Rachel Reeves needs to learn a few basics (Image: PA)
went cosying up to after her autumn Budget helped send the UK’s economy plunging. Well, she is in need of new friends, after all! I just hope they know what they’re letting themselves in for.
Apparently the Chancellor went in search of growth – you know, the kind she’s supposed to create. Has she thought about looking down the back of the sofa? That’s where I normally find things that have gone missing.
But seriously, surely Labour knows you can’t build the UK by leaning on other countries. We tried that and it doesn’t work.
Confidence in UK plc has plummeted globally since Labour came to power, while borrowing is at its highest rate since the late 1990s and we’re facing a debt crisis.
Oh, and the pound hit a 14-month low.
It’s no wonder many are warning that this could be Reeves’ Denis Healey moment. Cast your minds back to 1976 for a moment, when the then-Labour chancellor humiliatingly had to plead for a bailout from the International Monetary Fund because of Britain’s debt crisis.
Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government swept to power just three years later. Now, experts warn Reeves is heading for a similar debt “nightmare”. And whatever the external forces at play, it’s her name on the door of No11 so she has to take responsibility for what’s happened.
Gallivanting off to China on an all-expenses paid trip, when many people are too poor or afraid to put on the heating, isn’t the answer. It just isn’t.
You’d be forgiven for forgetting Labour inherited a growing economy from the , burned out and useless though they undoubtedly were in those last few years.
But far from it. In the first six months of 2024, Britain had the fastest rate of growth in the G7 and officials described the UK economy as “going gangbusters”. Now it’s just a bust.
What all this means is anyone’s guess, but even as a non-economist I can’t imagine it’s good news for anyone, let alone the young, old or vulnerable.
Ms Reeves has also asked Cabinet colleagues for ideas on boosting growth.
But mostly the mood music seems to be that we’re facing new austerity measures and things are unlikely to get better (pun intended) anytime soon.