The Conservatives promised change, but delivered more injustice | Aditya Chakrabortty

The party of entrepreneurs increases taxes on them. This budget's contradictions will come to haunt Theresa May

Theresa May's politics are at war with her very own policies. What she says is utterly undermined by what she actually does. No matter which way I look at Wednesday's budget, that is the conclusion I end up at.

The prime minister vows "a change is gonna come". Her chancellor delivers more of the same cuts. In No 10, they fret about "just-about-managing" families. In No 11, they make policies that, in their own budget analysis published yesterday, hit the just about managing harder than the rich. To Tory activists, May declares: "The government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the rich and powerful, but by the interests of ordinary, working-class people." To Tory MPs, Philip Hammond boasts about the cuts he is making to corporation tax. Indeed, flick through the red book and the single biggest giveaway it lists is the two successive reductions to taxes on big businesses, worth 18bn over the next five years. Compare that to the 2bn he's coughed up for care for elderly people.

Related: Will Theresa May's 'just about managing families' fall for the rhetoric? | Sonia Sodha