The original intention was that today’s Spring Statement would be a non-event. Rachel Reeves had made it clear that she would do just one major fiscal event a year – an autumn Budget at which the big decisions on the public finances would be made. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is required to produce an economic and fiscal forecast twice a year, but a Spring Statement need not be accompanied by any policy measures. The Chancellor would get to her feet in the House of Commons, announce the OBR’s numbers, deliver her economic message and sit down. It has not quite worked out like that. At her last Budget, Reeves gave herself next to nothing in terms of headroom against ...

The rare glimmers of sunlight were brief flickers only. Spring Statement? Midwinter, more like.  After halving its growth forecast for this year to just 1 per cent, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) did increase its projections for the years ahead. Rachel Reeves was pleased enough about that to leave it as a punchline. But each year, that still means growth below 2 per cent – upgrades of 0.1 percentage points or 0.2 points each year are so watery, so feeble that most people won’t notice. Real growth, of the kind we were promised at the election, seems almost as far away as ever. The Chancellor was right not to call this an emergency Budget. Had it been a Budget this ...

One way Europeans have coped with the return of Donald Trump is by clinging to the belief that the president and his team don’t really mean what they say. Anyone still labouring under that delusion should look at the leaked Signal group chat messages about a missile strike on the Houthis between the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth and other top officials. We have access to these messages because Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, added Atlantic editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the group chat, which also included secretary of state Marco Rubio, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and CIA director John Ratcliffe. Goldberg then lurked in the chat taking screenshots without being noticed ...

When Rachel Reeves announced her intention to hold just one “fiscal event” a year, there was much eye-rolling. Previous chancellors had made the same pledge, designed to encourage long-termism, but found it impossible to keep. Reeves has just about done so – there will be no major tax changes in her Spring Statement today. But this is now an event far larger than the financial “update” that she originally planned. There’s an obvious reason for this: economic conditions have significantly worsened since last October’s Budget. The Office for Budget Responsibility is now expected to forecast growth of just 1 per cent this year, down from 2 per cent (remember, despite its gloomy reputation, the OBR has usually erred on the side of ...

When, in September 2024, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) downgraded data from the census for the first time in its 120-plus-year history, it shocked many. Having spent years ignoring advice and warnings about how to gain accurate data on both biological sex and the transgender population, the ONS asked such a confusing question on gender identity that it rendered the findings meaningless. It transpired that a sizeable number of people picked up as trans weren’t: their level of English simply meant they hadn’t understood the question. While this part of the 2021 census, which as a whole cost taxpayers almost £1bn, was undoubtedly an expensive failure of data collection, it was far from being a one-off. In February 2024 the ...

Remember “securonomics”? Once the leitmotif for Joe Biden’s administration, it was enthusiastically embraced by Rachel Reeves as shadow chancellor in a landmark speech she gave in the US capital in May 2023. Prioritising national economic strength and resilience in the face of an uncertain world, she said, was going to usher in a new settlement to replace the failed Washington consensus of hyper-globalisation, free trade and outsourced industrial production, which had hollowed out Britain’s productive capacity and reduced the living standards of millions of people. It was a transformative vision. Then the hike in inflation put paid to Biden’s re-election prospects, while Labour retreated to economic orthodoxy in the run-up to last year’s general election and for the first six months ...

William Gladstone, it is said, was at the Treasury from 1860 to 1930. As they gaze across Horse Guards Road, some in Labour ask whether George Osborne still is today. The £5bn welfare cuts announced in advance of Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement on Wednesday were just a preview of the flinty decisions to come.  Ahead of this June’s Spending Review, unprotected departments – such as the Home Office, justice, transport and local government – have been instructed by the Treasury to model two scenarios. Under the first, they would receive a “flat cash” settlement – equating to a 5.8 per cent real-terms cut. Under the second, spending would be cut by 2 per cent in cash terms – or 11.3 per ...

Through one lens, Labour’s tough welfare reforms are a gift to the SNP. The Nats can, will and indeed already have claimed that this is yet another example of how Westminster lacks compassion and is willing to balance its books on the backs of the poor. “No different to the Tories,” the cry rings out. There is certainly an audience for that school of thought. Squint through a second lens, though, and Labour has presented the SNP with a horrible problem. While some of the changes announced by Liz Kendall this week – such as cuts to some Universal Credit payments – will apply directly in Scotland, others will not. For example, the Personal Independence Payment is devolved to and administered ...