Good morning. When she stood up in parliament yesterday to deliver the spring statement, Rachel Reeves insisted that “inflation is down, borrowing is down, living standards are up and the economy is growing” – and that Labour’s economic plan was the right one for a world that has become “yet more uncertain”.
In narrow fiscal terms, the chancellor achieved what she set out to do. Borrowing is forecast to fall, her headroom against the fiscal rules has edged up to £23.6bn, and the statement contained no policy surprises to unsettle investors. But the economic weather beyond Westminster has shifted sharply.
