we are living in the midst of a big standard socialist Government which is presiding over higher taxes, more spending, lower growth and lower productivity.
What does this mean for Britain in the short term? It means that growth, the stated mission of this government, will remain as elusive as ever. It means that taxes will continue to increase.
Rachel Reeves has finally taken off Labour's centrist mask to reveal a student Marxist - Kwasi Kwarteng | PA
It also means that more productive people, entrepreneurs, young professionals and others with energy and drive will leave Britain to pursue opportunities abroad.
In the meantime, a generous buffet of benefits will draw more migrants from the most violent and the poorest nations on earth to seek an El Dorado here in Britain.
Just as worrying is the split on the left, politically speaking, where the Greens, militant Islamist parties and various nationalist parties in both Wales and Scotland are jockeying for power.
Labour has to throw scraps of meat to these crocodiles of the left to have a chance of winning the election. So expect more attacks on assets in the form of higher mansion taxes and the like.
We know how all this ends. At some point, the British people will have had enough of this exercise in student Marxist politics. Before then, we can expect more years of tax, spend, repeat.
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