Rachel Reeves's spring statement left me asking one worrying question

OPINION

What must it be like inside Rachel Reeves's head? Amid the wide open spaces and rolling tumbleweed I suspect there’s a little girl telling herself, Candide like, that everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. There’s a little girl telling herself that if she works ever so hard at her maths homework she could be Chancellor of the Exchequer one day.

Unfortunately for us, that day is today. I know… I don’t think she can truly believe it either. This middling intellect, this financial plodder who doesn’t even know there are 10 years in a decade, is in charge of the financial levers of the fifth biggest economy on planet Earth.

And in today’s emergency budget, I’m sorry, in today’s fiscal happiness event curated by Rachel she assured us Britain was on its way to becoming an international financial powerhouse where books were balanced, trade was booming, productivity was soaring and everyone had an extra £500 quid in their pockets.

All for the best in the best of all possible worlds eh Rach?

Unfortunately, to use her own phrase, even the most basic economist could see it was cloud cuckoo land stuff.

As Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride pointed out after Reeves had delivered her 30 minute fairy tale she had actually left Britain facing “the worst of all possible worlds.”

And, good grief, didn’t she make herself a hostage to fortune with unsustainable claim after unsustaianable claim, dubious promise after dubious promise, and clumsy soundbite after clumsy soundbite.

In Rachel’s fairy tale world she was “providing security for working people”, and increasing the national living wage in country where “the british people put their trust in a Labour Government and in me.”

They didn’t Rach, they really didn’t

Amid the multitude of reckless claims were: “We will balance the budget by 2029/30 so that spending will be met by tax receipts” and the hilarious “I will always deliver economic stability”.

She explained how she would spend the imaginary £6.5Bn she promised would be raised by a crackdown on tax dodgers - without a shred of evidence it was possible. (Later in her speech this figure had mysteriously risen to £7.5Bn!)

She promised a new “transformation fund” - without actually explaining what it was and said she could make the state “15% learner and more agile”. Presumably by ending NHS England and axing as many as 50,000 civil service jobs. As if that was going to happen without the mother of all battles about to tear the Labour Party apart.

Rachel also promised an extra £6.4Bn in defence spending and talked of making Britain a “defence industrial superpower” bringing “innovative technology to the front line at speed”. Again, a lovely idea but one only someone who had never seen how MoD procurement operates.

It was pure magic money tree stuff as she mystifyingly promised a surplus of £6.06Bn in 2027/28, of £7.1Bn in 2028/29 and £9.9Bn in 2029/30.

But they were all just magic figures plucked from the air. Our Chancellor confidently asserted her figures were backed by the Office of Budget Responsibility - without a flicker of recognition that the same OBR only hours before her statement halved its growth forecast for the year from 2% to 1%.

The only thing you can absolutely guarantee with the OBR is that it will revise it’s figures. It’s pure smoke and mirrors, an emperor’s new clothes office of state.

So why, pray tell, with all that amazing positive economic news does life in Britain feel so miserable right now ?

Well, because here’s what is really happening:

The OBR has warned that Britain’s tax burden will hit a record share of GDP under Labour. Indeed Ms Reeves is poised to preside over taxes as a share of the economy hitting 37.7pc by 2027-28 - a new British record.

Economic growth forecast for 2025 has been halved.

We face £4.8bn of welfare cuts, up to 50,000 public sector jobs.

The Government is planning to rip-up planning regulations - a policy which will inspire the greatest outbreak of Nimby-ism Britain has ever seen.

Even the boost to defence spending, while welcome is so misguided.

Only someone who had never come across the glacial speed and collective stupidity of defence procurement in Britain could expect to do this “at scale and speed”.

It simply won’t be either.