There are few things more baffling than British economic policy. One is the proper use of the semicolon; another is why anyone still thinks politicians understand money. This week, Chancellor Rachel Reeves—the first woman in the job and, based on current form, the first to attempt Keynesian economics using finger paints—delivered her inaugural Spring Statement.
To the untrained ear, it sounded vaguely hopeful. Growth! Investment! Stability! To the trained ear, it sounded like someone had put a GCSE economics textbook in a blender and poured the result into a Treasury-branded mug.
The Labour benches, newly liberated from opposition and drunk on the fumes of power, nodded enthusiastically like a row of novelty dogs in a Nissan Micra. Reeves, wearing the serene expression of someone who has just discovered the national debt now comes with a courtesy gift basket and a warning label, powered through.
“Britain,” she declared, “needs stability.”
Yes. And I need a holiday that doesn’t involve my credit card going into cardiac arrest.
But the real comedy highlight came courtesy of the Office for Budget Responsibility—a name so ironically cheerful it could front a boy band. In what one might call a plot twist, the OBR halved its growth forecast to a thrilling 1%, which is about the same rate at which a Victorian corpse decomposes. This news was slipped in with all the subtlety of a fire alarm at a funeral, and received with the same enthusiasm as an announcement that Prosecco is now means-tested.
Still, Reeves pressed on. There were tax breaks for people who haven’t yet emigrated, incentives for businesses that still pretend to be British, and a passionate pledge to invest in “green growth,” which sounds like a rash but costs more.
She promised to “get Britain building again”—a noble ambition, though no one asked whether it would be houses, infrastructure, or a large, taxpayer-funded moat around the M25. Frankly, at this point I’d settle for a public toilet with a working hand dryer.
No Spring Statement is complete without the ritual flaying of previous governments. Reeves took aim at “fourteen years of Tory mismanagement,” delivered with the gravity of a woman who’s just discovered the national broadband strategy is written in crayon. Stirring stuff—until you remember that Labour once bet the farm on Icelandic banks and then acted surprised when it all went full Björk.
The pièce de résistance came with the unveiling of her “fiscal rules,” which, like most British rules, are extremely important until they’re inconvenient. Every pound, she insisted, will be “spent wisely.” A promise as reassuring as a man in a pub claiming to be a surgeon because he once watched Casualty.
Meanwhile, the public, that great British chorus of weary realists, responded in the usual fashion: by tutting, adjusting their thermostats, and muttering “well, it can’t be worse than the last lot” into their overpriced tea.
And so, the Spring Statement ends. Reeves promised growth, fairness, and a greener economy. The OBR promised a cold shower and a downgrade. And the rest of us? We’re just hoping nobody starts fracking under the shed again.
In short: Reeves spoke, the benches cheered, the OBR quietly screamed into a cushion, and Britain continues its gentle waltz into economic ambiguity.