What a difference a (fiscal) year makes. In 2024, Rachel Reeves spent far more time than she would ever have wished to looking worried, being gloomy, talking about the infamous £22bn “black hole”, and unleashing nasty surprises such as tax hikes and cuts to the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance and other areas of social security.
She may even have succeeded, as her critics claimed, in talking down the economy so hard that she made her own job even more difficult. In the end, she had to reverse her most high-profile (and most hated) policy and give most of the OAPs their fuel money back. Wisely, she got that U-turn out of the way, lest it blight the bright sheen cast on the economy by the spending review.
