When bond yields make it on to the front pages, one of two things has happened.

1) Liz Truss has inexplicably become Prime Minister.

2) Political editors have found a way to bash a government they are paid to oppose.

The language ahead of today’s Budget made it sound like the Chancellor was about to walk into an Indiana Jones movie, or perhaps into a Gunfight at the OK Corral – presumably with Keir Starmer in the Kirk Douglas role.

There is a “showdown with investors” looming, as the government “walks a fiscal tightrope”. Everywhere the mood is “febrile”.

Even The Guardian worries about “vigilantes” looking to punish Rachel Reeves with a Truss-style market meltdown.

Andrew Neil, who is good at economics but never shy about using it to bash people he doesn’t like, tweets: “UK 10-year bond yields before Rachel Reeves’ first Budget are not far off where they were after Liz Truss’s first and last Budget.”

That’s what we call false equivalence – making two bad things sound the same, when one is plainly worse than the other.

Rachel Reeves isn’t everyone’s cup of tea – I find her caution draining – but Lettuce Liz she is not.

Ten-year bond yields have been bobbling along at around 4.3% for ages, they didn’t suddenly rocket requiring an emergency £65 billion Bank of England bail out.

Bond yields did indeed spike, a bit, yesterday largely because they did so in America first.

Investors are ready for governments everywhere to issue lots of fresh debt, in response the value of those bonds goes down and the yield goes up.

Kathleen Brooks at XTB explains: “Gilt yields have moved in line with their peers in recent weeks, as global bond markets have been shaken up by major elections and new governments with vastly different fiscal plans to their predecessors. There has also been a larger focus on rising sovereign debt piles in the West. Thus, Rachel Reeves’ fiscal plans cannot be solely blamed for rising UK bond yields.”

It is mostly out of her control, in truth.

And it is tempting to think that Reeves is getting a far rougher kicking than she would had she been male. Situation normal, she might say.

From a PR point of view, Reeves has played this right by leaking the details most likely to unnerve markets ahead of time.

The Speaker reprimanded Reeves for this, but it’s better for him to be mad at you than the bond market.

The bond market was indeed edgy straight after the Budget, but not spectacularly so.

That won’t prevent The Daily Mail going completely nuts. But it was going to find reason to do that no matter what.

The sooner Labour comms people decide to just ignore that paper, the more chance it has of achieving proper change for ordinary people.

Please send candidates for press release of the day to: Simon.english@roxhillmedia.com