Rachel Reeves had three major tasks to accomplish in her first budget: sorting out the public finances, boosting economic growth and showing that a Labor government is different from a Conservative government.

The latter measure was a political demand after four months of declining public confidence, according to opinion polls, that Labor would make the difference it had promised.

Businesses have also lost confidence that they can put the economy on a path to growth, which would encourage them to invest.

Those who doubt Labour’s difference now have less reason to worry. This is a radical departure from the orthodoxy of past years. Rachel Reeves exceeded expectations about the extent to which she would raise taxes and borrowing in order to increase spending.

A Conservative government would have faced the need to raise taxes or cut spending, but it surely would not have made the choices that the Labor chancellor did.

So, what about the recovery of public finances? There is less room for past fiction, for example in drawing up budgets, assuming a sharp drop in the cost of refugee housing.

With improved independent monitoring, the budget should become more credible. But Rachel Reeves’ assumptions place a lot of emphasis on achieving even modest economic growth, which should lead to higher tax revenues, thereby reducing the need to borrow.

One risk is that a large increase in daily current spending could be seen as an invitation to public sector unions to push for a greater share of spending to go toward their salaries.

This could represent a short-term gain in terms of recruitment, retention and motivation, but does not guarantee long-term sustainable reform.

Likewise, an increase in capital spending is an invitation to the construction sector to set higher prices, fueled by shortages of skills for the workers it will need.

The same two challenges apply to how the Scottish Government deploys the money it has been allocated under the Treasury block grant.

So, if public services do not embark on a path of sustainable improvement, or if growth does not come from strategic investment, the Chancellor would be forced to return to the difficult choices of raising taxes even higher or spending reductions.

Things could go very well, but it represents a big gamble on a strategy of higher taxes, borrowing and spending.

The bet depends on the private sector’s support for investment incentives. The government cannot achieve its goals without businesses joining its growth efforts.

This is the third task that Rachel Reeves must complete. This is where the big compromise in this budget has resulted in a disappointingly poor growth forecast for the next five years, reaching 2% next year and below that figure for all other years.

Companies will easily tell you why. By imposing a £25.7 billion increase in national insurance contributions on employers (expected to reach that level in five years), a higher statutory minimum wage, a higher wealth tax that weighs on incentives to business growth, not to mention the costs that businesses bear. with workers’ rights legislation, plus the pressure to hire people who have been off work due to long-term illness… there’s a lot not to like if you’re a CFO with an investment project on his desk.

The increase in NICs alone is seen by the Scottish Tourism Alliance, among others, as likely to lead to lower wages from next year, and redundancies “cannot be ruled out”.

Hospitality businesses could further restrict their opening hours, it is claimed. So even if workers are told that tax increases won’t reach the net figure on their pay slips, they will find that future pay increases will be moderate.

The Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that around 60% of the rise in NICs will be absorbed by workers’ wages next year and 40% by the reduction in profits (of which the rise in corporation tax will be smaller). .

This amounts to 76% and is absorbed by employee compensation. He also expects a reduction in employment and a stronger incentive to use self-employed workers rather than employees.

Oil and gas producers face a reduction in investment allowances as well as a 75% to 78% increase in profit tax. The OBR estimates that Rachel Reeves’ decisions will reduce investment by 26%, with oil and gas production falling. Once again, higher tax revenue trumps the goal of higher economic growth.

The oil and gas industry also pays the price for pollution. Yet if emissions are such a concern, it is strange that 13 years of Tory chancellors choosing not to raise fuel taxes and one cutting them by 5p a liter are being continued by a Labor chancellor.

The OBR claims that the cumulative cost of these fuel tax decisions, measured in terms of tax revenue lost over these years, has exceeded £100 billion. They do not give a figure on the cost of emissions.

Farmers seem particularly unhappy with the level of subsidy allocated to them in England, with the result that the level of subsidy which feeds into the overall grant awarded to Holyrood has been frozen.

The new blow for agriculture concerns inheritance taxes. The centuries-old tradition of passing down a farm from generation to generation now comes with a 20% tax on agricultural value above £1 million.

That sounds like a lot, but it doesn’t take much to get past that level, considering terrain and equipment. The list price of a combine harvester can exceed £750,000.

The OBR cannot guess how the market will react to this change. As with Reeves’ increase in estate tax revenue by spreading the tax net around inheritable retirement funds, the effect may not be visible for several decades.

But the response on the first day of the budget recalls the time when the ban on fox hunting mobilized a furious rural backlash against Tony Blair’s Labor government.

Rural Britain, and perhaps rural England in particular, has a problem with urban-dominated Labor imposing its will.

Yet to an unprecedented extent, rural areas of England and Wales are now represented by many Labor MPs, so they may be taking these concerns directly to ministers.

In Scotland, the next step is for Shona Robison, the finance secretary, to take the funds allocated to her – £1.5 billion this financial year and £3.4 billion in 2025-26 – and allocate them in a proposed Holyrood budget.

By going as crazy as she did, Rachel Reeves has made it difficult for SNP ministers to sustain their argument that Labor is like the Tories and has returned to austerity.

Shona Robison’s response so far is that one year of increased funding is not a guarantee for subsequent years. That’s true, but it’s not really a political argument.

She also says the allocation is in line with expectations. And it is probably her way of warning her ministerial colleagues, public sector unions and opposition parties at Holyrood – one of whom she must persuade to support the budget – not to think that they can grab a share of the surprisingly large funding allocation.