Copy article

Of Black Holes, the Budget and the OBR

ended 30. November 2025

What are your thoughts on the OBR telling the Government it was in fact in surplus (by £4.2bn) only for the Government to proceed with a harsh fiscal Budget? If the black hole didn't exist and they knew about it, should the Chancellor — and perhaps even PM — go? What is your take on the latest crisis engulfing Downing Street? 

11 responses from the Newspage community

Copy all

Copy

Kundan Bhaduri
Entrepreneur, Investor and Landlord at The Kushman Group
Reeves is discovering what a "black hole" truly looks like. Isn't it funny the OBR has quietly revealed that the theatrical budget warnings were based on a £4.2B surplus, not the existential crisis she sold to Parliament and markets?

Meanwhile, Labour proceeded with punitive tax hikes anyway, loading employers with £25 billion in national insurance costs while claiming fiscal necessity. Can anyone dispute that this was deliberate deception?

Labour knew the public finances were healthier than advertised, yet hammered businesses regardless.

Property developers like myself face higher employment costs, frozen investment decisions, and reduced hiring plans because the Chancellor preferred political theatre to economic honesty.

She has weaponised a fictional crisis to justify ideological tax grabs to keep her backbenchers happy while unemployment climbs to three year highs and business confidence crumbles. If this is not grounds for resignation, what is?
Star Quote
Copy

Colette Mason
AI Ethics Consultant at Clever Clogs AI
This isn't economics; it's political fraud. The government deliberately trailed a crippling black hole message to justify a punitive budget to fund its welfare agenda. If you knowingly mislead the public about the nation's finances you are not fit to govern.

The core problem is a broken fiscal process. The constant speculation and drama is a halfway house between a secret and an open consultation, serving absolutely no one. This provides cover for the government to suppress good news (the surplus) and amplify fear (the 'black hole') to tie their own hands and push through tax hikes.

A few crumbs of relief do not excuse a deliberate distortion of the national finances. The core issue isn't the detail; it’s the accountability gap when the government lies about the numbers to justify their political choices.

When the accounting means an employee takes home more per pound of earned income than the business owner, "Houston, we have a problem."
Star Quote
Copy

Rohit Parmar-Mistry
Founder at Pattrn Data
The Treasury’s obsession with treating the UK economy like a household budget is strangling us. This 'black hole' narrative is just Thatcherite neoliberalism in a new suit. It ignores the reality that government spending drives the very income it taxes.

We are starving the consumption side of the economy to appease the investment side, waiting for a 'trickle-down' effect that is a proven myth. In business, you don't grow by cutting; you invest in capacity. Yet, we allow privatised monopolies like water and energy to engage in wild profiteering while hammering regular people with austerity.

The Treasury needs to be purged of this reductive orthodoxy. We need a Keynesian shift that prioritises public goods over private extraction. If the books were in the black while the public was told to brace for the red, it isn’t just an accounting error, it’s a betrayal of growth for the sake of failed ideology
Copy

Editor
Justin Moy
Managing Director at EHF Mortgages
This latest political drama engulfing Downing Street shows how hapless this government has become. It failed to understand the impact its actions would have had on the Swap and Gilt markets, potentially costing mortgage holders millions in additional interest cost, whilst slowing our economy to a virtual standstill as businesses and the public waited for the worst news on the Budget. The Chancellor has hoodwinked everyone, the OBR has spilt the beans and the government are toast.
Copy

Editor
Ranald Mitchell
Director at bad credit mortgage specialists Charwin Mortgages
If the OBR said we were in surplus and the Government still delivered a punitive Budget, then the ‘black hole’ was a convenient fiction and the country has been lied to. It’s shocking. The graft and risk-taking of Britain’s business owners is being steamrolled by a Government obsessed with swelling welfare while punishing those who actually drive the economy. If they knew the surplus existed, serious questions need asking of the Chancellor and Number 10. These people have monumental questions to answer. This is a crisis of honesty, not economics. This isn’t just misjudgement. It’s a betrayal so brazen it’s hard not to feel the country’s been strung up by its own Government and heads must roll. Both the Prime Minister's and Chancellor's positions and credibility as government leaders have been irreversibly damaged and they should resign.
Copy

