Rachel Reeves suffered another hammer blow today as government borrowing hit a grim new mark despite her huge tax raid.
The embattled Chancellor saw the public sector rack up £20.2billion of borrowing last month, far more than the £17.6billion analysts had expected.
The level was £1billion higher than the same month last year, and a record outside of Covid. There was also a higher figure in April 2012, but that was warped by the effects of Royal Mail privatisation.
Revenues were driven upwards by Labour's national insurance hike on employers.
However, that was outweighed by a surge in central government departmental spending on goods and services. That rose by £4.2billion year-on-year due to pay increases and inflation.
