Reeves and Starmer don't care about the longer term, they're just fighting to save their jobs, writes Andrew Marr

It wasn’t the Chancellor‘s fault, and indeed it may even have helped her, because as Rachel Reeves stood up in the Commons, she was blazing with anger at the leak; and her anger gave her an energy and momentum which took her through.

But there is no doubt that it added, dramatically, to the air of incompetence hanging over Westminster on this bright November day.

And the Budget itself? Clearly, a Labour Budget by a Labour Chancellor – or put it another way, a relatively traditional tax-and-spend Budget.

The markets, having panicked when the leak came out, quickly stabilised and seem, so far, to be relatively relaxed. The Chancellor had raised taxes by a little more than twice the amount of extra spending she revealed, giving her much bigger leeway, which is what the bond market hawks had wanted to see.

The single most dramatic spending announcement, the complete scrapping of the two child benefit cap, is not particularly popular in the country, but delighted Labour MPs who had been wondering why they came into politics in the first place.

They may be less delighted in a couple of years because the equally dramatic decision to freeze income tax thresholds for a longer than expected three years, means that millions of taxpayers, including people on relatively modest incomes, will notice their tax bill bouncing up not long before they are expected to vote at the next general election. There are two important things to say about this.

First, neither Sir Keir Starmer nor Rachel Reeves are that bothered about the longer term just now because they are both fighting to save their jobs in the next weeks and months, from a possible coup or leadership challenge emanating from the labour backbenches. Measures which helped them in the short term inside Westminster currently matter more than long-term problems among the electorate.

Second, however, the markets will be wondering whether these proposed longer-term tax rises will actually ever happen.

The spending comes in before the tax; under political pressure ahead of an election, will a future Labour chancellor not reverse today’s threshold freezes? If the markets decide the answer is yes, then the price of borrowing goes up yet again and a lot of Reeves’s fiscal caution will be wasted.

There is much more to please and irritate different groups. How exactly will the so-called mansion tax work, given the difficulty of fairly pricing properties, and the problem of income-poor people who are stuck in expensive houses for historical reasons?

Won’t the national insurance hike on money going into pensions both dissuade people from saving and act as yet another tax on business? The promised to revive high streets by taxing big online retailers looks exciting – but are the numbers big enough to make a difference?

These and scores of other questions will be debated in the weeks ahead. Few Budgets can be judged a failure or success on the day.

This one started disastrously as the details were read out on television well before Rachel Reeves had opened her speech – and surely heads will roll about that – but by the end, given the economic pressures the chance was under, it was a surprisingly confident performance.

Andrew Marr is an author, journalist and presenter for LBC.

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