Much of a Chancellor’s role is about fronting up difficult news with fortitude. Despite having to kybosh hopes nurtured by Labour in opposition that 3.6 million women hit by changes to the state pension age could be compensated retrospectively, and an even wider backlash over the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance, the Chancellor cuts a serene figure, albeit one whose smile has acquired a glued-on aspect.
The net effect was to add to the “coronation” of the Reform UK leader as the de facto head of the opposition. Reality check: Farage is leader of a small insurgent party with a handful of MPs and a large megaphone. Being so high on the Chancellor’s verbal hit list is more useful to him than criticising Reform is to Labour. The line “he hasn’t a clue” will surely be wielded back at Reeves by Farage as the economic trials mount.
When Keir Starmer came into office, Reeves traded on the reputation of being “Keir’s economic brain”, foregrounding her credentials as a former Bank of England economist repeatedly as a reason for voters to deem her the best steward of the economy. But Andrew Bailey, the Bank’s present governor, has made clear that he regards Reeves’s decision in the Budget to lower the level at which employers start paying the tax on employees’ income by just under half, to £5,000 a year, as a potential “impact” – which is governor-speak for “This one is on you, Chancellor.”
The biggest risk for Reeves as the year ends is that she becomes caught in a spiral of inflation, which remains stubbornly high, with scant signs of the growth Labour promised. Her Autumn Budget was intended to be a central recipe for improvement. But a party which preaches growth, holds a key event to deliver it and then delivers no sign of resuscitation quickly sheds confidence.
The dangerous pattern for a new Chancellor is that her growth measures become jam-tomorrow “wait and see” pledges, which rely on large-scale changes like NHS improvement and changes to the welfare state to allow (or frankly prod) more people back into the workplace and raise productivity.
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But the job is the hardest one in government when a fissile national mood turns glum; the Grinch everyone can declare to be to blame is the Chancellor – and there’s not much yo-ho-ho joy in that.
Anne McElvoy is executive editor at POLITICO and host of the Power Play podcast
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