Editor
Rohit Kohli
Director at The Mortgage Stop
This is politics with people’s pay. Plain and simple. Labour promised welfare reform and growth. Last year the Chancellor hiked taxes to record levels and said that was it. This year her own MPs blocked the welfare plan and pushed to scrap the two-child cap. The OBR told ministers on 31 October there was £4.2bn headroom. If she had delivered the reform, that headroom would have been bigger and new tax might not have been needed. Instead she sold a black hole to justify higher taxes. That is dishonest and put the party before the country. The Prime Minister backed it. On judgment and honesty she should resign. If he knew and waved it through, he should consider his position, too.
Copy

Editor
Anita Wright
Chartered Financial Planner at Ribble Wealth Management
If the OBR is privately telling the Government there is a £4.2bn surplus, yet the public is being sold a terrifying “black hole” to justify a punishing Budget, this is no longer about forecasts – it is about trust. I do not object to Reeves wanting more headroom; given the OBR’s dire forecasting record, the instinct to build a bigger buffer is understandable and, on its own, defensible. What is indefensible is the way this has been handled. The handling of the OBR itself only adds to the sense of farce. You have an institution that is meant to underpin credibility and transparency, yet we have Budget numbers appearing in the media before Reeves has even delivered her statement.
Copy

Editor
Scott Gallacher
Director at Rowley Turton
The logic of the Government effectively giving every working person in the UK a ‘paycut’ through higher taxes via fiscal drag — all because of supposed headroom issues — was daft in the first place. No rational person would choose pain today over similar pain tomorrow, especially when there’s every chance that tomorrow’s pain may never materialise. To now discover that there wasn’t even a headroom issue in the first place is deeply concerning. It fundamentally undermines trust in the Government. If the OBR had already made clear that the public finances were actually in surplus, then why did the Chancellor proceed with such a punitive fiscal Budget? And if the Treasury and Number 10 knew this, it raises very serious questions about judgment at the very top of Government. At best, it looks like spectacular incompetence. At worst, it suggests the public were misled. Either way, it’s hard to see how this crisis doesn’t engulf Downing Street in the days ahead.
Copy

Editor
Rob Mansfield
Independent Financial Advisor at Rootes Wealth Management
The Chancellor talks a good game about growth and making the tough choices, but in reality she caves in to her left-wing backbenchers spending wishes every time. There's no problem that more money can't solve and so the tax take keeps hiking up higher and higher. It's a sad reflection of the lack of any competent political opposition. We look set for more grind and squeezing than a raucous works Christmas party.
Copy

Patricia McGirr
Founder at Repossession Rescue Network
The Government haven’t just taken penny pinching to a new level. They’ve weaponised it.

They skimmed pounds from the pockets of hardworking people and small businesses to prop up a lie. The OBR has blown the lid off it and exposed a Government willing to mislead the very people keeping the country afloat to pursue an agenda based on crushing ambition. This isn’t misjudgement. It is a calculated move that shows just how far they’ll go to get their plans through, whatever the cost to the wider economy.

Whatever is left of their credibility has now vanished. The audacity is staggering. If this isn’t misconduct at the highest level, what is? Unbelievable. Unforgivable. Unelectable.
Copy

Sam Kirk
Managing Director at J-Flex Rubber Products
The OBR pointed to a £4.2bn surplus and Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves still pushed ahead with a Budget that hits people hard. They keep saying "we're listening" but their actions last week felt like sticking two fingers up to the public and to their own independent watchdog.

The country needed change when Labour came to power. What it got was a Government that is dishonest, incompetent, ignores warnings and behaves as if accountability is optional. At this point it feels like a question of when the PM or the Chancellor go, not if.