The Chancellor will encounter opposition from her own MPs if she is forced to make cuts (Image: Getty)
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s problems could be just beginning.
In her first six months in the Treasury she has enraged pensioners by axing universal winter fuel payments; horrified farmers by ramping up inheritance tax on their assets; angered Waspi women by not stumping up the cash to compensate them; and dismayed employers by increasing the national insurance contributions and wage bills they have to pay.
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But if the week’s market turmoil continues and panic spreads about the UK’s national finances and its growth prospects, then she will face much greater challenges than angry pensioners waving placards and farmers tooting tractor horns in Whitehall. As Liz Truss discovered so painfully, if the City, your own party’s MPs and senior civil servants lose confidence in your economic plan – and if voters face real-world hardship – you are in true political crisis territory.
Government borrowing costs have surged around the world ahead of the return of Donald Trump to the White House. Britain this week faced the highest costs since 1998.
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The problem for Ms Reeves is that she has staked her credibility on ensuring debt is falling as a share of national income by the end of the Parliament. If an all-important report from the Office for Budget Responsibility due on March 26 forecasts she will miss this vital target she will have to make agonisingly difficult decisions.
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If raising taxes even higher is politically impossible after the ￡40billion hike in the last Budget, then Government departments will face spending squeezes. Her cabinet colleagues will feel ill if Treasury officials show up at their offices with the grim news the spending review will be even tougher than feared.
With Ukraine in turmoil, the Government is under intense pressure to get defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP. It must also bring the scandal of overcrowded prisons to an end and ensure the UK has a criminal justice system in which it can take pride.
Labour’s already wretched poll ratings will go through the floor if voters decide Labour cuts are just as bad as Tory ones.
Ms Reeves will not want to be branded Labour’s answer to George Osborne. Who can forget the day in 2012 he was booed at the Paralympic Games?
Labour MPs did not spend the past years knocking on doors in the rain to have the chance to implement a new wave of austerity.
The May local and mayoral elections will be a referendum on whether people feel better off under Labour. Alas, the present market turmoil could lead to higher mortgage costs with the Bank of England taking longer than expected to cut interest rates.
A Government that staked its fortunes on turbo-charging housebuilding will suffer if home ownership stays out of reach for millions of young couples. The curse of “sticky” inflation means few people feel flush with cash, and if a Labour party that set the mission of achieving the “highest sustained growth in the G7” instead sees Britain tip into recession then voter unhappiness will be replaced with outright incandescence.
It is not enough to remind the electorate of the worst moments of the Conservatives’ 14 years in power. Labour also to convince them that the Liberal Democrats and Reform would not do a better job of running the Treasury.
The party’s promise to deliver stability will take another blow if militant public sector trade unions stop services and take to the streets in protest at wage settlements.
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Voters will not worry about the personal poll ratings of the Chancellor. But they will be alarmed if the warnings prove true and the national insurance hike stops employers hiring, up-skilling and promoting workers.
The whole country will suffer if soon-to-be President Trump slaps tariffs on Europe and China and ignites a global trade war. Even if the UK is spared punitive tariffs our exporters will suffer if currently vibrant markets slow down as a result of Trump’s protectionism.
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Chancellors’ careers are derailed when their MPs want them out to assuage voter anger and they row with the Prime Minister. Her political skills will be tested to the limit in the coming months but success involves more than not breaking her spending rules.
She must display a sensitivity to the real concerns of people directly affected by her policies. Labour spent its first months in power after nearly a decade and a half in Opposition defending the winter fuel cuts and telling farmers they were wrong about inheritance tax.
There is no doubt that the Treasury employs some of the sharpest minds in the country. But the Chancellor must convince Britons her heart is in the right place and she is unquestionably on their side.