OPINION
Rachel Reeves is colliding with reality (Image: PA)
This week’s Spending Review won’t be a bold new direction. It’ll be the smoking wreckage of a three-way collision: Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules, Labour’s political naivety, and cold, hard economic reality. The warning signs have been flashing for months: sluggish growth, ballooning debt costs, and a Treasury spinning like mad to cover its tracks. Now, the crash is unavoidable. Take winter fuel payments.
In the autumn, Labour cut them for pensioners. The reason? Depends who you ask. The Prime Minister said it was to fund the NHS. The Leader of the House claimed it was to shore up the pound. It doesn't even matter which one of them said it with the straightest face, because now they've seen how unpopular it was, Reeves has been tasked with the u-turn.
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So the cuts to winter fuel will be reversed, but with a textbook Labour twist.
Pensioners will get the payments again… but they’ll be taxed back. A classic Labour move: rob Peter to pay Paul — then take credit for generosity with Peter’s money. It’s incoherent, it’s cynical, and it’s collapsing under scrutiny even before this hapless Chancellor gets to the dispatch box to announce it.
Reeves can’t keep the excuses straight. Her reason for the U-turn? “The UK economy is now in a better position.”
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Come off it.
Anyone with a payslip or a power bill knows the truth. Compared to this time last year:
- Inflation’s up – CPI is 3.5%, up from 2.3%
- Housing costs are up – CPIH now 4.1%, up from 3.0%
- Wage growth is down
- Unemployment is up
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This isn’t a recovery, it’s a slow bleed from a self inflicted wound. Labour’s autumn budget tied the economy in knots. And instead of cutting us loose, Reeves just keeps pulling tighter, piling on complexity and confusion.
Last week, she promised no tax rises on “working people”. Expect a convenient redefinition of that phrase, just like we’ve had ever-evolving definitions of “fiscal rules”.
Because here’s the truth: Labour’s rules aren’t covering up incompetence, they’re exposing it.
Despite hammering pensioners, farmers and small businesses in the last budget, borrowing is up. And with it, the cost of servicing the debt, up by ￡13 billion this year alone. The UK taxpayer will shell out a staggering ￡105 billion just on interest.
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That’s more than the education budget. More than the policing budget. It’s an eye-watering price tag for economic mismanagement.
Before Reeves reaches for the credit card again, the country deserves honesty. This isn’t about values. It’s about competence.
And right now, it’s in short supply. What a mess.
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