A Budget of Gloom and Borrowed Time
For most normal, sane, and compassionate people in the UK, the upcoming Budget delivered by Chancellor Rachel Reeves is an event to be dreaded, not celebrated. When she stands at the Despatch Box, it will feel less like a national economic plan and more like a political eulogy for a government already running out of time.
The anticipation is for a statement filled with tax rises, mounting debt, public spending cutbacks, and accounting tricks. After nearly a year of trailing ideas, rowing back on proposals, and leaking potential measures to test the waters, the government has managed to annoy both the electorate and the City. The only remaining surprise, it seems, might be the Chancellor's hair colour.
Governing for the Markets, Not the People
The core issue, as seen from Fleet Street, is that Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor Reeves are not writing this Budget for the British public. They are writing it for the banks, the financial markets, the pollsters, and their own party. While families worry about the soaring cost of living, the government is paralysed by the cost of borrowing.
Their options are severely limited. They cannot embark on a major borrowing and spending spree, as the ghost of Liz Truss's mini-budget still haunts the markets. They cannot implement deep Tory-style cuts without causing the state to collapse and alienating their own base. Crucially, they lack the funds to invest in the radical restoration the country needs.
The result is a political stalemate. The government and its opponents will both claim that Wednesday's Budget represents significant change, but the reality for most people will be that nothing has fundamentally changed. The nation will still face a stagnant economy, businesses shedding jobs, the disruptive march of AI, and the ongoing pressures from war in Eastern Europe and global trade tariffs.
A Shallow Mandate and a Looming Deadline
It is argued that no one voted for Starmer's government out of strong conviction; they voted against 14 years of Conservative rule and the trio of disastrous post-Brexit prime ministers. The public hoped for less chaos, but they have been presented with the same entrenched problems and a similar sense of entitlement, merely with less Latin and lunacy.
Compounding their troubles, the Labour government has been plagued by a series of self-inflicted scandals, from ministers fumbling their own council tax to a homelessness minister evicting tenants. This has eroded what was already a broad but shallow mandate.
With neither the political will nor the financial means to launch an economic recovery, Starmer and Reeves are seen as doomed. The gossip in Westminster may focus on the May local elections, but the prediction is that this government will be lucky to survive past Christmas. No matter what announcements are made on Wednesday, the ultimate sum will be a little more borrowed time on Britain's political death row.
