On Wednesday the chancellor broke those pledges as she lifted taxes by another £26bn, adding to the £40bn rise in her first budget.

She told working people a year ago she would not extend freezing tax thresholds - a Conservative policy - because it would "hurt working people".

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On Wednesday she ripped up that pledge, as she extended the threshold freeze for three years, dragging 800,000 workers into tax and another million into the higher tax band to raise £8.3bn.

Rachel Reeves said it was a Labour budget and she's right.

In the first 17 months of this government, Labour have raised tens of billions in taxes, while reversing on welfare reform - the U-turn on the winter fuel allowance and disability benefits has cost £6.6bn.

Ms Reeves even lifted the two-child benefit cap on Wednesday, at a cost of £3bn, despite the prime minister making a point of not putting that pledge in the manifesto as part of the "hard choices" this government would make to try to bear down on the tax burden for ordinary people. The OBR predicts one in four people would be caught by the 40% higher rate of tax by the end of this parliament.

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Those higher taxes were necessary for two reasons and aimed at two audiences - the markets and the Labour Party.

For the former, the tax rises help the chancellor meet her fiscal rules, which requires the day-to-day spending budget to be in a surplus by 2029-30.

Before this budget, her headroom was just £9.9bn, which made her vulnerable to external shocks, rises in the cost of borrowing or lower tax takes. Now she has built her buffer to £22bn, which has pleased the markets and should mean investors begin to charge Britain less to borrow.

As for the latter, this was also the chancellor raising taxes to pay for spending and it pleased her backbenchers - when I saw some on the PM's team going into Downing Street in the early evening, they looked pretty pleased.

I can see why: amid all the talk of leadership challenge, this was a budget that helped buy some time.

"This is a budget for self-preservation, not for the country," remarked one cabinet minister to me this week.

You can see why: ducking welfare reform, lifting the two-child benefit cap - these are decisions a year-and-a-half into government that Downing Street has been forced into by a mutinous bunch of MPs.

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With a majority of 400 MPs, you might expect the PM and his chancellor to take the tough decisions and be on the front foot. Instead they find themselves just trying to survive, preserve their administration and try to lead from a defensive crouch.

When I asked the chancellor about breaking manifesto promises to raise taxes on working people, she argued the pledge explicitly involved rates of income tax (despite her pledge not to extend the threshold freeze in the last budget because it "hurt working people").

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Trying to argue it is not a technical breach - the Institute of Fiscal Studies disagreed - rather than taking it on and explaining those decisions to the country says a lot about the mindset of this administration.

One of the main questions that struck me reflecting on this budget is accountability to the voters.

Labour in opposition, and then in government, didn't tell anyone they might do this, and actually went further than that - explicitly saying they wouldn't. They were asked, again and again during the election, for tax honesty. The prime minister told me that he'd fund public spending through growth and had "no plans" to raise taxes on working people.

Those people have been let down. Labour voters are predominantly middle earners and higher earning, educated middle classes - and it is these people who are the ones who will be hit by these tax rises that have been driven to pay for welfare spending rather than that much mooted black hole (tax receipts were much better than expected).

This budget is also back-loaded - a spend-now-pay-later budget, as the IFS put it, with tax rises coming a year before the election. Perhaps Rachel Reeves is hoping again something might turn up - her downgraded growth forecasts suggests it won't.

This budget does probably buy the prime minister and his chancellor more time. But as for credibility, that might not be recoverable. This administration was meant to change the country. Many will be looking at the tax rises and thinking it's the same old Labour.

On the edge of the Chilterns and 30 minutes from central London by train, it's Britain's most expensive market town for first-time buyers. It's also been voted one of the top 10 best, and top 20 happiest, places to live in the country.

Last summer Labour did well in the polls here too. Hitchin's 35,000 inhabitants, with above average earnings, levels of employment, and higher education, ejected the Conservatives for the first time in more than 50 years.

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Having swept into affluent southern constituencies, Rachel Reeves is now asking them to help pay for her plans via a combination of increased taxes on earnings and savings.

While her first budget made business bear the brunt of tax rises, the higher earners of Hitchin, and those aspiring to join them, are unapologetically in the sights of the second.

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Kai Walker, 27, runs Vantage Plumbing & Heating, a growing business employing seven engineers, all earning north of £45,000, with ambition to expand further.

He's disappointed that the VAT threshold was not reduced - "it makes us 20% less competitive than smaller players" - and does not love the prospect of his fiancee paying per-mile to use her EV.

