Of all the gambles taken by Chancellor Rachel Reeves and her Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at this week’s Budget, the most obvious one underpinning the announcements is that they expect to have at least 10 years in office.

This was not a Budget by a government which feels under pressure from its political opponents. The Labour Party’s majority is large, but its vote share is wide and shallow. In theory, the opposition Conservatives don’t need to do all that much better to give Ms Reeves and Sir Keir a headache. But Labour’s political calculation, clearly, is that the Tories, whether under Kemi Badenoch (probably) or Robert Jenrick (still just possible) will not be at the races. They are probably right.

So, they calculate, they can afford to deliver this utterly extraordinary Budget without political consequence. By the time the next General Election rolls around in the financial year 2028/29, Britain will be taxed higher than it has ever been. Higher even than immediately after the Second World War, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

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This may lead one to believe that this is a long-term Budget designed to tackle long-term issues; to "fix the foundations", as Labour’s three-work lectern strapline goes. In time, perhaps Ms Reeves and Sir Keir will be able to say “I told you so”. Today, though, it would be understandable if the centre-ground voters who could normally swing either way, but tend to vote for the party they think will deliver the most stable economy, are simply saying “same old Labour”.

There are foundations to be fixed, for sure. And, let us be fair, one of those is Britain’s crumbling infrastructure. The most sunny and optimistic side to Ms Reeves’s announcement was about investment in infrastructure: houses, schools, hospitals, transport and digital. This was largely focused on expenditure from the public purse, which is credible to a point, but our infrastructure is so far behind that it cannot be brought up to an acceptable standard without a gargantuan injection of private funding. This was noted by the Chancellor, but the detail seemed woolly. Nonetheless, infrastructure drives growth and it represents a foundation to be fixed.

However the most obvious foundation to be fixed is that well over half of all public sector spending goes towards either healthcare or social security, and their share of the pie is ever growing. Yesterday’s big "winner’" was the NHS, with another £22 billion bung. 'Twas ever thus. We have, in Wes Streeting, the most ostensibly transformative Health Secretary in recent memory. His Parliamentary Private Secretary, Dr Zubir Ahmed, assured me on the Holyrood Sources podcast this week that his zeal for reform was stronger than ever, and we can only hope that is true, because the NHS of today wastes eye-watering sums of money, swallows far too much of the pie, and delivers poorer outcomes than similarly funded services throughout the rest of Europe. Fixing the foundations is impossible without fixing the NHS.

It is also impossible if the economy does not grow. And that, reader, is the most concerning aspect of Wednesday’s Budget. We talk incessantly about how to plug black holes by raising a tax here and a tax there; the single best way to plug a black hole is through a growing economy, and if this Budget needed to be anything, it needed to be a growth Budget.

It isn’t. The OBR downgraded the already sclerotic growth expectation such that, by the next election in 2028 or 2029, it will be a measly 1.5 per cent. Poor growth is not inevitable; say what you will about the US - more on which later - but its economy is flying, with growth rates of nearly double that.

Growth is driven by private enterprise. By those thousands and thousands of small and medium-sized businesses, as well as the larger ones, doing well, hiring more staff, earning more money, paying more tax. They feel bruised by this Budget, to put it mildly, and principally by the rise in employer National Insurance contributions. That is not a growth policy. And this is not a growth Budget.

In spite of one’s sense that Labour is politically bullet-proof, as the Tories spend most of the next decade working out what they are for, that should not breed complacency. Complacency is not merely politically dangerous; it is also dangerous for society as a whole.

Britain is not a terribly happy place. In cities and towns up and down the country, there is a feeling of disempowerment and hopelessness. If the Brexit referendum told us anything, it told us this. But what are our governments doing about that? What are they doing to tackle those core issues that create hopelessness and breed resentment?

As us metropolitan-types debate what pronouns children should be allowed to use, most normal people are more worried that their children can’t do fractions when they get to secondary school. As us metropolitan-types argue for keeping universal "free" prescriptions, the disenchanted middle don’t even bother checking out that troublesome hip that’s becoming so painful they’re having to reduce their hours at work; they just can’t face the battle of getting through the NHS. While us metropolitan-types batter supermarkets for the price of healthy greens, the typical couple is trying to work out why, when they both work hard, it’s back to beans on toast in the week before payday.

Over four million people voted for Nigel Farage in the General Election. More than for the Liberal Democrats; two-thirds of the number who voted Tory and 40 per cent of the Labour vote. They’re not bad people, by and large. Just alienated. Just fed up. Ready for a simpler message, and ready for someone who tells them he has an easy fix.

If we think that won’t go anywhere then we’re not paying attention. On Tuesday, half of the people in the greatest democracy the world has ever seen will vote for Donald Trump.

Sir Keir Starmer is Prime Minister at a time when the relationship between the people and the politicians is at an all-time lowSir Keir Starmer is Prime Minister at a time when the relationship between the people and the politicians is at an all-time low (Image: PA)

Sir Keir Starmer’s job extends far wider than we have talked about during this Budget. He is Prime Minister at a time when the relationship between the people and the politicians is at an all-time low. He has the responsibility of repairing the bonds of trust which have steadily eroded. At the centre of that is economic hopelessness, and at the centre of that is low economic growth.

Labour has a big majority, and an opposition which is small in every sense of the word. It must use it wisely. The ordinary person, questioning the politicians and questioning the process, needs some optimism now more than ever.

Andy Maciver is Founding Director of Message Matters, and co-host of the Holyrood Sources podcast