“That’s when we saw the real Labor government,” said our political editor Beth Rigby said in reaction to the budget.

During the election campaign, Labor talked about tax increases and spending commitments that were “minor” compared to what was announced today.

But it is now “a victorious government, bold and confident in the decisions it takes”.

“To put things in context, this Budget, in terms of tax and spending, represents £74 billion of spending by the end of this Parliament, or £41 billion of tax increases” , she explained.

“I’ve done a number of budgets, I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’ve been doing this for 15 years. This is the biggest budget I’ve ever covered.”

“It’s so huge.”

Beth went on to say that while Rachel Reeves was talking about choice, Rishi Sunak gave the counterargument, which was: “That wasn’t laid out in the manifesto.”

She noted that when she herself interviewed Sir Keir Starmer during the election at the Sky News leaders’ event in Grimsby, he said there were “no plans” to increase taxes beyond those set, but “now look where they are”.

“These are massive tax increases that were not outlined in the manifesto, and the Labor government will try to shift the blame to the Conservative Party,” Beth said.

“But it’s so huge. You can’t help but come away from this budget and think that this is a Labor government that had a different agenda in the run-up to the election, than it has not lived up to the British people about.

“And I think that will be the conversation in the coming days.”