A more upbeat message from chancellor Rachel Reeves is a start – she must now deliver
A more upbeat message from chancellor Rachel Reeves is a start – she must now deliver
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Editorial: Rachel Reeves’s return to the growth agenda is a welcome shift in the UK’s economic strategy but it will only be credible if it produces timely results. Whether it was those brisk walks in the bracing air of the Swiss Alps or some can-do Donald Trump-style optimism wafting in from across the Atlantic, Rachel Reeves is now striking a more determined and upbeat tone when she talks about the UK economy. Doing the rounds of the Sunday television talk shows, the chancellor was at least partially back to promoting the growth agenda that had spearheaded her message to business, and voters, in the run-up to last year’s election.
And that new tone, or more accurately perhaps a return to the old tone, is not just to be noted but welcomed. Doom and gloom have their uses, and Reeves certainly used them to maximum political effect in the weeks before her first Budget. Warnings about the £22bn “black hole”, which she accused the previous Conservative government of bequeathing, coloured pretty much all her pronouncements, followed by alerts as to the difficult measures that would be needed to fill it. Other ministers took their cue.
Given the ubiquity and unanimity of these warnings, it is hardly surprising that the country took them to heart, as did business. This month’s growth indicator from the CBI was almost as pessimistic about prospects for improved private sector activity in the next three months as was the same survey one month ago, which itself was the most pessimistic for two years. And while it is important to recognise that such surveys reflect perception rather than necessarily the reality, perception counts for a great deal and has a tendency to imprint itself on the future.