But it's the freeze on income tax thresholds that will hit him and his employees hardest, inevitably dragging some into the 40% bracket, and taking more from those already there.

"It seems like the same thing year on end," he says. "Work harder, pay more tax, the thresholds have been frozen again until 2031, so it's just a case where we see less of our money. Tax the rich has been a thing for a while or, you know, but I still don't think that it's fair.

"I think with a lot of us working class, it's just a case of dealing with the cost. Obviously, we hope for change and lower taxes and stuff, but ultimately it's a case of we do what we're told."

Reeves's central pitch is that taxes need to rise to reset the public finances, support the NHS, and fund welfare increases she had promised to cut.

In Hitchin's Market Square it has been heard, but it is strikingly hard to find people who think this budget was for them.

Jamie and Adele Hughes both work, had their first child three weeks ago, and are unconvinced.

"We're going to be paying more, while other people are going to be getting more money and they're not going to be working. I don't think it's fair," says Adele.

Jamie adds: "If you're from a generation where you're trying to do well for yourself, trying to do things which were once possible for everybody, which are not possible for everybody now, like buying a house, starting a family like we just have, it's extremely difficult," says Jamie.

Liz Felstead, managing director of recruitment company Essential Results, fears the increase in the minimum wage will hit young people's prospects hard.

"It's disincentivising employers to hire younger people. If you have a choice between someone with five years experience or someone with none, and it's only £2,000 difference, you are going to choose the experience."

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After five years, the cost of living crisis has not entirely passed Hitchin by. In the market Kim's World of Toys sells immaculately reconditioned and repackaged toys at a fraction of the price.

Demand belies Hitchin's reputation. "The way that it was received was a surprise to us I think, particularly because it's a predominantly affluent area," says Kim. "We weren't sure whether that would work but actually the opposite was true. Some of the affluent people are struggling as well as those on lower incomes."

Customer Joanne Levy, shopping for grandchildren, urges more compassion for those who will benefit from Reeves's spending plans: "The elderly, they're struggling, bless them, the sick, people with young children, they are all struggling, even if they're working they are struggling."

The president said the "monstrous, ambush-style attack" was carried out by an Afghan national who arrived in September 2021 during America's chaotic withdrawal from Kabul.

"This attack underscores the single greatest national security threat facing our nation," Mr Trump said in an address to the nation from Florida.

He vowed to "reexamine every single alien" who has entered the US from Afghanistan under the previous government, and said: "I am determined to ensure the animal who perpetrated this atrocity will pay the steepest possible price."

Suspect to face terror probe

America's citizenship and immigration office said it had stopped processing all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals indefinitely.

Sky's US partner network, NBC News, reports the suspect in custody is 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal.

Both guardsmen were shot in the head, according to NBC, citing senior officials briefed on the investigation.

Wednesday's shooting - carried out with a handgun - will be investigated by the FBI as a possible act of terror.

The White House was placed into lockdown following the incident, while Mr Trump is away for Thanksgiving.

Victims in 'critical condition'

West Virginia's governor initially said both victims were members of his state's National Guard and had died from their injuries - but later posted to say there were "conflicting reports about the condition of our two Guard members".

Patrick Morrisey had said: "These brave West Virginians lost their lives in the service of their country."

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Hundreds of National Guard members have been patrolling the capital after Mr Trump issued an emergency order in August, which federalised the local police force and sent in the guard from eight states and the District of Columbia.

Mr Trump has announced an extra 500 troops will be deployed in the wake of Wednesday's shooting.

FBI director Kash Patel said the troops were "brazenly attacked in a horrendous act of violence".

At a news conference, he clarified they were in a "critical condition".

Former president Joe Biden, who was heavily criticised by Mr Trump in his address, said he and his wife Jill were "heartbroken" by the shooting.

"Violence of any kind is unacceptable, and we must all stand united against it," said a statement.

How the attack unfolded

Jeff Carroll, chief of the metropolitan police department in the area, said the attack began at 2.15pm local time (7.15pm in the UK) while National Guard members were on "high visibility patrols in the area".

He said: "A suspect came around the corner, raised his arm with a firearm and discharged it at the National Guard.

"The National Guard members were... able to - after some back and forth - able to subdue the individual and bring them into custody."

Washington DC mayor Muriel Bowser called the attack a "targeted shooting".

