Everything is great, nothing to see here, Rachel Reeves tells MPs

The Guardian

26-03-2025

Whatever you do, just don't call it an emergency budget. It's a SPRING STATEMENT, you halfwits. Everything is totally normal. This is precisely the fiscal event that Rachel Reeves had always planned to give. Why the long faces? What could be more Labour than implementing massive welfare cuts just days before the tax rises you imposed last autumn come into effect? Just another day in Westminster.
'I have full confidence in the chancellor,' Keir Starmer declared at prime minister's questions. You couldn't help wondering if this was the equivalent of a football club chair insisting that the manager's job was safe just days before sacking him. There again, Keir isn't spoilt for choice over possible replacements. Reeves looks to be by far the best qualified member of the cabinet. It probably hadn't occurred to you that things could be even worse.
There were cheers from a small section of the Labour benches as Reeves began her emer-, sorry, spring statement. These were most definitely Rachel's fanclub. Her Useful Idiots. They would continue to cheer throughout. Even when there was nothing to cheer about. Perhaps they didn't understand the implications of what she was saying. Large sections of the backbenches remained silent for the full half-hour.
Reeves began by saying Labour had been elected to bring change to the country. Yes. Sadly no one had told her that the change in question was meant to be for the better. But Rachel was not to be deterred. Everything was great, she insisted. The NHS had never been better. Interest rates were down. People had never had it so good. It wasn't the government that needed to switch direction. It was voters who needed to re-educate themselves. Always look on the bright side of life.
Then to a few caveats. The world was an uncertain place. So uncertain that there must be no mention of He Who Cannot Be Named. There was a namecheck for Vladimir Putin for his work in destabilising the world order. But nothing for Donald Trump and the threat of a trade war. That there's a lunatic Orange Man-Child in the White House. When it comes to the US, we remain very much an uncomplaining supplicant. Our role to suck up whatever is dished out. Without even the hint of a raised eyebrow.
Having set the scene, Reeves moved on. Why all the fuss? There was nothing much to see here. She had only bothered to show up because she had said she would last year. But she would take the opportunity to remind everyone that her fiscal rules were non-negotiable. The country was entitled to stability. Even if that meant that the most vulnerable people in the country would have to pay for it. Someone had to. So it might as well be the scroungers.
'We won't put the public finances at risk,' she said. Only she could put growth in the economy. It was just a shame the Office of Budget Responsibility had downgraded its growth forecast to 1%. Ever since Liz Truss's disastrous mini-budget, the OBR has acquired a not wholly deserved reputation for infallibility. I mean, anyone could have been better than Radon Liz. Even me. But now we are stuck with the OBR. Even though they are probably wrong.
You just needed to learn to reprogramme your thoughts. Consider this downgrade to be a de facto upgrade. If it had been left to the Tories we would be in a recession. That was one way of looking at it, I suppose. But still not much comfort.
Not even to her frontbench colleagues. As she continued to choke on the OBR's numbers, you could see cabinet faces fall. Apart from Wes Streeting and Liz Kendall. They looked improbably chipper.
Wes because he's permanently upbeat and on message. He smiles to himself in his sleep. Liz because she's never met a benefit cut of which she didn't approve. Deep down she reckons that most people are scroungers at heart. She'll be thrilled the OBR had downgraded her previous cuts and Reeves had demanded more. Though devastated she didn't get to announce them herself. Older Labour ministers were shaking their heads at a second round of cuts in little more than a week.
Next up came the wishful thinking. How Reeves managed to persuade the OBR to include £1bn of savings from tax evasion was beyond everyone. Normally this is just the kind of creative accounting that economists file under the 'magic money tree'. There's about as much chance of the government clawing back this £1bn as there is of Kemi Badenoch winning PMQs. Rachel must be a great deal more convincing in private than she is in public. Or maybe the OBR is easily flattered.
We ended with a quick roundup of why all was well with the economy. It may be terrible now, but if we could all just hold our nerve it would be fabulous in four years' time. Just trust the process. And there was good news. A third world war was imminent. So we could rebuild our economy by manufacturing weapons of war. What better use of billions of pounds that could be spent elsewhere. And if some of us get killed in the conflict then so much the better. Fewer mouths to feed.
It was all a bit bonkers. The world was a terrible, uncertain place but there was a narrow path to growth that was never likely to materialise because the world was a terrible, uncertain place. Understandably by the time Reeves sat down, most Labour MPs were in need of some light relief. Fortunately they had Mel Stride to deliver a few laughs to cheer them up.
The best that can be said of the Melster is that he is an even less convincing shadow chancellor than Jeremy Hunt was a chancellor. He turned up with a speech full of crossings out and sentences highlighted in orange and green colour codes. Which was strange, because his immediate impact was of a man who was almost entirely clueless. There again, it didn't help that he began by saying the Tories had left the economy in tiptop condition. Not even the Tories believe that.
'What are the markets making of this?' Mel wondered. If he had cared to look, he would have seen that the pound and the FTSE were very marginally higher. Which, under the circumstances, was a huge win for Reeves. 'Reeling from one fiscal event to the next is no way to run the public finances,' he continued. True. But Labour had learned this trick off the Tories.
Rachel could go to bed reasonably happy. There had been no major backbench rebellions. And Stride had reminded the Commons that however bad labour were, the Tories were even worse. Just spare a thought for all those in need who are about to lose their benefits.