No 10 dismisses claim that OBR revelations show Reeves misled public about need for tax rises in budget – UK politics live

Rachel Reeves delivers the budget statement at the House of Commons, in London, Britain, 26 November. Photograph: House of Commons/Reuters

4.42pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• Kemi Badenoch has claimed that the an OBR letter released today shows that Rachel Reeves “lied to the public” to justify tax rises in the budget. (See 2.16pm.) The letter shows that Reeves was told well before the budget that, even though a downgrade in productivity growth forecasts meant the Treasury would raise less money from tax in the future, this was largely offset for by the fact that real wage increases and inflation meant that Treasury receipts would be higher in future than expected. So, even though it was widely reported over the summer that Reeves had a £20bn black hole to fill, she didn’t. Downing Street has dismissed claims this shows Reeves misled people about the need for tax rises. (See 1.09pm.) But the OBR letter does raise questions as to why government sources told journalists that Reeves dropped plans for an income tax rise because the forecasts improved just before the budget, when in fact the forecasts had been looking healthy for weeks.

• Labour MPs have said they believe Keir Starmer’s leadership is safe until at least the May elections, after a budget that avoided any major damaging measures but which few MPs believe will revive the party’s fortunes.

• Keir Starmer is facing backbench anger after ministers abandoned plans to give workers day-one protection against unfair dismissal, a U-turn that breaches the Labour manifesto.

For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.

4.29pm GMT

Your Party has lost third of its potential support since July, as infighting took hold, poll suggests

Tomorrow Your Party, the new leftwing party being set up by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, will start a two-day conference in Liverpool where it will discuss how it will operate. Ahead of that, YouGov has published polling suggesting that 12% of the public would consider voting for it at the next election.

But that means it has lost a third of its potential support since July, when 18% of people said they would consider voting for it.

These figures are not the number of people who say they would definitely for vote for party X in an election today; they are the ones who say that the chances they would consider voting for X are 6 out of 10, or higher. On this measure, the Greens are currently the most popular party in Britain (by a margin of just one point).

Support for Your Party has been hit by the growing popularity of the Greens under their new leader, Zack Polanski, and the bitter Your Party infighting that has come close to derailing the project.

Peter Walker has a good account of all that here.

Updated at 4.47pm GMT