Presumably Reeves had something to do with the hubristic promise in the Labour manifesto to: “Kickstart economic growth to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 – with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.”.
Despite her audacious tax raids, an absence of ‘growth, growth, growth’ and, now, the prospect of stagflation, the chancellor cannot be blamed for everything that’s going wrong with Britain’s finances, says Sean O’Grady.
She walked into the last meeting of the parliamentary Labour Party clapping her hands and chanting “Growth, growth, growth!” – disturbingly Trussian behaviour.
By the time she delivers her second budget, in the autumn, the “Growth, growth, growth!” she keeps promising really ought to be starting to emerge.
The litany is a familiar and grim one, fit to make any supporter of the government wince: restricting the pensioners’ fuel allowance; hiking employer national insurance contributions; the “tractor tax”; permitting bumper public-sector pay rises without any conditions on productivity; plus a 50 per cent rise in bus fares.