Social media footage showed first responders attempting CPR on one of the soldiers as they treated the other on a pavement covered in glass.

Nearby other officers could be seen restraining an individual on the ground.

The scene was cordoned off by police tape, while agents from the US Secret Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives attended the scene, as National Guard troops stood sentry nearby.

The FBI was also on the scene, the agency's director said.

Authorities say at least 55 people, including one firefighter, have been killed and nearly 300 are still missing from the blaze at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po - a suburban district with around 300,000 residents in the city's north, near the border with mainland China.

A further 45 are in hospital in a critical condition, with around 900 people also in shelters.

"The priority is to extinguish the fire and rescue the residents who are trapped," Hong Kong leader John Lee said during an early morning news conference.

"The second is to support the injured. The third is to support and recover. Then, we'll launch a thorough investigation."

The fire broke out at 2.51pm local time on Wednesday.

Fire crews said they had brought the fire in four blocks under control by Thursday morning, with videos from the scene showing flames still leaping from at least two of the 32-storey towers, which had been undergoing maintenance.

It's not known how the fire started, but police said it may have been spread through bamboo scaffolding and construction mesh sheets on one of the buildings and spread from there - likely aided by windy conditions.

Records show the Wang Fuk Court site consists of eight blocks, with almost 2,000 flats housing around 4,800 residents, including many elderly people. It was built in the 1980s and has recently been undergoing a major renovation.

The mesh sheets and scaffolding used on the buildings have been subject to a phase-out in Hong Kong since March due to safety concerns.

Hong Kong's Association for the Rights of Industrial Accident Victims said there have been at least three fires involving bamboo scaffolding this year.

Construction firm employees arrested

Police also discovered some windows on one unaffected building were sealed with a foam material, which had been installed by a construction company assigned to do maintenance work.

Superintendent Eileen Chung said: "We have reason to believe that the company's responsible parties were grossly negligent, which led to this accident and caused the fire to spread uncontrollably, resulting in major casualties."

She said two directors and one engineering consultant from the construction company had been arrested.

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China's state broadcaster CCTV said President Xi Jinping has urged an "all-out effort" to extinguish the fire and minimise casualties and losses.

Both the US and British Consulate Generals for Hong Kong have sent condolences to those affected, as has Taiwan's president.

The number of dead is already the highest in a Hong Kong fire since the Second World War, surpassing 41 killed in a blaze in a commercial building in Kowloon in November 1996, which was later found to have been caused by welding during internal renovations.

A subsequent public inquiry saw sweeping updates to building standards and fire safety regulations in the city's high-rise offices, shops, and homes.

Millions of these workers "would have been better off with their tax rates rising than their thresholds being frozen", according to the Resolution Foundation's chief executive, Ruth Curtice.

"Ironically, sticking to her manifesto tax pledge has cost millions of low-to-middle earners", she said.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in her budget speech that the point at which people start paying higher rates of tax has been held. It means earners are set to be dragged into higher tax bands as they get pay rises.

The chancellor felt unable to raise income tax as the Labour Party pledged not to raise taxes on working people in its election manifesto.

But many are saying that pledge was broken regardless, as the tax burden has increased by £26bn in this budget.

When asked by Sky News whether Ms Reeves would accept she broke the manifesto pledge, she said:

"I do recognise that yesterday I have asked working people to contribute a bit more by freezing those thresholds for a further three years from 2028."

"I do recognise that that will mean that working people pay a bit more, but I've kept that contribution to an absolute minimum".

Welcome news

The Resolution Foundation thinktank, which aims to raise living standards, welcomed measures designed to support people with the cost of living, such as the removal of the two-child benefit cap, which limited the number of children families could claim benefits for.

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The announced reduction in energy bills through the removal of as yet unspecified levies was similarly welcomed.

The chancellor said bills would become £150 cheaper a year, but the foundation said typical energy bills will fall by around £130 annually for the next three years, "though support then fades away".

More to come

This budget won't be the last of it, Ms Curtice said, as economic growth forecasts have been downgraded by independent forecasters the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), and growth is a "hurdle that remains to be cleared".

"Until that challenge is taken on, we can expect plenty more bracing budgets," she added.

It comes despite Ms Reeves saying as far back as last year, there would be no more tax increases.

Ultimately, though, the foundation said, "The great drumbeat of doom that preceded the chancellor's big day turned out to be over the top: the forecasts came in better than many had feared."