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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Rowena Mason Whitehall editor

Has Healey’s military-style budget secrecy really played out so differently to past budgets?

John Healey, in dark suit and red tie, meets soldiers in camouflage uniforms at a barracks in Estonia
The chancellor, John Healey – photographed here meeting British personnel in Estonia while he was defence secretary – is said to have deployed ‘military-style protocols’ to prevent leaks of his budget. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Live News.

The public has been told repeatedly that John Healey is so concerned about budget leaks that he has set up defence-style “compartmentalisation” to prevent the Treasury’s financial secrets escaping.

The macho military analogies began in mid-August when Healey was said by the Telegraph to be “on a war footing” to stop the drip of information that he believed had beleaguered Rachel Reeves.

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