Everyone knows that Rachel Reeves has made mistakes, Rachel Reeves included. One of those mistakes was to have claimed to have fixed the foundations of the public finances with last year’s tax rises. Another was to have chosen a tax rise – employers’ national insurance – that ensured that business leaders turned against her.
Rarely in history has a government come into office with such goodwill behind it and thrown it away so quickly. And rarely has a chancellor been regarded as so strong and prudent only to lose that reputation, especially among the wealth creators on whom her hopes for growth depend.
