• AN early indication of how ambitious and potentially transformational the first Labour budget in 14 years could prove to be, can be found in the variety and tone of opposing voices.

In marked contrast to the carefully measured, broadly supportive, reactions from a wide range of economists, financial institutions and international money markets, the shrill protestations of opposition politicians, right-wing press and assortment of victimised very-well-offs, whose comfort zones of complacent entitlement are perceived to have been so cruelly violated, was quite something to behold (The Telegraph’s report of one couple’s shattered dreams of sailing the world on the rent collected from a 60 odd buy-to-let property portfolio, offered a particularly piqued slice of schadenfreude).

However confected all this froth and fury may be, it is perhaps in recognition that, if the measures announced in this budget begin to make a positive difference in most peoples’ lives, a paradigm shift in our politics will have occurred, recasting the state’s role into one that taxes to sufficiently fund our public services and responsibly borrows to properly invest in all our futures.

After years of Tory misrule, it feels like the beginning of Labour’s transformation of our atrophied and enfeebled state into a revitalised social democracy that builds the mutually supportive framework of healthcare, education, physical and social infrastructure around which employees and employers, public and private enterprise can grow and flourish more equitably, engendering a shared sense of stakeholder citizenship.

Whatever we do here though, our fortunes are inevitably dependent upon favourable geopolitics, over which we have limited or no control.

Can we progressives allow ourselves some feelings of real optimism?

And how refreshing has been the resolute and reassuring presentations from ministers, chancellor Rachel Reeves and Treasury chief secretary Darren Jones in particular, finally free of equivocation.

So much easier to stay on message when you just tell it as you see it!

JEF SMITH, NW5